Homer and Classical Philology | Page 2

loses sight of the unutterable simplicity and noble
dignity of the Hellene; and how no progress in commerce or technical industries,

however brilliant, no school regulations, no political education of the masses, however
widespread and complete, can protect us from the curse of ridiculous and barbaric
offences against good taste, or from annihilation by the Gorgon head of the classicist.
Whilst philology as a whole is looked on with jealous eyes by these two classes of
opponents, there are numerous and varied hostilities in other directions of philology;
philologists themselves are quarrelling with one another; internal dissensions are caused
by useless disputes about precedence and mutual jealousies, but especially by the
differences--even enmities--comprised in the name of philology, which are not, however,
by any means naturally harmonised instincts.
Science has this in common with art, that the most ordinary, everyday thing appears to it
as something entirely new and attractive, as if metamorphosed by witchcraft and now
seen for the first time. Life is worth living, says art, the beautiful temptress; life is worth
knowing, says science. With this contrast the so heartrending and dogmatic tradition
follows in a theory, and consequently in the practice of classical philology derived from
this theory. We may consider antiquity from a scientific point of view; we may try to
look at what has happened with the eye of a historian, or to arrange and compare the
linguistic forms of ancient masterpieces, to bring them at all events under a
morphological law; but we always lose the wonderful creative force, the real fragrance,
of the atmosphere of antiquity; we forget that passionate emotion which instinctively
drove our meditation and enjoyment back to the Greeks. From this point onwards we
must take notice of a clearly determined and very surprising antagonism which philology
has great cause to regret. From the circles upon whose help we must place the most
implicit reliance--the artistic friends of antiquity, the warm supporters of Hellenic beauty
and noble simplicity--we hear harsh voices crying out that it is precisely the philologists
themselves who are the real opponents and destroyers of the ideals of antiquity. Schiller
upbraided the philologists with having scattered Homer's laurel crown to the winds. It
was none other than Goethe who, in early life a supporter of Wolf's theories regarding
Homer, recanted in the verses--
With subtle wit you took away Our former adoration: The Iliad, you may us say, Was
mere conglomeration. Think it not crime in any way: Youth's fervent adoration Leads us
to know the verity, And feel the poet's unity.
The reason of this want of piety and reverence must lie deeper; and many are in doubt as
to whether philologists are lacking in artistic capacity and impressions, so that they are
unable to do justice to the ideal, or whether the spirit of negation has become a
destructive and iconoclastic principle of theirs. When, however, even the friends of
antiquity, possessed of such doubts and hesitations, point to our present classical
philology as something questionable, what influence may we not ascribe to the outbursts
of the "realists" and the claptrap of the heroes of the passing hour? To answer the latter
on this occasion, especially when we consider the nature of the present assembly, would
be highly injudicious; at any rate, if I do not wish to meet with the fate of that sophist
who, when in Sparta, publicly undertook to praise and defend Herakles, when he was
interrupted with the query: "But who then has found fault with him?" I cannot help
thinking, however, that some of these scruples are still sounding in the ears of not a few

in this gathering; for they may still be frequently heard from the lips of noble and
artistically gifted men--as even an upright philologist must feel them, and feel them most
painfully, at moments when his spirits are downcast. For the single individual there is no
deliverance from the dissensions referred to; but what we contend and inscribe on our
banner is the fact that classical philology, as a whole, has nothing whatsoever to do with
the quarrels and bickerings of its individual disciples. The entire scientific and artistic
movement of this peculiar centaur is bent, though with cyclopic slowness, upon bridging
over the gulf between the ideal antiquity--which is perhaps only the magnificent
blossoming of the Teutonic longing for the south--and the real antiquity; and thus
classical philology pursues only the final end of its own being, which is the fusing
together of primarily hostile impulses that have only forcibly been brought together. Let
us talk as we will about the unattainability of this goal, and even designate the goal itself
as an illogical pretension--the aspiration for it is very real; and I should like to try to
make it clear by an example that