In Chapter 14 of “On the Sublime” Longinus lays out one of the most radical creative challenges in literary history:

“We too… should carefully consider how perhaps Homer might have said this very thing, or how Plato, or Demosthenes, or (in history) Thucydides, might have given it sublimity.”

Criticism

Longinus doesn’t just ask writers to imitate the greats in his deceptively humble chapter of “Some Practical Advice.” He invites us to summon them, to conjure them into the mind’s chamber and hold our work up like a votive offering. It’s not just about quality—it’s about worthy communion.

But then he sharpens the blade:

“What kind of hearing should I get from all future ages if I wrote this?”

It’s more than a rhetorical flourish. This is a call to write beyond our own time, to craft work that does not expire. Longinus demands we seek posthumous integrity. Also, if our conceptions are “obscure and incomplete,” he warns, they are bound to miscarry.

What writer hasn’t wrestled with that fear: that all our labors, these fragile constructions of insight and form, might one day dissolve into silence? Or worse—become the missing pages future readers will lament having lost? Just like with those missing pages of ‘On the Sublime…’

Rhetoric

Longinus frames his guidance in terms of imagined audience: Homer, Plato, Demosthenes, Thucydides—not as static statues of genius, but as hypothetical listeners. This rhetorical device is more than clever—it’s transformational. We’re invited to externalize our audiences into a standard. We shouldn’t be seeking mass approval, even of our peers, and not be chasing trends. Instead, we should seek the wisdom of the best possible judges, across all ages. This sets a writer’s internal monologue to a deliberate, aspirational register.

This bit caused me to reflect on how today we have American Idol and other competitions heavily favoring ratings and not true talent or greatness of performance or thought. No such competition for writers with such a grand scale of course, but every competition these days seems to be a thinly veiled popularity contest that’s decided well before the actual votes are cast.

Here, Longinus is offering something far more eternal than applause. He’s offering counsel by conjuration—a jury of giants. Maybe we can’t counsel them directly, but by having dialogues with their works, we can get a sense of how they’d respond to what we have to say.

Aesthetics

There’s something deeply aesthetic in the very idea of sublimity earned through dialogue. Not through trend or cleverness, but audacity—to try to speak across time. This aesthetic of daring is one I lament not having embraced earlier: I’m sad I didn’t read On the Sublime at a much younger age. I’d probably be rather infamous as an ‘armchair philosopher’ by now. I certainly would’ve been much more daring!

Anyway, Longinus reminds us that art doesn’t need to be fashionable—it needs to be fortified. We should be creating art which outlives its moment, which does so because it aligns itself with more than fashion. It allies itself with greatness, and in so doing, becomes a vessel for it.

Our age often teaches restraint masquerading as humility. Instead, Longinus offers grandeur as a virtue. But, not egoic grandeur; rather, the grandeur of voice that seeks resonance beyond its lifetime.

Philosophy

This chapter offers a teleology of creation rooted in eternity-consciousness. To write something that will outlive oneself is not arrogance—it’s aspiration. Longinus writes:

“If anyone shrinks from saying anything that will outlast his own time and age… [his ideas] are bound to miscarry.”

Longinus doesn’t fear obscurity—he fears intentional smallness. But I’d say that obscurity and incompleteness are not signs of failure; they are conditions of process. I know many of my own conceptions are certainly obscure and very much incomplete. Still not all words are fated to survive the centuries, or in Longinus’ case, even millenia. 

Yet we live in an age that mirrors that of Longinus’s own in many ways—fragile, fearful, and distracted. And in such an age, perhaps the act of publishing one’s thoughts at all becomes a rebellious devotion.

If we commune with these minds, Longinus is saying, we may yet find our way to sublimity. Even if purely through imitation and emulation, we’re passing on the greatness through our own explorations of the material, as long as we publish our own thoughts where they may be preserved somehow.

That preservation may not be perfect. But it’s enough. As long as the thought is made available to the future, there’s a chance it will be caught by another.

With this reflection, I’m not writing for applause. I’m writing toward the imagined gaze of thinkers I revere. In that light, even obscurity becomes sacred. Even incomplete thoughts become part of a chain. I don’t seek fame. Rather, I seek to be part of the conversation that will not die. That, too, is sublime.

Postscript: My Eternal Jury

To keep my reflections sharp and my ambitions honest, I imagine submitting each of these musings to a jury—not of critics, but of minds I revere. Their voices differ. They challenge and contradict one another. But together, they form my internal panel of accountability. If I can stand before these, then I have written with eternity in mind:

1. Longinus – Standard of Sublimity
   For the grandeur of thought and elevation of form.
2. Carl Sagan – Guardian of Wonder
   For cosmic humility, poetic truth, and sense of human scale.
3. Toni Morrison – Oracle of Language and Legacy
   For the ethical weight of narrative and voice. She permits no false sentence.
4. Virginia Woolf – Patroness of Interior Depth
   For rhythmic texture and the shimmer between moments. The soul of nuance.
5. Søren Kierkegaard – The Existential Challenger
   For honesty in risk. Did I leap? Or merely posture?
6. Octavia E. Butler – Time-Bending Visionary
   For futurity, survival, and evolution of thought. What world does this build?
7. Heraclitus – The Obscure Flame
   For paradox and transformation. The fire that reshapes what cannot be said directly.

This isn’t a tribunal of praise. It’s a crucible of integrity. These minds don’t ask, “Is it perfect?” They ask, “Is it real? Is it brave? Is it aiming past your lifespan?”

If I can answer yes—even once—then I have done something worthy of the breath I was given. And if not? I’ll set to writing again, with their shadows at my back and their breath on my shoulder.