Chapter XXI: Grecian Epic. Homeric Poems

Two classes of epic poetry—Homeric—Hesiodic.—Didactic and mystic
Hexameter poetry—later as a genus than the epic.—Lost epic
poems.—Epic poets and their probable dates.—Epic cycle.—What
the epic cycle was—an arrangement of the poems according
to continuity of narrative.—Relation of the epic cycle to
Homer.—What poems were included in the cycle.—The Iliad and
Odyssey are the only poems of the cycle preserved.—Curiosity
which these two poems provoke—no data to satisfy it.—Different
poems ascribed to Homer.—Nothing known, and endless diversity of
opinion, respecting the person and date of Homer.—Poetical gens
of the Homêrids.—Homer, the superhuman eponymus and father of
this gens.—What may be the dates of the Iliad and Odyssey.—Date
assigned by Herodotus the most probable.—Probable date of the
Iliad and Odyssey between 850 and 776 B. C.—Epic poems recited
to assembled companies, not read by individuals apart.—Lyric and
choric poetry, intended for the ear.—Importance of the class
of rhapsodes, singers, and reciters.—Rhapsodes condemned by
the Socratic philosophers—undeservedly.—Variations in the mode
of reciting the ancient epic.—At what time the Homeric poems
began to be written.—Prolegomena of Wolf—raised new questions
respecting the Homeric text—connected unity of authorship
with poems written from the beginning.—The two questions not
necessarily connected, though commonly discussed together.—Few
traces of writing, long after the Homeric age.—Bards or rhapsodes
of adequate memory, less inconsistent with the conditions of
the age than long MSS.—Blind bards.—Possibility of preserving
the poems by memory, as accurately as in fact they were
preserved.—Argument from the lost letter Digamma.—When did
the Homeric poems begin to be written?—Reasons for presuming
that they were first written about the middle of the seventh
century B. C.—Condition of the Iliad and Odyssey down to the
reign of Peisistratus.—Theory of Wolf.—Authorities quoted in its
favor.—Objections against it.—Other long epic poems besides the
Iliad and Odyssey.—Catalogue in the Iliad—essentially a part of
a long poem—its early authority.—Iliad and Odyssey were entire
poems long anterior to Peisistratus, whether they were originally
composed as entire or not.—No traces in the Homeric poems, of
ideas or customs belonging to the age of Peisistratus.—Homeric
poems. 1. Whether by one author or several. 2. Whether of one
date and scheme.—Question raised by Wolf—Sagen-poesie.—New
standard applied to the Homeric poems.—Homeric unity—generally
rejected by German critics in the last generation—now again
partially revived.—Scanty evidence—difficulty of forming any
conclusive opinion.—Method of studying the question of Homeric
unity.—Odyssey to be studied first, as of more simple and
intelligible structure than the Iliad—Odyssey—evidences of
one design throughout its structure.—Exhibits very few marks
of incoherence or contradiction.—Chronological reckoning in
the Odyssey, inaccurate in one case.—Inference erroneously
drawn from hence, that the parts of the poem were originally
separate.—Double start and double stream of events, ultimately
brought into confluence in the Odyssey.—Skill displayed in
this point by the poet.—Difficulty of imagining the Odyssey
broken up into many existing poems or songs.—Structure of
the Odyssey—essentially one—cannot have been pieced together
out of preëxisting epics.—Analogy of the Odyssey shows that
long and premeditated epical composition consists with the
capacities of the early Greek mind.—Iliad—much less coherent and
uniform than the Odyssey.—Incoherence prevails only in parts
of the poem—manifest coherence in other parts.—Wolfian theory
explains the former, but not the latter.—Theory of Welcker,
Lange, and Nitzsch.—Age of the Epos preparatory to that of the
Epopee.—Iliad essentially an organized poem—but the original
scheme does not comprehend the whole poem.—Iliad—originally
an Achillêis built upon a narrower plan, then enlarged.—Parts
which constitute the primitive Achillêis exhibit a coherent
sequence of events.—Disablement of Agamemnôn, Odysseus, and
Diomêdês, all in the battle of the eleventh book.—The first book
concentrates attention upon Achilles, and upon the distress
which the Greeks are to incur in consequence of the injury done
to him.—Nothing done to realize this expectation until the
eighth book.—Primitive Achillêis includes books i, viii, xi
to xxii.—Ninth book an unsuitable addition.—Transition from
the Achillêis into the Iliad, in the beginning of the second
book.—Transition from the Iliad back into the Achillêis at the
end of the seventh book.—Fortification of the Grecian camp.—Zeus
in the fourth book, or Iliad, different from Zeus in the first
and eighth, or Achillêis.—Continuous Achillêis—from the eleventh
book onward.—Supposition of an enlarged Achillêis is the most
consonant to all the parts of the poem as it stands.—Question
of one or many authors—difficult to decide.—Odyssey all by one
author, Iliad probably not.—Difference of style in the last
six books—may be explained without supposing difference of
authorship.—Last two books—probably not parts of the original
Achillêis.—Books ii. to vii. inclusive.—Book x.—Odyssey—probably
by a different author from the Iliad—but perhaps of the
same age.—Real character of the Homeric poems—essentially
popular.—Addressed to unlettered minds, but touching those
feelings which all men have in common.—No didactic purpose in
Homer. 118-209

PART II.

HISTORICAL GREECE.