Way back in the First or maybe the Third Century AD, there was a Greek rhetorician and literary critic named Longinus who wrote a little treatise titled On the Sublime. He riffed on its essence (“the ...
The first to offer a comprehensive theory of the sublime in writing and oratory was Greek rhetorician Longinus. He quoted “Let there be light” from the Bible as an example of sublime writing in its ...
Tradition holds that the soldier who pierced Christ’s side at the Crucifixion came to believe in him and is honored today as St. Longinus, whose monumental statue stands in St. Peter’s Basilica.
The sublime: What is it and why are we so keen to experience it? The distinction between the beautiful and the sublime goes back at least to Longinus (first century CE), who saw the sublime as an ...