Homer and His Age

Homer and His Age

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Title: Homer and His Age
Author: Andrew Lang
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HOMER AND HIS AGE
BY
ANDREW LANG
[Illustration: ALGONQUINS UNDER SHIELD Frontispiece]
To R. W. RAPER IN ALL GRATITUDE

PREFACE
In Homer and the Epic, ten or twelve years ago, I examined the literary
objections to Homeric unity. These objections are chiefly based on
alleged discrepancies in the narrative, of which no one poet, it is

supposed, could have been guilty. The critics repose, I venture to think,
mainly on a fallacy. We may style it the fallacy of "the analytical
reader." The poet is expected to satisfy a minutely critical reader, a
personage whom he could not foresee, and whom he did not address.
Nor are "contradictory instances" examined--that is, as Blass has
recently reminded his countrymen, Homer is put to a test which Goethe
could not endure. No long fictitious narrative can satisfy "the analytical
reader."
The fallacy is that of disregarding the Homeric poet's audience. He did
not sing for Aristotle or for Aristarchus, or for modern minute and
reflective inquirers, but for warriors and ladies. He certainly satisfied
them; but if he does not satisfy microscopic professors, he is described
as a syndicate of many minstrels, living in many ages.
In the present volume little is said in defence of the poet's consistency.
Several chapters on that point have been excised. The way of living
which Homer describes is examined, and an effort is made to prove that
he depicts the life of a single brief age of culture. The investigation is
compelled to a tedious minuteness, because the points of attack--the
alleged discrepancies in descriptions of the various details of
existence--are so minute as to be all but invisible.
The unity of the Epics is not so important a topic as the methods of
criticism. They ought to be sober, logical, and self- consistent. When
these qualities are absent, Homeric criticism may be described, in the
recent words of Blass, as "a swamp haunted by wandering fires, will o'
the wisps."
In our country many of the most eminent scholars are no believers in
separatist criticism. Justly admiring the industry and erudition of the
separatists, they are unmoved by their arguments, to which they do not
reply, being convinced in their own minds. But the number and
perseverance of the separatists make on "the general reader" the
impression that Homeric unity is chose jugée, that scientia locuta est,
and has condemned Homer. This is far from being the case: the
question is still open; "science" herself is subject to criticism; and new
materials, accruing yearly, forbid a tame acquiescence in hasty theories.

May I say a word to the lovers of poetry who, in reading Homer, feel
no more doubt than in reading Milton that, on the whole, they are
studying a work of one age, by one author? Do not let them be driven
from their natural impression by the statement that Science has decided
against them. The certainties of the exact sciences are one thing: the
opinions of