Homer

trivia

Ancient Greek Thought

Simpsons

is an author who not having read is like not having seen the ocean: there is a great object of which he has no idea.

A man who has not read Homer is like a man who has not seen the ocean. There is a great object of which he has no idea.

is pre-eminent among poets, for he alone combined dramatic form with excellence of imitation, so he too first laid down the main lines of comedy, by dramatizing the ludicrous instead of writing personal satire.

As, in the serious style, Homer is pre-eminent among poets, for he alone combined dramatic form with excellence of imitation, so he too first laid down the main lines of comedy, by dramatizing the ludicrous instead of writing personal satire. His Margites bears the same relation to comedy that the Iliad and Odyssey do to tragedy.

is the poet who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skilfully.

It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skilfully.

is eminently rapid, eminently plain, eminently direct (in his syntax and in his words), and eminently noble.

The translator of Homer should above all be penetrated by a sense of four qualities of his author:—that he is eminently rapid; that he is eminently plain and direct both in the evolution of his thought and in the expression of it, that is, both in his syntax and in his words; that he is eminently plain and direct in the substance of his thought, that is, in his matter and ideas; and, finally, that he is eminently noble.

is the most simple in his style of all the great poets, and resembles most the style of the poetical parts of the Old Testament.

Homer is the most simple in his style of all the great poets, and resembles most the style of the poetical parts of the Old Testament. They can have no conception of his manner, who are acquainted with him in Mr. Pope's translation only. An excellent poetical performance that translation is, and faithful in the main to the original. In some places, it may be thought to have even improved Homer. It has certainly softened some of his rudenesses, and added delicacy and grace to some of his sentiments. But withal, it is no other than Homer modernised. In the midst of the elegance and luxuriancy of Mr. Pope's language, we lose sight of the old bard's simplicity. I know indeed no author, to whom it is more difficult to do justice in a translation, than Homer.

is a poet who poems were writ from a free fury, an absolute and full soul.

Homer's poems were writ from a free fury, an absolute and full soul; Virgil's out of a courtly, laborious, and altogether imitatory spirit: not a simile he hath but is Homer's; not an invention, person, or disposition but is wholly or originally built upon Homerical foundations, and in many places hath the very words Homer useth; ... all Homer's books are such as have been precedents ever since of all sorts of poems; imitating none, nor ever worthily imitated of any.

is the first and best of all books extant in all kinds.

Of all books extant in all kinds, Homer is the first and best.

is an observer who was always making the most unexpected observations, and painting things that were not only unpainted till then but, apparently, unseen by anyone else.

Being such an observer he was always making the most unexpected observations, and painting things that were not only unpainted till then but, apparently, unseen by anyone else.

Homer, n.Trivia

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Homer