{"product_id":"2940012444684","title":"HESIOD, THE HOMERIC HYMNS, AND HOMERICA","description":"INTRODUCTION\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGeneral\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe early Greek epic--that is, poetry as a natural and popular, and not\u003cbr\u003e(as it became later) an artificial and academic literary form--passed\u003cbr\u003ethrough the usual three phases, of development, of maturity, and of\u003cbr\u003edecline.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo fragments which can be identified as belonging to the first period\u003cbr\u003esurvive to give us even a general idea of the history of the earliest\u003cbr\u003eepic, and we are therefore thrown back upon the evidence of analogy\u003cbr\u003efrom other forms of literature and of inference from the two great\u003cbr\u003eepics which have come down to us. So reconstructed, the earliest period\u003cbr\u003eappears to us as a time of slow development in which the characteristic\u003cbr\u003eepic metre, diction, and structure grew up slowly from crude elements\u003cbr\u003eand were improved until the verge of maturity was reached.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe second period, which produced the \"Iliad\" and the \"Odyssey\", needs\u003cbr\u003eno description here: but it is very important to observe the effect\u003cbr\u003eof these poems on the course of post-Homeric epic. As the supreme\u003cbr\u003eperfection and universality of the \"Iliad\" and the \"Odyssey\" cast into\u003cbr\u003eoblivion whatever pre-Homeric poets had essayed, so these same qualities\u003cbr\u003eexercised a paralysing influence over the successors of Homer. If they\u003cbr\u003econtinued to sing like their great predecessor of romantic themes, they\u003cbr\u003ewere drawn as by a kind of magnetic attraction into the Homeric style\u003cbr\u003eand manner of treatment, and became mere echoes of the Homeric voice: in\u003cbr\u003ea word, Homer had so completely exhausted the epic genre, that after him\u003cbr\u003efurther efforts were doomed to be merely conventional. Only the rare\u003cbr\u003eand exceptional genius of Vergil and Milton could use the Homeric medium\u003cbr\u003ewithout loss of individuality: and this quality none of the later epic\u003cbr\u003epoets seem to have possessed. Freedom from the domination of the great\u003cbr\u003etradition could only be found by seeking new subjects, and such freedom\u003cbr\u003ewas really only illusionary, since romantic subjects alone are suitable\u003cbr\u003efor epic treatment.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn its third period, therefore, epic poetry shows two divergent\u003cbr\u003etendencies. In Ionia and the islands the epic poets followed the Homeric\u003cbr\u003etradition, singing of romantic subjects in the now stereotyped heroic\u003cbr\u003estyle, and showing originality only in their choice of legends hitherto\u003cbr\u003eneglected or summarily and imperfectly treated. In continental Greece\u003cbr\u003e[1101], on the other hand, but especially in Boeotia, a new form of\u003cbr\u003eepic sprang up, which for the romance and PATHOS of the Ionian School\u003cbr\u003esubstituted the practical and matter-of-fact. It dealt in moral and\u003cbr\u003epractical maxims, in information on technical subjects which are\u003cbr\u003eof service in daily life--agriculture, astronomy, augury, and the\u003cbr\u003ecalendar--in matters of religion and in tracing the genealogies of men.\u003cbr\u003eIts attitude is summed up in the words of the Muses to the writer of the\u003cbr\u003e\"Theogony\": `We can tell many a feigned tale to look like truth, but we\u003cbr\u003ecan, when we will, utter the truth' (\"Theogony\" 26-27). Such a poetry\u003cbr\u003ecould not be permanently successful, because the subjects of which it\u003cbr\u003etreats--if susceptible of poetic treatment at all--were certainly not\u003cbr\u003esuited for epic treatment, where unity of action which will sustain\u003cbr\u003einterest, and to which each part should contribute, is absolutely\u003cbr\u003enecessary. While, therefore, an epic like the \"Odyssey\" is an organism\u003cbr\u003eand dramatic in structure, a work such as the \"Theogony\" is a merely\u003cbr\u003eartificial collocation of facts, and, at best, a pageant. It is not\u003cbr\u003esurprising, therefore, to find that from the first the Boeotian school\u003cbr\u003eis forced to season its matter with romantic episodes, and that later\u003cbr\u003eit tends more and more to revert (as in the \"Shield of Heracles\") to the\u003cbr\u003eHomeric tradition.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Boeotian School\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow did the continental school of epic poetry arise? There is little\u003cbr\u003edefinite material for an answer to this question, but the probability is\u003cbr\u003ethat there were at least three contributory causes. First, it is likely\u003cbr\u003ethat before the rise of the Ionian epos there existed in Boeotia a\u003cbr\u003epurely popular and indigenous poetry of a crude form: it comprised,\u003cbr\u003ewe may suppose, versified proverbs and precepts relating to life in\u003cbr\u003egeneral, agricultural maxims, weather-lore, and the like. In this sense\u003cbr\u003ethe Boeotian poetry may be taken to have its germ in maxims similar to\u003cbr\u003eour English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     'Till May be out, ne'er cast a clout,'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eor\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     'A rainbow in the morning\u003cbr\u003e     Is the Shepherd's warning.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSecondly and thirdly we may ascribe the rise of the new epic to the\u003cbr\u003enature of the Boeotian people and, as already remarked, to a spirit of\u003cbr\u003erevolt against the old epic.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47073459142896,"sku":"2940012444684","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012444684_p0.jpg?v=1763568770","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012444684","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}