Word: iliad
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Dates: during 1900-1909
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...reader share his vision. Finally he is content to smile without laughing. Of the "screamingly funny" type, on the contrary, is Mr. Prince's. "In the Days of the Gods," which appears to be a vague and completely bowlderized reminiscence of an episode in the fifteenth book of the Iliad. One's screams, however, are not long prolonged. Of ten august and ancient inspirations, and no happier in itself, is Mr. Storer's "A Chemical Chimaera." It is a weakling hatched beneath the wing of Mr. H. G. Wells. Mr. Roelker's essay on "College Politics" is too rambling...
About the middle of the sixth century, said Mr. Murray, the pressure of the Persian army on the Ionic coast, caused the literary, as well as the military, supremacy to pass from Ionia to Attica, and as a result, the authentic recitation of the Iliad was also transferred. About this time the decay of the epic and the birth of tragedy marked the beginning of a new epoch...
Homer's anthropomorphism caused the gods to dominate the life of the Greeks. Consider, for instance, the supersititious terror about the mutilation of the Hermes, the Eleusinian mysteries, etc. The "Milesian Spirit" in the Iliad is illustrated by the numerous battles between the gods favorable to the Greeks and those favorable to the Trojans, and by the marriage between Zeus and Hera, often called the trickery of Zeus...
Criticism, said Mr. Murray, has to a great extent shattered the former conception that the Iliad was written by one man--Homer. Even if the poet had a name, we know nothing of him. It seems more probable that he was an imaginary ancestor, invented to receive the worship of his admirers. It is at any rate assured that the incomparable poet did not write the whole Iliad, but that it was a work of successive ages, and probably, at the end of a long period of gradual development, fell into the hands of some great poet. Although criticism...
...subject of the Iliad is perhaps considered second rate, as Achilles is not a very sympathetic hero; and were it not for his misery and repentance at the end, most readers would dislike him because of his arrogance and self-conceit. There are in the poem many inconsistencies, such as various descriptions which cannot be thought out, and similes which are not strictly applicable. In examining various instances of these inconsistencies the conclusion seems to be that the high poetic value of the Iliad must be considerably detracted from. We see many of the similes and descriptions taken over ready...