On the Sublime
characteristic picture of the palace of Odysseus, which may be called a
sort of comedy of manners.
X
Let us now consider whether there is anything further which conduces to
the Sublime in writing. It is a law of Nature that in all things there
are certain constituent parts, coexistent with their substance. It
necessarily follows, therefore, that one cause of sublimity is the
choice of the most striking circumstances involved in whatever we are
describing, and, further, the power of afterwards combining them into
one animate whole. The reader is attracted partly by the selection of
the incidents, partly by the skill which has welded them together. For
instance, Sappho, in dealing with the passionate manifestations
attending on the frenzy of lovers, always chooses her strokes from the
signs which she has observed to be actually exhibited in such cases. But
her peculiar excellence lies in the felicity with which she chooses and
unites together the most striking and powerful features.
2
"I deem that man divinely blest
Who sits, and, gazing on thy face,
Hears thee discourse with eloquent lips,
And marks thy lovely smile.
This, this it is that made my heart
So wildly flutter in my breast;
Whene'er I look on thee, my voice
Falters, and faints, and fails;
My tongue's benumbed; a subtle fire
Through all my body inly steals;
Mine eyes in darkness reel and swim;
Strange murmurs drown my ears;
With dewy damps my limbs are chilled;
An icy shiver shakes my frame;
Paler than ashes grows my cheek;
And Death seems nigh at hand."
3
Is it not wonderful how at the same moment soul, body, ears, tongue,
eyes, colour, all fail her, and are lost to her as completely as if they
were not her own? Observe too how her sensations contradict one
another--she freezes, she burns, she raves, she reasons, and all at the
same instant. And this description is designed to show that she is
assailed, not by any particular emotion, but by a tumult of different
emotions. All these tokens belong to the passion of love; but it is in
the choice, as I said, of the most striking features, and in the
combination of them into one picture, that the perfection of this Ode of
Sappho's lies. Similarly Homer in his descriptions of tempests always
picks out the most terrific circumstances.
4
The poet of the "Arimaspeia" intended the following lines to be grand--
"Herein I find a wonder passing strange,
That men should make their dwelling on the deep,
Who far from land essaying bold to range
With anxious heart their toilsome vigils keep;
Their eyes are fixed on heaven's starry steep;
The ravening billows hunger for their lives;
And oft each shivering wretch, constrained to weep,
With suppliant hands to move heaven's pity strives,
While many a direful qualm his very vitals rives."
All must see that there is more of ornament than of terror in the
description. Now let us turn to Homer.
5
One passage will suffice to show the contrast.
"On them he leaped, as leaps a raging wave,
Child of the winds, under the darkening clouds,
On a swift ship, and buries her in foam;
Then cracks the sail beneath the roaring blast,
And quakes the breathless seamen's shuddering heart
In terror dire: death lours on every wave."[1]
[Footnote 1: _Il._ xv. 624.]
6
Aratus has tried to give a new turn to this last thought--
"But one frail timber shields them from their doom,"[2]--
banishing by this feeble piece of subtlety all the terror from his
description; setting limits, moreover, to the peril described by saying
"shields them"; for so long as it shields them it matters not whether
the "timber" be "frail" or stout. But Homer does not set any fixed limit
to the danger, but gives us a vivid picture of men a thousand times on
the brink of destruction, every wave threatening them with instant
death. Moreover, by his bold and forcible combination of prepositions of
opposite meaning he tortures his language to imitate the agony of the
scene, the constraint which is put on the words accurately reflecting
the anxiety of the sailors' minds, and the diction being stamped, as it
were, with the peculiar terror of the situation.
[Footnote 2: _Phaenomena_, 299.]
7
Similarly Archilochus in his description of the shipwreck, and similarly
Demosthenes when he describes how the news came of the taking of
Elatea[3]--"It was evening," etc. Each of these authors fastidiously
rejects whatever is not essential to the subject, and in putting
together the most vivid features is careful to guard against the
interposition of anything frivolous, unbecoming, or tiresome. Such
blemishes mar the general effect, and give a patched and gaping
appearance to the edifice of sublimity, which ought to be built up in a
solid and uniform structure.
[Footnote 3: _De Cor._ 169.]
XI
Closely associated with the part of our subject we have just treated of
is that excellence of writing which is called amplification, when a
writer or pleader, whose theme admits of many successive starting-points
and pauses, brings on one impressive point after another in a continuous
and ascending scale.
2
Now whether this is employed in the treatment of a commonplace, or in
the way of exaggeration, whether to place arguments or facts in a strong
light, or in the disposition of actions, or of passions--for
amplification takes a hundred different shapes--in all cases the orator
must be cautioned that none of these methods is complete without the aid
of sublimity,--unless, indeed, it be our object to excite pity, or to
depreciate an opponent's argument. In all other uses of amplification,
if you subtract the element of sublimity you will take as it were the
soul from the body. No sooner is the support of sublimity removed than
the whole becomes lifeless, nerveless, and dull.
3
There is a difference, however, between the rules I am now giving and
those just mentioned. Then I was speaking of the delineation and
co-ordination of the principal circumstances. My next task, therefore,
must be briefly to define this difference, and with it the general
distinction between amplification and sublimity. Our whole discourse
will thus gain in clearness.
XII
I must first remark that I am not satisfied with the definition of
amplification generally given by authorities on rhetoric. They explain
it to be a form of language which invests the subject with a certain
grandeur. Yes, but this definition may be applied indifferently to
sublimity, pathos, and the use of figurative language, since all these
invest the discourse with some sort of grandeur. The difference seems to
me to lie in this, that sublimity gives elevation to a subject, while
amplification gives extension as well. Thus the sublime is often
conveyed in a single thought,[1] but amplification can only subsist with
a certain prolixity and diffusiveness.
[Footnote 1: Comp. i. 4. 26.]
2
The most general definition of amplification would explain it to consist
in the gathering together of all the constituent parts and topics of a
subject, emphasising the argument by repeated insistence, herein
differing from proof, that whereas the object of proof is logical
demonstration, ...
Plato, like the sea, pours forth his riches in a copious and expansive
flood.
3
Hence the style of the orator, who is the greater master of our
emotions, is often, as it were, red-hot and ablaze with passion, whereas
Plato, whose strength lay in a sort of weighty and sober magnificence,
though never frigid, does not rival the thunders of Demosthenes.
4
And, if a Greek may be allowed to express an opinion on the subject of
Latin literature, I think the same difference may be discerned in the
grandeur of Cicero as compared with that of his Grecian rival. The
sublimity of Demosthenes is generally sudden and abrupt: that of Cicero
is equally diffused. Demosthenes is vehement, rapid, vigorous, terrible;
he burns and sweeps away all before him; and hence we may liken him to a
whirlwind or a thunderbolt: Cicero is like a widespread conflagration,
which rolls over and feeds on all around it, whose fire is extensive and
burns long, breaking out successively in different places, and finding
its fuel now here, now there.
5
Such points, however, I resign to your more competent judgment.
To resume, then, the high-strung sublimity of Demosthenes is appropriate
to all cases where it is desired to exaggerate, or to rouse some
vehement emotion, and generally when we want to carry away our audience
with us. We must employ the diffusive style, on the other hand, when we
wish to overpower them with a flood of language. It is suitable, for
example, to familiar topics, and to perorations in most cases, and to
digressions, and to all descriptive and declamatory passages, and in
dealing with history or natural science, and in numerous other cases.
XIII
To return, however, to Plato: how grand he can be with all that
gentle and noiseless flow of eloquence you will be reminded by this
characteristic passage, which you have read in his _Republic_: "They,
therefore, who have no knowledge of wisdom and virtue, whose lives are
passed in feasting and similar joys, are borne downwards, as is but
natural, and in this region they wander all their lives; but they never
lifted up their eyes nor were borne upwards to the true world above, nor
ever tasted of pleasure abiding and unalloyed; but like beasts they ever
look downwards, and their heads are bent to the ground, or rather to the
table; they feed full their bellies and their lusts, and longing ever
more and more for such things they kick and gore one another with horns
and hoofs of iron, and slay one another in their insatiable desires."[1]
[Footnote 1: _Rep._ ix. 586, A.]
2
We may learn from this author, if we would but observe his example, that
there is yet another path besides those mentioned which leads to sublime
heights. What path do I mean? The emulous imitation of the great poets
and prose-writers of the past. On this mark, dear friend, let us keep
our eyes ever steadfastly fixed. Many gather the divine impulse from
another's spirit, just as we are told that the Pythian priestess, when
she takes her seat on the tripod, where there is said to be a rent in
the ground breathing upwards a heavenly emanation, straightway conceives
from that source the godlike gift of prophecy, and utters her inspired
oracles; so likewise from the mighty genius of the great writers of
antiquity there is carried into the souls of their rivals, as from a
fount of inspiration, an effluence which breathes upon them until, even
though their natural temper be but cold, they share the sublime
enthusiasm of others.
3
Thus Homer's name is associated with a numerous band of illustrious
disciples--not only Herodotus, but Stesichorus before him, and the great
Archilochus, and above all Plato, who from the great fountain-head of
Homer's genius drew into himself innumerable tributary streams. Perhaps
it would have been necessary to illustrate this point, had not Ammonius
and his school already classified and noted down the various examples.
4
Now what I am speaking of is not plagiarism, but resembles the process
of copying from fair forms or statues or works of skilled labour. Nor in
my opinion would so many fair flowers of imagery have bloomed among the
philosophical dogmas of Plato, nor would he have risen so often to the
language and topics of poetry, had he not engaged heart and soul in a
contest for precedence with Homer, like a young champion entering the
lists against a veteran. It may be that he showed too ambitious a spirit
in venturing on such a duel; but nevertheless it was not without