From its first publication in 1554 until the early nineteenth century, the fragmentary text Peri hupsous was all but unquestioningly attributed to Cassius Longinus, a Greek of the third century CE. Prevalent scholarly opinion now places the origin of the text in the first half of the first century; but, nothing beyond the text itself being known of its actual author, and nothing of comparable interest being known to have been written by the historical Longinus, the use of the latter name for the author of the text has stuck.

Problems of interpretation of the text begin with its title. Although the word hupsēlos is commonly translated as "sublime," Longinus, in contrast with modern writers, uses it neither as a quasi-technical term nor as the expression of an aesthetic concept coordinate with "the beautiful" but as an ordinary term of praise (even if special praise) for...