Dionysius and Longinus on the Sublime: Rhetoric and Religious Language

Abstract

Longinus' On the Sublime (date unknown) presents itself as a response to the work of the Augustan critic Caecilius of Caleacte. Recent attempts to reconstruct Longinus' intellectual context have largely ignored the works of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Caecilius' contemporary colleague (active in Rome between 30 and 8 B.C.E. ). This article investigates the concept of hupsos ("the sublime") and its religious aspects in Longinus and Dionysius, and reveals a remarkable continuity between the discourse of both authors. Dionysius' works inform us about an Augustan debate on Plato and the sublime, and thereby provide us with an important context for Longinus' treatise.

Rewriting Rivers in Ancient Literary Criticism

“…Translation by Russell (1995). On the date and authorship of On the Sublime, see Russell (1964); Russell (1995), 145-148;Mazzucchi (2010) xxix-xxxvii;De Jonge (2012). On this passage, see also Porter (2016), 175. make mistakes, are to be preferred to faultless mediocre (pure) writers: Plato makes mistakes, but he is more sublime than the faultless Lysias; Demosthenes has bad moments, but he is more sublime than Hyperides.…”

Flavius Josephus' Self-Characterization in First-Century Rome: A Literary Analysis of the Autobiographical Passages in the Bellum Judaicum

“…As we have touched upon in the introduction, modern theorists have developed a vast narratological toolbox for analysing character and characterization -usually framed as direct and indirect characterization -and its application to ancient texts as well as to ancient rhetorical theory. For "proto-narratology" in ancient literature, see De Jong (2014) 3-6. On-literature and rhetoric in Graeco-Roman discourse see Kennedy (1999) 127-36.…”

“…Notable examples are Hägg (1971); De Jong and Sullivan (1994);Hornblower (1994); Rood (1998); Wheeler (2000); De Jong (2001;Grethlein (2006); Grethlein and Rengakos (2009); De Temmerman and Van Emde Boas (2018b). See further the Studies in Ancient Greek Narrative series by Brill initiated by Irene de Jong, see Nünlist, Bowie, and De Jong (2004); De Jong and Nünlist (2007); De Jong (2012); De Temmerman and Van Emde Boas (2018a); and the forthcoming volume on speeches. In Josephus studies, such narratological approaches can be found in e.g.…”