THE SUBLIME
PART ONE
Chapters I - VI
YOU will remember, my dear Postumius
Terentianus,
that when we examined together the
treatise
of Caecilius on the Sublime, we found
that
it fell below the dignity of the whole
subject,
while it failed signally to grasp the
essential
points, and conveyed to its readers
but little
of that practical help which it should
be
a writer's principal aim to give. In
every
systematic treatise two things are
required.
The first is a statement of the subject;
the other, which although second in
order
ranks higher in importance, is an indication
of the methods by which we may attain
our
end. Now Caecilius seeks to show the
nature
of the sublime by countless instances
as
though our ignorance demanded it, but
the
consideration of the means whereby
we may
succeed in raising our own capacities
to
a certain pitch of elevation he has,
strangely
enough, omitted as unnecessary. 2.
However,
it may be that the man ought not so
much
to be blamed for his shortcomings as
praised
for his happy thought and his enthusiasm.
But since you have urged me, in my
turn,
to write a brief essay on the sublime
for
your special gratification, let us
consider
whether the views I have formed contain
anything
which will be of use to public men.
You will
yourself, friend, in accordance with
your
nature and with what is fitting, join
me
in appraising each detail with the
utmost
regard for truth; for he answered well
who,
when asked in what qualities we resemble
the Gods, declared that we do so in
benevolence
and truth. 3. As I am writing to you,
good
friend, who are well versed in literary
studies,
I feel almost absolved from the necessity
of premising at any length that sublimity
is a certain distinction and excellence
in
expression, and that it is from no
other
source than this that the greatest
poets
and writers have derived their eminence
and
gained an immortality of renown. 4.
The effect
of elevated language upon an audience
is
not persuasion but transport. At every
time
and in every way imposing speech, with
the
spell it throws over us, prevails over
that
which aims at persuasion and gratification.
Our persuasions we can usually control,
but
the influences of the sublime bring
power
and irresistible might to bear, and
reign
supreme over every hearer. Similarly,
we
see skill in invention, and due order
and
arrangement of matter, emerging as
the hard-won
result not of one thing nor of two,
but of
the whole texture of the composition,
whereas
Sublimity flashing forth at the right
moment
scatters everything before it like
a thunderbolt,
and at once displays the power of the
orator
in all its plenitude. But enough; for
these
reflexions, and others like them, you
can,
I know well, dear Terentianus, yourself
suggest
from your own experience.
II First of all, we must raise the
question
whether there is such a thing as an
art of
the sublime or lofty. Some hold that
those
are entirely in error who would bring
such
matters under the precepts of art.
A lofty
tone, says one, is innate, and does
not come
by teaching; nature is the only art
that
can compass it. Works of nature are,
they
think, made worse and altogether feebler
when wizened by the rules of art. 2.
But
I maintain that this will be found
to be
otherwise if it be observed that, while
nature
as a rule is free and independent in
matters
of passion and elevation, yet is she
wont
not to act at random and utterly without
system. Further, nature is the original
and
vital underlying principle in all cases,
but system can define limits and fitting
seasons, and can also contribute the
safest
rules for use and practice. Moreover,
the
expression of the sublime is more exposed
to danger when it goes its own way
without
the guidance of knowledge,--when it
is suffered
to be unstable and unballasted,--when
it
is left at the mercy of mere momentum
and
ignorant audacity. It is true that
it often
needs the spur, but it is also true
that
it often needs the curb. 3. Demosthenes
expresses
the view, with regard to human life
in general,
that good fortune is the greatest of
blessings,
while good counsel, which occupies
the second
place, is hardly inferior in importance,
since its absence contributes inevitably
to the ruin of the former (Against
Aristocrates
113, at Perseus). This we may apply
to diction,
nature occupying the position of good
fortune,
art that of good counsel. Most important
of all, we must remember that the very
fact
that there are some elements of expression
which are in the hands of nature alone,
can
be learnt from no other source than
art.
If, I say, the critic of those who
desire
to learn were to turn these matters
over
in his mind, he would no longer, it
seems
to me, regard the discussion of the
subject
as superfluous or useless...
III Quell they the oven's far-flung
splendour-glow!
Ha, let me but one hearth-abider mark--
One
flame-wreath torrent-like I'll whirl
on high;
I'll burn the roof, to cinders shrivel
it!--
Nay, now my chant is not of noble strain.
(Aeschylus, tr. A. S. Way)
Such things are not tragic but pseudo-tragic--'flame-wreaths,'
and 'belching to the sky,' and Boreas
represented
as a 'flute-player,' and all the rest
of
it. They are turbid in expression and
confused
in imagery rather than the product
of intensity,
and each one of them, if examined in
the
light of day, sinks little by little
from
the terrible into the contemptible.
But since
even in tragedy, which is in its very
nature
stately and prone to bombast, tasteless
tumidity
is unpardonable, still less, I presume,
will
it harmonise with the narration of
fact.
2. And this is the ground on which
the phrases
of Gorgias of Leontini are ridiculed
when
he describes Xerxes as the 'Zeus of
the Persians'
and vultures as 'living tombs.' So
is it
with some of the expressions of Callisthenes
which are not sublime but high-flown,
and
still more with those of Cleitarchus,
for
the man is frivolous and blows, as
Sophocles
has it,
On pigmy hautboys: mouthpiece have
they none.
(Sophocles, tr. A. S. Way)
Other examples will be found in Amphicrates
and Hegesias and Matris, for often
when these
writers seem to themselves to be inspired
they are in no true frenzy but are
simply
trifling. 3. Altogether, tumidity seems
particularly
hard to avoid. The explanation is that
all
who aim at elevation are so anxious
to escape
the reproach of being weak and dry
that they
are carried, as by some strange law
of nature,
into the opposite extreme. They put
their
trust in the maxim that 'failure in
a great
attempt is at least a noble error'.
4. But
evil are the swellings, both in the
body
and in diction, which are inflated
and unreal,
and threaten us with the reverse of
our aim;
for nothing, say they, is drier than
a man
who has the dropsy. While tumidity
desires
to transcend the limits of the sublime,
the
defect which is termed puerility is
the direct
antithesis of elevation, for it is
utterly
low and mean and in real truth the
most ignoble
vice of style. What, then, is this
puerility?
Clearly, a pedant's thoughts, which
begin
in learned trifling and end in frigidity.
Men slip into this kind of error because,
while they aim at the uncommon and
elaborate
and most of all at the attractive,
they drift
unawares into the tawdry and affected.
5.
A third, and closely allied, kind of
defect
in matters of passion is that which
Theodorus
used to call parenthyrsus. By this
is meant
unseasonable and empty passion, where
no
passion is required, or immoderate,
where
moderation is needed. For men are often
carried
away, as if by intoxication, into displays
of emotion which are not caused by
the nature
of the subject, but are purely personal
and
wearisome. In consequence they seem
to hearers
who are in no wise affected to act
in an
ungainly way. And no wonder; for they
are
beside themselves, while their hearers
are
not. But the question of the passions
we
reserve for separate treatment.
IV Of the second fault of which we
have spoken--frigidity--
Timaeus supplies many examples. Timaeus
was
a writer of considerable general ability,
who occasionally showed that he was
not incapable
of elevation of style. He was learned
and
ingenious, but very prone to criticise
the
faults of others while blind to his
own.
Through his passion for continually
starting
novel notions, he often fell into the
merest
childishness. 2. I will set down one
or two
examples only of his manner, since
the greater
number have been already appropriated
by
Caecilius. In the course of a eulogy
on Alexander
the Great, he describes him as 'the
man who
gained possession of the whole of Asia
in
fewer years than it took Isocrates
to write
his Panegyric urging war against the
Persians.'
Strange indeed is the comparison of
the man
of Macedon with the rhetorician. How
plain
it is, Timaeus, that the Lacedaemonians,
thus judged, were far inferior to Isocrates
in prowess, for they spent thirty years
in
the conquest of Messene, whereas he
composed
his Panegyric in ten. 3. Consider again
the
way in which he speaks of the Athenians
who
were captured in Sicily. 'They were
punished
because they had acted impiously towards
Hermes and mutilated his images, and
the
infliction of punishment was chiefly
due
to Hermocrates the son of Hermon, who
was
descended, in the paternal line, from
the
outraged god.'I am surprised, beloved
Terentianus,
that he does not write with regard
to the
despot Dionysius that 'Dion and Heracleides
deprived him of his sovereignty because
he
had acted impiously towards Zeus and
Heracles.'
4. But why speak of Timaeus when even
those
heroes of literature, Xenophon and
Plato,
though trained in the school of Socrates,
nevertheless sometimes forget themselves
for the sake of such paltry pleasantries?
Xenophon writes in the Policy of the
Lacedaemonians:
'You would find it harder to hear their
voice
than that of busts of marble, harder
to deflect
their gaze than that of statues of
bronze;
you would deem them more modest than
the
very maidens in their eyes' (de Rep.
Laced.
III. 5., at Perseus)
It was worthy of an Amphicrates and
not of
a Xenophon to call the pupils of our
eyes
'modest maidens.' Good heavens, how
strange
it is that the pupils of the whole
company
should be believed to be modest notwithstanding
the common saying that the shamelessness
of individuals is indicated by nothing
so
much as the eyes! 'Thou sot? that hast
the
eyes of a dog,' as Homer has it (Iliad
1.225,
at Perseus). Timaeus, however, has
not left
even this piece of frigidity to Xenophon,
but clutches it as though it were hid
treasure.
At all events, after saying of Agathocles
that he abducted his cousin, who had
been
given in marriage to another man, from
the
midst of the nuptial rites, he asks,
'Who
could have done this had he not had
wantons,
in place of maidens, in his eyes?'
6. Yes,
and Plato (usually so divine) when
he means
simply tablets says, 'They shall write
and
preserve cypress memorials in the temples
(Laws 5. 741c, at Perseus)
And again, 'As touching walls, Megillus,
I should hold with Sparta that they
be suffered
to lie asleep in the earth and not
summoned
to arise' (Laws 6. 778d, at Perseus).
The
expression of Herodotus to the effect
that
beautiful women are 'eye-smarts' is
not much
better (Histories 5. 18, at Perseus).
This,
however, may be condoned in some degree
since
those who use this particular phrase
in his
narrative are barbarians and in their
cups,
but not even in the mouths of such
characters
is it well that an author should suffer,
in the judgment of posterity, from
an unseemly
exhibition of triviality.
V All these ugly and parasitical growths
arise in literature from a single cause,
that pursuit of novelty in the expression
of ideas which may be regarded as the
fashionable
craze of the day. Our defects usually
spring,
for the most part, from the same sources
as our good points. Hence, while beauties
of expression and touches of sublimity,
and
charming elegancies withal, are favourable
to effective composition, yet these
very
things are the elements and foundation,
not
only of success, but also of the contrary.
Something of the kind is true also
of variations
and hyperboles and the use of the plural
number, and we shall show subsequently
the
dangers to which these seem severally
to
be exposed. It is necessary now to
seek and
to suggest means by which we may avoid
the
defects which attend the steps of the
sublime.
VI The best means would be, friend,
to gain,
first of all, clear knowledge and appreciation
of the true sublime. The enterprise
is, however,
an arduous one. For the judgment of
style
is the last and crowning fruit of long
experience.
None the less, if I must speak in the
way
of precept, it is not impossible perhaps
to acquire discrimination in these
matters
by attention to some such hints as
those
which follow.
|
Evans Experientialism 
