Περὶ ὕψους
On the Sublime
Longinus (author unknown) Λογγῖνος · 1st century CE
Librarian’s score9.0Claude · AI
Readers—Shown after five ratings
An unknown teacher's treatise on what lifts writing until it overwhelms the reader, drawn from Homer, Sappho, Demosthenes and even Genesis. It survives with gaps, but its warmth and quick judgment are intact. Rediscovered in the Renaissance, it gave the eighteenth century its idea of the sublime and still reads like a lesson from someone who loved books.