The World of Homer

Extract

In the Iliad the constitutional order of the Achaean army still functions. Nevertheless, the strain under which it works, as well as the critical situation in which the fateful decision for battle is taken, are symptoms of a general malaise; and they forebode disaster. A clearer view of this state of disease and doom, however, is today hampered by a haze of misconceptions. We have not yet overcome the eighteenth century conceits of the early, “naive” poetry of Homer, of the voice of nature and the “dewey freshness” that characterizes the youth of a people; and the fact that Homer became the educator of Hellas still inspires the idea that in his work we see Hellenic culture dawning. Hence, at the risk of becoming repetitious, it must be pointed out that Hellenic culture was a Greek recovery after a darkness of catastrophic intensity, that Homer was a pre-Hellenic poet and thinker, that in his work we savor the last ripeness of a dying civilization, and that he could become the educator of Hellas because under the raw and primitive conditions of its growth this Hellas was in dire need of guidance by an old, experienced and subtle educator. The well-diagnosed freshness of Homer is the freshness of the great observer, thinker and imaginative artist; it is not the freshness of the culture which he describes. In this respect one might compare Homer with Plato. It would be a grievous error to draw from the greatness of Plato conclusions with regard to the health of Athenian political culture. The work of Homer, like Plato's, rather distilled the quintessence of a fading grandeur and thus preserved it for transmission to posterity.