Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Odyssey of Homer, Vol. 1: Edited With Marginal References, Various Readings, Notes and Appendices; Books I to Vi
X. I -bould imagine that the danger. To which a poet so composing would be liable. Would be that of having a powerful grasp on the part of the poem immediately before his mind, but retaining a comparatively feeble hold on the entire work: that, the rigid safeguard of the letter being wanting, he would be merely guided bv a sense of the pervading spirit of his song: that, if be re cited perpetuallv his own work, it would be morally im possible for him to check the pullulation of fancy, so as to retain identity of phrase. Indeed should he? 'vould not novelty have a charm alike for his audience and himself? I should expect then that he would modify and recast, and judge of the relative effects of this or that version on his audience; and that, crossing and diverging lines of thought being thus generated, he might some times be at a loss to decipher accuratelv the mental pa limpsest. If there be any approximation to truth in this conjecture, why may not some variants be alike genuine? Nor do I like to attempt to draw the line, as to what magnitude of discrepancies, in a poem seldom if ever recited save in portions, should be deemed to overstrain this licence which I have claimed. Mr. Grete's allega tions as regards the Iliad might, I think, were that my present business, be largely answered on this principle. He thinks he detects in it an Achillets recast into an Iliad. I think we may admit all the variations in detail which he urges without inferring such a change of de sign. Such a view, I think, arises from the assumed ana logy of a written poem.
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