Ps.-Longinus on Ecstasy
This chapter examines what the ancient treatise On the Sublime tells us about the experience of Greek narrative. The author of the treatise, who is commonly referred to as Longinus, builds on the ideas of Gorgias and Plato when he describes the experience of the sublime in terms of ecstasy or displacement (ekstasis). The concept of ecstasy has aesthetic, psychological, and linguistic dimensions. It connects three aspects of sublime narrative: the author, the audience, and the linguistic organization of the text itself. Ps.-Longinus suggests that there is a direct communication between these three corners of the triangle of (sublime) communication: the stirred mind of the author, the overwhelming experience of the listener, and the disrupted style and syntax of a sublime moment in narrative. Dislocation, displacement, and transportation are characteristic of all three levels. The chapter compares the ancient theory of sublime ecstasy with the modern theory of ‘immersion’, as formulated by Marie-Laure Ryan and Rutger Allan (in Chapter 1 of this volume). While there are striking similarities between Ps.-Longinus and Ryan, there are also notable differences. Reading Ps.-Longinus next to Ryan and comparing ‘ecstasy’ with ‘immersion’ can, therefore, sharpen our understanding of the experience of narrative.