All those deviations, everything dull and below the ordinary standard
which scholars think they perceive in the Homeric poems, were attributed
to tradition, which thus became the scapegoat. What was left of Homer's
own individual work? Nothing but a series of beautiful and prominent
passages chosen in accordance with subjective taste. The sum total of
aesthetic singularity which every individual scholar perceived with his
own artistic gifts, he now called Homer.
This is the central point of the Homeric errors. The name of Homer, from
the very beginning, has no connection either with the conception of
aesthetic perfection or yet with the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_. Homer as
the composer of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ is not a historical
tradition, but an _aesthetic judgment_.
The only path which leads back beyond the time of Pisistratus and helps
us to elucidate the meaning of the name Homer, takes its way on the one
hand through the reports which have reached us concerning Homer's
birthplace: from which we see that, although his name is always
associated with heroic epic poems, he is on the other hand no more
referred to as the composer of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ than as the
author of the _Thebais_ or any other cyclical epic.
Pages:
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34