On the Sublime | Page 8

in your abilities,
and such the part which becomes you--I look for a sympathising and
discerning[1] critic of the several parts of my treatise. For that was a
just remark of his who pronounced that the points in which we
resemble the divine nature are benevolence and love of truth.
[Footnote 1: Reading +philophronestata kai alêthestata+.]
3 As I am addressing a person so accomplished in literature, I need
only state, without enlarging further on the matter, that the Sublime,
wherever it occurs, consists in a certain loftiness and excellence of
language, and that it is by this, and this only, that the greatest poets and
prose-writers have gained eminence, and won themselves a lasting
place in the Temple of Fame.

4 A lofty passage does not convince the reason of the reader, but takes
him out of himself. That which is admirable ever confounds our
judgment, and eclipses that which is merely reasonable or agreeable.
To believe or not is usually in our own power; but the Sublime, acting
with an imperious and irresistible force, sways every reader whether he
will or no. Skill in invention, lucid arrangement and disposition of facts,
are appreciated not by one passage, or by two, but gradually manifest
themselves in the general structure of a work; but a sublime thought, if
happily timed, illumines[2] an entire subject with the vividness of a
lightning-flash, and exhibits the whole power of the orator in a moment
of time. Your own experience, I am sure, my dearest Terentian, would
enable you to illustrate these and similar points of doctrine.
[Footnote 2: Reading +diephôtisen+.]
II
The first question which presents itself for solution is whether there is
any art which can teach sublimity or loftiness in writing. For some hold
generally that there is mere delusion in attempting to reduce such
subjects to technical rules. "The Sublime," they tell us, "is born in a
man, and not to be acquired by instruction; genius is the only master
who can teach it. The vigorous products of nature" (such is their view)
"are weakened and in every respect debased, when robbed of their flesh
and blood by frigid technicalities."
2 But I maintain that the truth can be shown to stand otherwise in this
matter. Let us look at the case in this way; Nature in her loftier and
more passionate moods, while detesting all appearance of restraint, is
not wont to show herself utterly wayward and reckless; and though in
all cases the vital informing principle is derived from her, yet to
determine the right degree and the right moment, and to contribute the
precision of practice and experience, is the peculiar province of
scientific method. The great passions, when left to their own blind and
rash impulses without the control of reason, are in the same danger as a
ship let drive at random without ballast. Often they need the spur, but
sometimes also the curb.

3 The remark of Demosthenes with regard to human life in
general,--that the greatest of all blessings is to be fortunate, but next to
that and equal in importance is to be well advised,--for good fortune is
utterly ruined by the absence of good counsel,--may be applied to
literature, if we substitute genius for fortune, and art for counsel. Then,
again (and this is the most important point of all), a writer can only
learn from art when he is to abandon himself to the direction of his
genius.[1]
[Footnote 1: Literally, "But the most important point of all is that the
actual fact that there are some parts of literature which are in the power
of natural genius alone, must be learnt from no other source than from
art."]
These are the considerations which I submit to the unfavourable critic
of such useful studies. Perhaps they may induce him to alter his opinion
as to the vanity and idleness of our present investigations.
III
... "And let them check the stove's long tongues of fire: For if I see one
tenant of the hearth, I'll thrust within one curling torrent flame, And
bring that roof in ashes to the ground: But now not yet is sung my
noble lay."[1]
Such phrases cease to be tragic, and become burlesque,--I mean phrases
like "curling torrent flames" and "vomiting to heaven," and
representing Boreas as a piper, and so on. Such expressions, and such
images, produce an effect of confusion and obscurity, not of energy;
and if each separately be examined under the light of criticism, what
seemed terrible gradually sinks into absurdity. Since then, even in
tragedy, where the natural dignity of the subject makes a swelling
diction allowable, we cannot pardon a tasteless grandiloquence, how
much more incongruous must it seem in sober prose!
[Footnote 1: Aeschylus in his lost Oreithyia.]
2 Hence