On the SublimeLonginus

On the Sublime

Pseudo-Longinus, 1st century AD

A short treatise on greatness in writing, addressed to a friend named Postumius Terentianus. The author surveys the five sources of sublimity, illustrates them from Homer, Sappho, Plato, and Demosthenes, and closes with a famous lament over the decline of genius in his own age. Several chapters are lost in lacunae, and the work breaks off mid-sentence in chapter 44.

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  1. IChapter 1Caecilius and the dedication
  2. IIChapter 2Whether sublimity can be taught
  3. IIIChapter 3Tumour, puerility, false passion
  4. IVChapter 4Frigidity in Timaeus and others
  5. VChapter 5The single cause of these faults
  6. VIChapter 6True knowledge of the sublime
  7. VIIChapter 7How to discern the genuine sublime
  8. VIIIChapter 8The five sources of sublimity
  9. IXChapter 9Greatness of mind, with Homer
  10. XChapter 10Selection and concentration of detail
  11. XIChapter 11Amplification
  12. XIIChapter 12Cicero compared with Demosthenes
  13. XIIIChapter 13Imitation and emulation of the great
  14. XIVChapter 14Writing under the gaze of posterity
  15. XVChapter 15Visualisation (phantasia)
  16. XVIChapter 16Figures of thought: the oath
  17. XVIIChapter 17Figures concealed by sublimity
  18. XVIIIChapter 18Question and interrogation
  19. XIXChapter 19Asyndeton
  20. XXChapter 20Combination of figures
  21. XXIChapter 21Conjunctions and their dilution
  22. XXIIChapter 22Hyperbaton
  23. XXIIIChapter 23Polyptota and changes of number
  24. XXIVChapter 24Plural for singular
  25. XXVChapter 25The historic present
  26. XXVIChapter 26Change of person
  27. XXVIIChapter 27Sudden shifts of speaker
  28. XXVIIIChapter 28Periphrasis
  29. XXIXChapter 29Risks of periphrasis
  30. XXXChapter 30Choice of words
  31. XXXIChapter 31Common idioms made noble
  32. XXXIIChapter 32Metaphors and their number
  33. XXXIIIChapter 33Faultless mediocrity vs. flawed greatness
  34. XXXIVChapter 34Hyperides and Demosthenes
  35. XXXVChapter 35Why we admire greatness in nature
  36. XXXVIChapter 36Faults in great writers
  37. XXXVIIChapter 37On simile
  38. XXXVIIIChapter 38Hyperbole
  39. XXXIXChapter 39Composition: rhythm and harmony
  40. XLChapter 40Composition lifts ordinary words
  41. XLIChapter 41Petty rhythms diminish the sublime
  42. XLIIChapter 42Excessive concision
  43. XLIIIChapter 43Mean diction shrinks great matter
  44. XLIVChapter 44Why genius is rare in our age

Translated by Claude from W. Rhys Roberts's 1907 Cambridge edition of the Greek text, made available by the Perseus Digital Library. The source text is in the public domain.