Discussing the essential ingredients of Grand style, Arnold says that Grand Style 'arises in poetry when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or severity a serious subject'. The grand style issues from rapidity of movement, plainness and directness of language, nobility of nature and simple lucidity of mind. It is the same thing that Longinus calls sublimity. There can be no sublimity without sublime thoughts, and sublime emotions issuing from a sublime heart. There can be no sublimity without the sublimity of the soul.
Great thoughts and great words issue only from great minds. At the same time the subject treated therein also should be serious and grand enough to bear the weight of the grand style. A trivial subject cannot bear the weight of grand style. The subjects fit for treatment in grand style must "powerfully appeal to the great primary human affections; to those elementary feelings which subsist permanently in the race, and which are independent of time". There are universal subjects that cannot be bound down by any limits of time or place. They are fundamental with human nature sublimely elevated. The action or situation to be treated under grand style must have the power 'to please, to move, to elevate'. The greatest practitioners of grand style are Homer in Greek, Dante in Latin, and Milton in English. Arnold advises the modern poets to study and analyse their style and subject matter if they seek to develop grand style in their own writings.
