Longinus on the Sublime: The Greek Text Edited After the Paris Manuscript with Introduction, Translation, Facsimiles and Appendices

Excerpt from Longinus on the Sublime: The Greek Text Edited After the Paris Manuscript With Introduction, Translation, Facsimiles and Appendices
It is 60 years since the publication of the last English edition of Longinus on the Sublime. The edition of D. B. Hickie appeared in 1836, having had many English predecessors, not the least interesting of which was that published more than a century earlier (in 1724) by Zachary Pearce, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and afterwards Bishop of Bangor.
An editor who resumes the task to-day finds that, if he takes due account of the investigations of continental scholars, he will probably seem to be issuing not so much a new edition as a new book. The application to this treatise (as to other remains of classical antiquity) of the scientific method has not only produced an altered text, but has changed our entire conception of the scope of the work and of its historical background. Some appearance of paradox is the inevitable result. The modern editor must devote the two halves of his Introduction to a criticism of the traditional title of the book. He must challenge the ascription and explain the description. He must point out that the author is probably not the historical Longinus, while the subject is not the 'Sublime' in the ordinary acceptation of that term.

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