A Memorial of the REV. John Snelling Popkin ... (Electronic book text)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3HOMER. II. THE ILIAD. Concerning the Iliad a question is moved, what is its proper subject, and object, and title. It is said, that the name Iliad is not original; and that, as Achilles is the hero, it ought to be called the Achillei'd, as the other poem is named from the hero, Odyssey. It is also said, that the poem has a precise or principal moral object, to show the Greeks the evils of discord, and to exhort them to union and agreement. This is a good end. But I am inclined to think, that the first object of the poet was to make an epic poem, on a subject of great fame and interest, which took place in his vicinity; and that the poem was not so much made for the sake of Achilles, as Achilles was made for the sake of the poem. Accordingly) I look on the whole work as almost entirely a work of invention. The foundation, I suppose, was a matter of fact. All ancient history appears to confirm it. It was an event of importance, or, as Aristotle speaks, it was an action of magnitude. The principal names of persons, I presume, and probably their characters, were historical or traditional. The principal names of places were settled points in later geography, and are confirmed by modern and local examination. But all the rest, the interventions and actions and speeches of the gods, and the speeches and particular actions of the heroes, which make up the great body of the work, must necessarily have been creations of the poet's imagination. The siege and fall of Troy are the simple facts; though the poem does not reach the fall, but only implies it as a necessary consequence. The grave Thucydides speaks of the event as a point of history, without any doubt or question; and he even admits the number of the besiegers, above one hundred thousand, as not overrated. But the wrath of Achilles, I think, enters i...