Longinus, in Chapter 13 of On the Sublime, offers a compelling meditation on imitation and inspiration:

“[T]here is another way that leads to sublimity… It is the imitation and emulation of the greater writers and poets of the past… For many authors are inspired by the spirit of others…”

Criticism

Longinus views sublimity not as a solitary act but as something porous and receptive. Sublimity happens through proximity to greatness, through conscious and unconscious echoing.

This dovetails with Plato’s own analysis in The Republic, where he lambasts the masses:

“Those, therefore, who have no experience of wisdom and goodness… In the manner of cattle, they bend down with their gaze fixed always on the ground and on their feeding-places, grazing and fattening and copulating… they kill one another if their desires are not satisfied.”

Say what you will about Plato’s authoritarian solutions from the Republic, but the image is vivid. Plato’s contempt, echoed and softened by Longinus, reflects a distrust in cultural entropy—a concern that without the sublime, our souls dull.

Longinus adds:

“Certain emanations are conveyed from the genius of the men of old into the souls of those who emulate them, and, breathing in these influences, even those who show very few signs of inspiration derive some degree of divine enthusiasm from the grandeur of their predecessors.”

There’s no shame in tracing another’s breathprint. We’re not thieves; we’re inheritors.

Rhetoric

The word afflatus itself is an etymological wonder. According to Merriam-Webster:

Afflatus, which in Latin means “the act of blowing or breathing on,” was formed from the prefix ad- (“to, toward”) and the Latin verb flare (“to blow”).

Inspiration here is not an internal genius but an external pressure—air shaped by the divine or by those who came before. Cicero compared new ideas to a “breath of fresh air.” Longinus invokes the Pythian priestess on her tripod, channeling divine utterance through vapors.

These are not metaphors to toss off lightly. They suggest that language itself may be haunted—each phrase carrying the residue of someone else’s breath. Longinus writes:

“…Plato, who for his own use drew upon countless tributary streams from the great Homeric river.”

Imitation isn’t stagnation. It’s confluence.

Aesthetics

We talk about originality as if it’s untainted, singular. But the most stirring art is often hybrid—stitched together from cultural inheritance, historical resonance, and intentional transformation. Longinus insists:

“Now this procedure is not plagiarism; rather it is like the reproduction of good character in statues or other works of art.”

This is how art transcends time. It’s like a sculptor carving in dialogue with Praxiteles, or a songwriter cradling Leonard Cohen’s ache. We reproduce not the letter of beauty, but its spirit.

The sublime emerges not from newness, but from rightness, from breath that feels true—whether first exhaled or carried forward by another.

Philosophy

Plato again tried to gatekeep inspiration by banning poets—unless they fit his mold. That reads today like fear masquerading as rationality. Because to be truly inspired is to be vulnerable: open to others, open to past selves, open to what cannot be controlled.

But we don’t need to fight the great minds. We don’t need to “break a lance” with Homer. I’m not entering the arena. I’m sitting beside the fire, warming my hands on language that has burned for centuries. Longinus writes:

“This strife is good for mortals,” Hesiod says, but I disagree. Strife might sharpen, but it also wounds. I don’t seek sublimity through battle—I seek it through resonance.

Afflatus is not a call to conquer, but an invitation to listen. So yes, I prefer to think of myself as a collaborator with great minds—dead or alive. Not to overtake them, not to defeat them, but to breathe with them. Inhale what they left behind, exhale something a little changed. Make it a little more my own, something that’s better suited to these times we live in today.