Application of Langinus’ Resources of Sublimity in Amish Tripathi’s The Immortals of Meluha

Abstract

Longinus, besides being one of the most famous ancient philosophers, contributed enormously to the field of art and literature; his concept of ‘Sublime’ which he introduced in his path-breaking work ‘On the Sublime’, written in epistolary form and addressing Posthunius Terentianus, has constantly been used to evaluate literature over the years. This paper studies Amish Tripathi’s ‘The Immortals of Meluha’, the first of the three novels of his Shiva Trilogy, using the five parameters that Longinus set forth to appraise if a work of literature has achieved sublimity or not. Written in simple, yet effective language, the fantasy retelling of the story of Indian mythological God Lord Shiva, The Immortals of Meluha has uplifting thoughts and the capacity to kindle readers’ emotions which Longinus propagated as two of the major qualities of sublime writing.