The Sovereignty of Taste

5. Demonic Possession

5. Demonic Possession Once one begins to relate the laws of beauty to the archetypes of taste that produce the collective violence that is also central to human existence, one is engaged in the most difficult of inquiries because there is no easy way to distinguish between the archetype of taste that produces concord and the one that produces the dissolution of order. Joe Christmas strives for order in his life and has a clear intuitive sense of how things should be composed, but he cannot locate those patterns in everyday life.He may only once have declared “‘This is not my life,’”1 in the midst of the heightened sexual degradation he experiences with Joanna Burden, but he could have said that on countless occasions before the moments leading up to Burden’s death. When he says “‘This is not my life,’” he admits that he finds himself in patterns not of his own making that provide him with no sense of composure. His life turns out not to be his because it is too much at odds with his image of taste. Yet he strives to achieve the image of taste in his mind in spite of the fact that he never seems to find it. When I think about these patterns and our difficulties in working in accord with the archetype of taste, I am led back to Longinus’s meditations on the sublime. Longinus delineates five characteristics that produce the sublime: There are, it may be said, five principle sources of elevated language. Beneath these five varieties there lies, as though it were a common foundation, the gift of discourse, which is indispensable. First and most important is the power of forming great conceptions. . . . Secondly, there is vehement and inspired passion .These two components of the sublime are for the most part innate. Those Demonic Possession 141 which remain are partly the product of art. The due formation of figures deals with two sorts of figures, first those of thought and secondly those of expression . Next there is noble diction, which in turn comprises choice of words, and use of metaphors, and elaboration of language. The fifth cause of elevation— one which is the fitting conclusion of all that have preceded it—is dignified and elevated composition.2 Longinus is talking about how to create lofty compositions rather than how to compose one’s life according to the laws of beauty, but there is less of a distinction between those two modes in Longinus’s mind than there is for us. On the Sublime is a treatise on how to write at the highest possible levels, but its line of argument insists that to produce sublime creations one must have sublimity within oneself: one’s own life must be composed in accord with the most dignified patterns. To dispense with the easier material first, one can see how much the three items at the end of the list are important to the production of sublime art. One needs to know how properly to “form” figures of thought and expression , just as one can see that noble diction, the right choice of words, the proper use of metaphors, and the placement and elaboration of one’s discourse are central to how well it succeeds. Likewise, dignified and elevated composition is important if one hopes to have one’s materials produce the maximum effect. Longinus might have trouble recognizing “dignified and elevated composition” in many modern works of art, but it is easy enough to show how novels such as Light in August provide such a composition.Their subject matter is the most serious of all, the human relation to the sacred energies of life and the ways in which people debase those energies and thwart their purposes. There is no more important theme, and even if the characters and language stray from Longinus’s notion of dignity, dignity accrues from the powerful presentation of the holy and cursed nature of existence. A lesser work is incapable of evoking an awareness of the intense energies that drive the species. The laws of composition as Longinus sees them are as applicable to our own time as they were to his, and although a single quotation strips his remarks of the useful specificity through which they are exposed in the rest of his treatise, one gets a clear idea of the fundamental characteristics through which the sublime is produced.What one comes back...