active 1st century Longinus

Longinus is the traditional name given to the unknown author of On the Sublime, a Roman-era Greek work of literary criticism usually dated to the 1st century CE. Because the author's real identity is uncertain, modern readers often call him Pseudo-Longinus.

The treatise explores what makes language feel elevated, forceful, and memorable. Rather than offering dry rules, it looks at examples from earlier writers and asks how style, emotion, and grandeur can create a powerful effect on readers.

Although little can be said with confidence about the person behind the name, the work itself had a long afterlife. Rediscovered in early modern Europe, On the Sublime became an important text for later thinking about rhetoric, literature, and aesthetics.