Like many of you, I also feel that I will never truly understand what Longinus considers to be examples of the sublime. To me, it seems that he often references sublimity as an ideal that is almost impossible to achieve, and once achieved, the meaning is oftentimes debated. However, in regards to achieving sublimity through text, it seems that Longinus is arguing that the manipulation of language, and manner in which thoughts are constructed and revealed can greatly affect the understanding of the audience. For example, we can see this when he says, “persuasion is on the whole something we can control” (347). Because of this, it is obvious that he sees awareness of the many forms language, as well as the various ways in which it can be utilized, demonstrates the flexible and unstable restrictions associated with this system of the communication. What's more, the theories of noble diction and visualization that he mentions additionally promote multiple uses of words to appeal to an audience, even if it hinders the expression of truth. In order to create “real sublimity,” which is compared to “those things which people everybody all the time as genuinely and finely sublime,” it appears that one must perfect his or her argument by appealing to the pleasure of the audience (350). This can be done by carefully incorporating “words and the use of metaphorical and artificial language” (350). So, one is then able to conclude that the individual utterance of a word holds little meaning if it is not associated with fancy literary elements that present the thought in a more appealing manner; however, “when [visualization] is closely involved with factual argument…it enslaves the hearer as well as persuading him” (357). Therefore, according to Longinus, in order to achieve control of a given situation, the speaker must persuade the audience into believing the exact idea in which he is preaching; most likely, this occurs by manifesting an overarching feeling of sublimity through the use of specific techniques designed to essentially trick the listener into attaining the intended comprehension.
You're right, I certainly don't completely understand what Longinus' examples of the Sublime are either, but I know they kind scare me. I just got done writing a SCD in which I focused a bunch on the rhetoric of Adolf Hitler and to me there are a lot of parallels between that and the Sublime. Like you said, Longinus wrote that persuasion is controllable. Hitler certainly shows this to be possibility, if you'll remember, he used the emotion both of financial hardtimes and the religion to direct his hate (and the hate of audience) towards a single enemy that he defined.
ReplyDeleteIn my SCD I claimed that Hitler constructed his own audience into a stereotype of what a German/Aryan was, and the quote you pulled from Longinus(When[visualization}... persuading him") really reminded me of that. So basically, I am really left wondering with Longinus' concept of the Sublime is even something good at all or if maybe Hitler just employed this tactic and used it for evil. Either way, it seems as if the Sublime certainly has the power to be dangerous.