On Sublimity

“Sublimity is a kind of eminence or excellence of discourse. It is the source of the distinction of the very greatest poets and prose writers and the means by which they have given eternal life to their own fame. For grandeur produces ecstasy rather than persuasion in the hearer; and the combination of wonder and astonishment always proves superior to the merely persuasive and pleasant. This is because persuasion is on the whole something we can control, whereas amazement and wonder exert invincible power and force and get the better of every hearer. Experience in invention and ability to order and arrange material cannot be detected in single passages; we begin to appreciate them only when we see the whole context. Sublimity on the other hand, produced at the right moment, tears everything up like a whirlwind, and exhibits the orator’s whole power at a single blow.”— “Longinus” (0 CE)

Preface

In the beginning

Nature rules all

Yet this is only made known

Through art

We cannot see directly

What must blind

All that is to say

Scorn power and wealth

Feel deeply

Think profoundly

Let your genius be natural

Five streams of sublimity

Great thoughts

Whether forming like a cancer

Or enwombed by artificial insemination

Set us on the ecstatic road that rings

like the ghosts of stones dropped into a deep, dark well

Strong emotion

In the broken tongue of Sappho

Who cannot see in the dazzling dark,

Who cannot hear above the hum

Who cannot speak but must

Under whose skin that subtle fire runs

To amplify, to terrify

And this Homeric storm she cannot endure

But must, but must, for all must be

Just as I must stare into the fury

Of a dozen bloody eyes

Certain figures of thought and speech

Apostrophe: while the mother of the bride primped and preened her flowers,

Jilting groom and cowmaid did elope.

Chiaroscuro: overshadow and eclipse the artifice

Hyperbaton: FOR SALE broken wings, sea-borne

Noble diction

When, with sticky little fingers,

the child takes off his guiser’s mask, and,

Tear-stained, chocolate-smeared

Calls out for his mummy…

Tenor killed in car crash

Cause of death a heart attack:

The great not of veins.

Digression: Starched Lysius shrinks from Drunken Plato;

Plain grain pales to sumptuous steak seasoned in Attic salt

the erratic genius towers over the impeccable mediocrity

We do not feel so much awe before the clear and pure little flame we kindle

As before the oft-obscured fires of heaven

We do not think our flame more worthy

Than the craters of Etna, whose roar belches,

rocks and hills entire out of the depths

And pours forth rivers of the earth-born instant fire

Dignified word arrangement

And The Rhythm Of Life is a powerful beat

Puts a tingle in your fingers and a tingle in your feet

Spin class, strobe light, smoke machine

Rhythm in your bedroom, rhythm in the street

Happy hardcore Kavanagh hearings

Yes, The Rhythm Of Life is a powerful beat

Pathos to ekstasis

Catharsis of reader and writer alike

And all those who transcend can’t help

But be in time themselves transcended