REACTION IN FAVOR OF THE UNITY

7

in like manner, was first a Wolfian; but after twenty years of study he reversed his judgment and became a zealous advocate of the unity.

Gladstone also defends the Homeric authorship, and brings to the defense what the learned Germans so often lack a statesmanlike common sense. The latest contribution to the discussion is the article of Monro in the last edition of the "Encyclopædia Britannica," and this too holds to the unity of each poem, though the writer regards the "Odyssey" as composed by a different and later author than the “ Iliad.” So the combatants are as to numbers pretty evenly balanced, while genius and learning, though at one time they seemed mainly to favor the theory of disintegration, are of late more and more arraying themselves on the side of the traditional view that both poems are substantially by the same author and that this author is Homer.

But it is desirable that we should look into the matter for ourselves. Let us briefly review the critical theory, and in reviewing it let us reverse the common order of discussion. I ask the reader to adjourn for a little the question whether the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" are each a unity, and, granting this for the sake of the argument, I ask him first to consider with me whether these two are works of the same author. There is abundant evidence, as it seems to me, why this latter question should be answered in the affirmative: the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" are by the same hand. argue this mainly upon the ground that the two poems exhibit a similarity of structure impossible to explain in any other way, especially when we take into account the fact that this peculiar structure is found only here

in all classic literature, and that it is at the same time characteristic of the highest genius.

Jevons, in his admirable "History of Greek Literature," has pointed out that Homer's method of "painting in his background" is entirely unique yet incomparably artistic. The test of a poet's ability is his method of putting his hearer or reader in possession of the preliminary facts needful to the understanding of the action. There are three ways of doing this. Euripides is an illustration of the first one of his characters appears upon the stage and describes the situation before the play opens; but this method forewarns the hearer or reader that the play is not reality, whereas the poet's object is so to absorb his audience that they will for the hour regard the performance not as illusion but as real life. Virgil gives us an instance of the second method the hero of the "Eneid" relates the preceding history to Dido; but here the speaker is too evidently talking not so much to Dido as to the reader, and so again the illusion is dispelled. The third method is that of constructing scenes necessary to the development of the plot, and yet, in the midst of the forward movement, making these very scenes explain what is behind. This is reality; this is the highest art; and this is the method of Homer.

Observe how all that is presupposed in the action of the "Iliad" is disclosed by the plot itself. The action lasts only some forty or fifty days. But these forty or fifty days have been preceded by nine long years of siege, during which the Greeks have shut up their enemy in Troy and have occupied themselves in ravaging the surrounding country. Some knowledge of all

PAINTING IN THE BACKGROUND

9

this must be communicated, but only incidentally. The poem begins with the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon. It is the father of Briseis, the subject of the quarrel, from whom we learn that these chiefs. are beleaguering Troy. Why, we learn from Achilles, when he says that it is for no advantage of his own, but to gain recompense for Menelaus and Agamemnon. How long the siege has continued, we learn from Agamemnon, when he tests the spirit of his men after the defection of Achilles. Just before the first engagement, Hector upbraids Paris with the remark: "Thou mayst see what sort of a warrior he is whose lovely wife thou hast." Paris is vanquished and flees to his misThen first the guilty cause of the Trojan war appears in the person of Helen.

tress.

In precisely similar manner does the author of the "Odyssey" paint in the background of his story. The first four books are called the Telemacheia, and they depict the state of things which precedes the action of the poem. Telemachus, the youthful son of Odysseus, is set before us as suffering continual wrong. The insolence of the suitors for the hand of his mother is shown by bringing in Athene, a candid judge, in the guise of a stranger. Hoping to win the mother, the suitors even plot the death of the son. Thus, at the beginning, the long distress of twenty years is unfolded before us, yet all by way of incident and as a part of the plot itself. The news about Odysseus, vague at first, becomes more definite, till it stops just where the real action of the "Odyssey" begins. When Telemachus has set sail for Pylos the preparations are complete, and we enter upon the narrative of Odysseus' wanderings and of his return.

Now I submit that this similarity of structure goes far to prove the two poems the work of one author. Here are intuitive discernment of a law of literary composition and successful working in accordance with it which evince the highest genius. That two great poets should have arisen simultaneously in that early age, and that both should have constructed their poems so completely in accordance with this law of the human mind, this law of human thought, that later writers can imitate but never surpass them, this surely is a far greater demand upon our believing faculty than is the hypothesis of one author for them both.

This conviction will be strengthened by considering the development of the plot in the two poems, as we have now considered the preparation for it. We must remember that the epic appeals to wonder, just as the drama does. After the situation is set before us, there must come an entanglement which rouses our curiosity. The more complex the plot, so long as it is not confused, the more difficult the knot, so long as its intricacies can be seen, so much the greater is the interest which is raised in the reader, so much more intense is his demand for the dénouement, the untying, the resolution of the theme. We have seen with what art the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" propose their subjects to us the concrete before the abstract, synthesis before analysis, the problem before the explanation. Do they also show a common genius and follow a common principle in the evolution of their respective plots?

This is

The full answer to this question would require an elaborate statement of the argument of each. obviously impracticable in the present essay.

I must

DEVELOPMENT OF PLOT

I I

content myself with citing a few of the curious correspondences of the two poems. In the "Iliad," Achilles is absent from the end of the first book to the beginning of the eighteenth-so in the "Odyssey," Odysseus is absent most of the time. In both the "Iliad" and the

Odyssey," matters grow from bad to worse. In the "Iliad," the Greeks suffer untold woes, although they have for nine years confined the enemy within the walls of Troy. Achilles' absence now enables the Trojans to drive them behind the rampart they have been forced to build, and even to fire their ships; then Achilles comes forth to avenge Patroclus, the tide of battle turns, and the hero carries death and dismay before him.

So, in the "Odyssey," the servants and suitors grow reckless of duty and fearless of punishment-successive outrages intensifying our indignation-until the manywiled Odysseus, after enduring incomparable toils and dangers, appears upon the scene, proves his might by stringing his ancient bow, and from it rains upon the guilty crew the shafts of a just retribution. In both the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey," the plot leads step by step to a crisis of moral grandeur; in both poems this climax is followed by soothing scenes which relieve the long strain upon the feelings of the reader. We claim that the poems are too much alike in this great matter of structure to have been by different authors. Imitation will not account for the similarity; if it were so, we should have "Iliads" and "Odysseys" in plenty through the after ages. No, this secret of structure is an instinct of genius; it works spontaneously and unconsciously in the great artist; only in later times does philosophic analysis penetrate and name the mystery.