Sublime?

“For the effect of elevated language is not to persuade the hearers, but to amaze them; and at all times, and in every way, what transports us with wonder is more telling than what merely persuades or gratifies us.” (Longinus, 114)

Longinus’ work On the Sublime chronicles his thoughts and arguments on the source and definition of great writing, and more generally speaking, great art. He insists that the reader or audience be transported, uplifted, and inspired, in order for a work to be considered great and worthy of the title sublime.

On the other hand, those works that do not meet the criteria for greatness, according to Longinus, fall in three categories of failure: Tumidity, the Bombastic, or Puerility. He says that quite often when a work is not sublime, it appears arrogant, childish, rhetorical, and overdone; and generally unworthy of a second read.

The talk show host of the Late Late show, Craig Ferguson, gives a humorous and yet insightful explanation to this abundance in pueril and bombastic individuals in recent generations.



Mr. Ferguson claims that recent generations have grown to value and love the youthful, the childish and the stupid. And I think Longinus would have to agree. Even if we run with his reference to the Jonas Brothers, which sadly we must equate to a representative of today's art, it is obvious that the focus is quick, cheap, uninsightful satisfaction, rather than the sublime, which characterizes itself as something which collectively and intensely effects and inspires its viewer.

In a world of texting, Twilight, and Hannah Montana, one can only wonder what harsh criticism Longinus would grace us with. It is pueril. Pop culture is inundated with the simplistic and the childish. And it is bombastic and tumid. These simplicities are then over hyped and inflated to unimaginable proportions, screaming alleged importance and whining for constant attention.