In this paper, I examine Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757/59), comparing it with Pseudo-Longinus’ On the Sublime. In his book, Burke refers to On the Sublime only once, although he shares one of Pseudo-Longinus’ main subjects—the “sublime.”

However, in Part V of The Sublime and Beautiful, one can find some descriptions in which the tradition of rhetoric, including On the Sublime, is recognized. The Burkean notion of “passion,” which is discussed in the last part of The Sublime and Beautiful, draws a particularly significant amount of attention.

According to Burke, it is only possible to arouse the “sympathy” or “contagion of our passion” through words, not paintings, architectures, or natural objects. In addition, he assumes that sympathy is aroused by words without “picture” (namely, mental representation). This is the very reason, I suspect, that Burke excludes Pseudo-Longinus’ theory from his book on the “sublime and beautiful.” Pseudo-Longinus assumes that when the violent power of speech arouses sympathy, it is mediated by a vivid image (phantasia). To put it br /iefly, while Pseudo-Longinus considers mental representation necessary for influencing another's passion through words, Burke adopts the contrasting standpoint.