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On the Sublime by 1st cent. Longinus
page 69 of 126 (54%)
readers generally, as in the line

“Thou had’st not known for whom Tydides fought,”[4]

and thus exciting him by an appeal to himself, you will rouse interest,
and fix attention, and make him a partaker in the action of the book.

[Footnote 4: _Il._ v. 85.]


XXVII

Sometimes, again, a writer in the midst of a narrative in the third
person suddenly steps aside and makes a transition to the first. It is a
kind of figure which strikes like a sudden outburst of passion. Thus
Hector in the _Iliad_

“With mighty voice called to the men of Troy
To storm the ships, and leave the bloody spoils:
If any I behold with willing foot
Shunning the ships, and lingering on the plain,
That hour I will contrive his death.”[1]

The poet then takes upon himself the narrative part, as being his proper
business; but this abrupt threat he attributes, without a word of
warning, to the enraged Trojan chief. To have interposed any such words
as “Hector said so and so” would have had a frigid effect. As the lines
stand the writer is left behind by his own words, and the transition is
effected while he is preparing for it.

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