Word: spirit
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Dates: during 1900-1909
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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...
Generation after generation of poets steeped itself in this Epic spirit and each gave itself up to the tradition of its predecessors. No one dreamed of vying with Homer, but only of serving and exalting him. After all these various traditions had been handed down, it probably fell to the lot of some great poet to combine them into one great work. In reading this work we must overlook the inconsistencies, and regard it in a spirit of sympathetic imagination, for behind it is an intensity of imagination, not merely of one great poet, but the accumulated emotion of generations
...interesting to trace the various evidences of expurgation as we have them in the "Iliad," to show the spirit of the Homeric Age. All indications prove that the "Iliad" was considerably expurgated, whereas the "Odyssey" underwent a less stringent process of revision. Although all the early myths point to many barbarous practices among the ancient Greeks, we see slight traces of them in the "Iliad." The poem is practically free from pictures of human sacrifice or torture, whereas in the "Odyssey" we have one situation very nearly approaching torture...
...spirit of the "Iliad" is not savage, but essentially chivalrous. The spirit in which it is written is too human to permit torture and practically the only instance we have of human sacrifice is when Achilles slays the twelve Trojan youths over the body of Hector. This, however, is passed over hurriedly, and Achilles still remains a noble hero, and the "Iliad" the book of heroes...
...LECTURES ON GREEK POETRY. IV. "The Homeric Spirit and its growth in the Traditional Book." Professor Gilbert Murray, of Glasgow. Lecture Room of the Fogg Museum...