Homer and Classical Philology
Homer and Classical Philology
Inaugural Address delivered at Bâle University, 28th of May 1869
Edited by Oscar Levy. Translated by J.M. Kennedy
Book Excerpt
yond Herodotus there lies a period in which an immense flood of great epics has been identified with the name of Homer.
Let us imagine ourselves as living in the time of Pisistratus: the word "Homer" then comprehended an abundance of dissimilarities. What was meant by "Homer" at that time? It is evident that that generation found itself unable to grasp a personality and the limits of its manifestations. Homer had now become of small consequence. And then we meet with the weighty question: What lies before this period? Has Homer's personality, because it cannot be grasped, gradually faded away into an empty name? Or had all the Homeric poems been gathered together in a body, the nation naively representing itself by the figure of Homer? _Was the person created out of a conception, or the conception out of a person?_ This is the real "Homeric question," the central problem of the personality.
The difficulty of answering this question, however, is increased when we seek a reply in another direction
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