Homer; An Introduction to the Iliad and the Odyssey (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: with a charm so skilful that the illusion is not broken1. Aristotle's remarks on Homer bring out the singularity in the history of Greek poetry, that it begins with masterpieces. He regards Homer as at once the earliest of poets and the most finished of epic artists2. 'I his estimate is subject, indeed, to one qualification. Aristotle apparently regarded the length of the Homeric epics as somewhat too great for the ideal of epic symmetry2. At the outset it is necessary that the reader should have clearly before his mind the general type of structure exhibited by each of the two epics. The subjoined sketch will serve to show this, while in details it will be found convenient for subsequent reference. L 5. The Iliad owes its unity, not to the person of Structure Achilles.but to his wratL His withdrawal from the Greek host leaves Greek heroism more nearly on a level with Trojan, and so admits of the battle-scenes which describe a doubtful war. Hence the framework of the poem is necessarily elastic. As a help to the memory, the story of the Iliad may be 1 Poet. 24 ScSiSaxe St /iaXioro "O/iypos rai Tois aXXois 1jffSeiv ('to feign ') us Sei. Aristotle instances To. tv '06Wim'a 0X0y0 Ta irepi rrv tKffeffiv, ? the account of the landing of Odysseus in Ithaca, ? where the Homeric charm disguises the improbability (Tois (JXXois ayaffofs dipaviei ySvviav To dToirov). 2 After mentioning the several requirements of epic poetry, he says ? ots a.irainv"O/t'rjpos Kt-jip-rjrai Kal irpuTos Ko.i Iko.vw (Poet. 24). 3 Poet. c. 24, with Twining's note (vol. II. p. 33i). The limit of due length for an epic is that it should be possible for us to 'comprehend the beginning and the end in one view.' This means, to read, or hear, the whole epic, without discomfort, in one day, ? as is shown...