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This is delicious for its simplicity, as well as its igno-
rance of the most ordinary facts regarding Homer, as for
example the fact that the latest date assigned to Homer
by the ancients antedates the Greek and Persian wars
by several centuries. But already the men were born
who were to originate a rebellion against Homer and
give rise to a host of critics devoted to the task of
abolishing Homer and the unity of the Iliad, and rele-
gating Troy to phantom land.

Hedelin and Perrault, French scholars of the latter
part of the seventeenth century, ventured
the statement that whether Homer was the
author of the Iliad or not, that poem was an
aggregate composed of a number of loose
lyrical poems, About the same time Bentley. the great
classical critic, said, " Homer wrote a sequel of songs
and rhapsodies to be sung by himself, for small earnings
and good cheer, at festivals and other days of merri-
ment: the Iliad is made for the men, and
the Odyssey for the other sex.
These loose
songs were not collected together in the
form of an epic poem till about 500 years after." The
scholarship of Bentley was of the highest, but like too
many classic scholars, his literary taste was of very little
value; he placed no esteem on Shakespeare, Bacon, or
Milton! True criticism requires a sympathetic capacity
to appreciate the subject criticised no less than philo-
logical attainments. Vico, in 1725, expressed similar
views regarding the Homeric question.

Bentley's
opinion.

Origin of
modern
criticism of
Homer.

The opinions of these critics, especially of Bentley,
seem to have produced no immediate effect; but that
they were ultimately influential after the lapse of genera-
tions was acknowledged by Wolf, who directly mentions
Bentley as the originator of the new theory regarding

-129-

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Publication Information: Book Title: Troy: Its Legend, History and Literature. Contributors: S. G. W. Benjamin - author. Publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1880. Page Number: 129.
    
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