The Greek Treatise on the Sublime: its Authorship

Abstract

When Francis Robortello at Basle, in the year 1554, issued the editio princeps of the Greek Treatise on the Sublime, he attributed the work to ‘Dionysius Longinus.’ are the words that are found upon his title-page. In this ascription he was followed by Paul Manutius, who in the next year (1555) published an edition at Venice. The fashion thus set by the earliest editors became universal. Edition followed edition in quick succession, and translations made the book known in almost every European country. But in all the editions and in all the translations, Longinus was assumed to be the author. It was the same with the foremost critics and writers of France and of England. Boileau was in this matter at one with the rest of the translators. His acquiescence in the general view was shared by Fénelon, Rollin, and Laharpe, and in England by Addison, Hume, Hurd, and Blair. Pope, in a well-known passage, speaks of the ‘bold Longinus,’ whose ‘own example strengthens all his laws.’ And even the severely scientific Gibbon refers, with a touch of sarcasm, perhaps, in the adjective but with no touch of scepticism in the name, to the ‘sublime Longinus.’