It is to this latter school that we must attribute
the representation of the Homeric poems as the expression of that
mysterious impulse.
All these schools of thought start from the assumption that the problem
of the present form of these epics can be solved from the standpoint of
an aesthetic judgment--but we must await the decision as to the
authorised line of demarcation between the man of genius and the
poetical soul of the people. Are there characteristic differences
between the utterances of the _man of genius_ and the _poetical soul of
the people_?
This whole contrast, however, is unjust and misleading. There is no
more dangerous assumption in modern aesthetics than that of _popular
poetry_ and _individual poetry_, or, as it is usually called, _artistic
poetry_. This is the reaction, or, if you will, the superstition, which
followed upon the most momentous discovery of historico-philological
science, the discovery and appreciation of the _soul of the people_. For
this discovery prepared the way for a coming scientific view of history,
which was until then, and in many respects is even now, a mere
collection of materials, with the prospect that new materials would
continue to be added, and that the huge, overflowing pile would never be
systematically arranged.
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