But equally, since it is poetry all the time to him, he
will take--or to instance particular writers, Aristotle and the
late Greek, Longinus will take--a single hexameter to illustrate
a minute trick of style or turn of phrase, as equally he will
choose a long passage or the whole "Iliad," the whole "Odyssey,"
to illustrate a grand rule of poetic construction, a first
principle of aesthetics. For an example--'Herein,' says
Aristotle, starting to show that an Epic poem must have Unity of
Subject--'Herein, to repeat what we have said before, we have a
further proof of Homer's superiority to the rest. He did not
attempt to deal even with the Trojan War in its entirety, though
it was a whole story with a definite beginning, middle and end--
feeling apparently that it was too long a story to be taken in at
one view or else over-complicated by variety of incidents.' And
as Aristotle takes the "Iliad"--_his_ Bible--to illustrate a
grand rule of poetical construction, so the late writer of his
tradition--Longinus--will use it to exhibit the core and essence
of poetical sublimity; as in his famous ninth chapter, of which
Gibbon wrote:
The ninth chapter .
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