DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70030#0149
HOMER.
We have but little to offer respecting the genius of a
man who has furnished matter for so many dissertations,
and so many volumes. All that appears certain is, that
one of the oldest poets is still esteemed the most dignified
and the most admirable. Epic poetry is the most diffi-
cult production of the human mind, and the Iliad is the
finest of epic poems.
We are ignorant of the epoch, or the place, which
gave birth to Homer; it is only presumed that he lived
a little time after the siege of Troy, and that he then
became informed of the principal occurrences of the
warriors who there distinguished themselves, This
has given him an advantage over those who simply
delineate the exploits and the character of heroes, of
which the recollection is only preserved by feeble tra-
dition. The conception of the Iliad indicates an ima-
gination, lively, fertile, and comprehensive; the delinea-
tion of the characters, and their various achievements,
discovers an observer replete with genius; and the fictions,
which embellish the poem, are the happy efforts of an
imagination as rich as it is brilliant. Certain critics,
without due reflection, have reproached him for the
coarseness of the manner in which he describes the aspe-
rity and the savage rudeness of his heroes. Are they de-
sirous that he should have given to the companions of
Achilles, of Agamemnon, and of Ulysses, the language
of the courtiers of Louis XIV. ?
We have but little to offer respecting the genius of a
man who has furnished matter for so many dissertations,
and so many volumes. All that appears certain is, that
one of the oldest poets is still esteemed the most dignified
and the most admirable. Epic poetry is the most diffi-
cult production of the human mind, and the Iliad is the
finest of epic poems.
We are ignorant of the epoch, or the place, which
gave birth to Homer; it is only presumed that he lived
a little time after the siege of Troy, and that he then
became informed of the principal occurrences of the
warriors who there distinguished themselves, This
has given him an advantage over those who simply
delineate the exploits and the character of heroes, of
which the recollection is only preserved by feeble tra-
dition. The conception of the Iliad indicates an ima-
gination, lively, fertile, and comprehensive; the delinea-
tion of the characters, and their various achievements,
discovers an observer replete with genius; and the fictions,
which embellish the poem, are the happy efforts of an
imagination as rich as it is brilliant. Certain critics,
without due reflection, have reproached him for the
coarseness of the manner in which he describes the aspe-
rity and the savage rudeness of his heroes. Are they de-
sirous that he should have given to the companions of
Achilles, of Agamemnon, and of Ulysses, the language
of the courtiers of Louis XIV. ?