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CHAPTER III.
GERMAN CRITICISM ON HOMER.
FOR many centuries the Homeric question lay in abey-
ance. Read by scholars, the great poet during the mid-
dle ages was untouched by the shafts of criticism, and
was only mentioned by occasional allusion
or eulogistic comment. So implicitly was
his identity believed, so universally were
the events of the Trojan war accepted as
genuine, so uncritical, in a word, was public opinion on
this question, that, in 1711 we find so acute and learned
a writer as Addison expressing himself in the following
language in a critical paper on the Ballad
of Chevy Chase: "The greatest modern
critics have laid it down as a rule, that an
heroic poem should be founded upon some important
precept of morality adapted to the constitution of the
country in which the poet writes. Homer and Virgil
have formed their plans in this view. As Greece was a
collection of many governments, who suffered very
much among themselves, and gave the Persian emperor,
who was their common enemy, many advantages over
them by their mutual jealousies and animosities, Homer,
in order to establish among them an union, which was
so necessary for their safety, grounds this poem upon the
discords of several Grecian princes, who were engaged
in a confederacy against an Asiatic prince, and the
several advantages which the enemy gained by their
discords." *

Addison's
opinion of
Homer.

State of the
Homeric
question until
the 18th
century.

____________________
* Spectator, No. 70.

-128-

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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: 128.
    
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