ARTICLE VIII.

CHARACTERISTICS OF HOMERIC POETRY.

BY PROF. JACOB COOPER, RUTGER'S COLLEGE, NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J.

IF we look at the amount of interest which the Homeric poems keep alive in the highest literary culture of this age, we might easily be led to think that they had but just issued from the press, and not from the lips of a rhapsodist who sang nearly three thousand years ago. Indeed, they are so inwrought in our forms of expression and modes of thought that if they were all taken from us our literature would be like a garden from which most of the choice flowers had been plucked, and little left save the withered stems on which they grew.

How shall we account for this prevailing and self-perpetuating influence? It cannot arise from any transient literary excitement, which, like a contagion, sometimes spreads over a country, and then leaves no trace of itself save in the blighted and sickly condition which it has engendered. Nor can it result from the peculiar taste of any nation, or of many peoples having a kindred lineage, since the appreciation of these productions is co-extensive with civilization. Nor is it produced by the spirit of the age, except in so far as this is a part of universal humanity; for these poems are emphatically the hymns of the ages, since all generations subsequent to their first appearance have taken up their refrain. Their popularity, then, must be sought for in the roots of human nature, in the sympathy which they have with all that belongs to cultivated man; for thus only can we account for the hold they have retained upon the race.

There are four distinct periods or ages of Greek poetry, which shall be designated by their representative authors. First, its youth, of which Homer is the all-comprehending exponent.

Second, its manhood, wherein Sophocles is the leader. Third, its green old age, whose representative is Menander. Fourth, its garrulous senility, led by Apollonius Rhodius. It is not by accident that the different periods of Grecian song are named after the ages of man; for nations in their intellectual development are the counterpart of human life. That nations in their progressive civilization do resemble the different periods of life is apparent to many who have never seen the profound speculations of Vico on this subject (in his Scienza Nuova); and this correspondence cannot fail to strike any one who bestows upon it even a cursory reflection.

Of the several periods enumerated, the most interesting by all odds is the Homeric, just as childhood and youth are the most delightful parts of life. Our early days always come before us fraught with truthfulness, simplicity, and freshness. We are always young in imagination when we recur to the sweet days of youth. So Homer, as the exponent of this age of Greek culture, strikes a chord in the heart of every man capable of appreciating him, because he there perceives his own nature drawn by a master's hand. And as early youth is the most precious of all our times of life to revisit in memory, so this poet continues to be the most welcome of all who employed the master-language of earth to portray human thought.

The leading excellence in Homer is, undoubtedly, his sympathy with external nature. By this is meant his tendency to the objective, to the delineation of all that is external in the world and internal in man, as seen by direct vision in contrast to reflection. This sympathy is shown by his distinctness of outline, as well as accuracy of detail, in portraying scenery. In the descriptions of nature, the nearer language comes to painting the more pleasure such word-pictures must give to the reader or hearer; for the infinite variety and freshness which the external world affords is a source of perennial delight. Such pictures never grow old. They never become hackneyed by repetition; because each recurrence of a pleasure is a new creation. Hence the tints of

the rainbow, the unfolding beauties of the flower-bud, or the brightness of rosy-fingered morn are as fresh and pleasing as when the eye of man opened upon them for the first time. If these, then, can be reproduced in language they will charm. as long as the world lasts; and in exact proportion to the ability of the author to recreate them will be his popularity. But he must reproduce them in such a way that the pictures stand out as realities, not as description; so plainly that we see not the man who speaks, or hear his words, but behold the originals in all the glory and beauty of their living reality.

Description of this kind preserves its youth and freshness so long as there is susceptibility to kindred impressions; and this will still be the case "while the races of man succeed each other like the leaves of spring." Nor is this susceptibility confined to those who are young in years merely, but is experienced equally by all those who retain freshness and vividness of feeling, who gracefully round off life by blending the vigor of youthful imagination with the wisdom of age. Such men, like Plato, Bacon, and Gladstone, set off the jewels of knowledge and experience with the casings of brilliant fancy; and the bees which settled upon their lips in the cradle continue to return to them ever freighted with sweets. The descriptions of the Homeric rhapsodies are characterized by this excellence. They picture nature just as she is. The poet is neither seen nor heard. The scene is painted before the eye; and we look on what appears as a reality, not a description. Nor is the case altered when the feelings and pursuits of man as a part of nature are the theme. Here the actors play in character and speak their own pieces. We see them as the plain countryman saw Garrick and Mrs. Pritchard in Macbeth. The tall woman is so completely self-possessed, even when urging the commission of a most bloody deed, that there scarcely seems anything terrible in the murder of the king. But the "little man" is so frightened that we see the rising ghost, and tremble with him.

Homer's heroes are created so true to nature that we

sce neither picture nor screen to hide the picture, but men and women, heroes and gods, living and moving before us. In order to accomplish this result, the poet does not appear to let his images pass through his own mind, and be deflected by the medium; but they take his place, speak and act for him, while he is as much a spectator as they. It has been asserted by Humboldt that the Greeks did not excel in drawing pictures from nature. He says: "Imagination animated vegetable forms with life; but the types of poetry to which the peculiar direction of mental activity amongst the ancient Greeks limited them gave only a partial development to the descriptions of natural scenery." But however deeply read in scientific research, yet this wonderful man showed by this assertion a meagre acquaintance with, or else imperfect appreciation of, Homeric poetry. For if there is any excellence pre-eminent in Homer, it is just this. After much reflection in endeavoring to account for Humboldt's criticism, this is believed to be the cause: Modern descriptions of nature are invariably due for their excellence in great part to the skilful combinations of the writers, rather than to the faithful transcript of the originals. While the pictures retain sufficient outlines of the objective in nature to enable them to be recognized as genuine resemblances, still, they have so much of the subjective that they become the unquestioned property of their painter. They have passed through his mind, have become naturalized during their transit, and so resemble the medium through which they are seen. They are no longer originals, seen through a transparent atmosphere, but colored - beautifully, it may be by the windows of scientific combination through which we view them. In other words, they are meant to be pictures of nature such as Petrarch, Herder, or Southey saw them. Homer, however, spirits us away, and in a moment we see Olympus with its snow-clad summit and its wooded ravines. We stand with him on lda, and hear the roar of the young lions which haunt this "nurse of wild beasts." But when 1 Cosmos, ii. 377, Bohn's edition.

Petrarch takes us to Vaucluse we admire the fountain, and pluck a flower or two; but we all the time hear the chattering of the guide who conducts us, and see him waiting to receive his fee for showing it to us. And when we are invited to see the falls of Lodore, and have admired its splashing and dashing, its rumbling and tumbling," we espy in the mist which the torrent of alliterative words raises the image of Southey; and louder than the cataract's roar is heard the voice: "I am the Poet Laureate." The feeling that an author is trying with all his might to describe something takes away much of our enjoyment in the contemplation of his picture. For we see therein not the reproduction of the scene, but a wearied and struggling author, who either excites our wonder at his acrobatic feats, or else arouses our sympathy for one who makes such painful efforts to please us. To him whose taste is gratified chiefly by skilful arrangement, wherein the intellectual vigor is prominent in combining with external nature to create a mixed picture, doubtless Homer and the other early Greek poets would seem greatly wanting. For among these nothing of artistic coloring appears in the lines wherewith the scene is reproduced. Modern word-pictures are nearly always the result of a purpose which cannot be concealed. The poet, when he comes to a beautiful scene, stops (and we must stop with him), until he takes out his sketch-book, sharpens his pencil, and draws his picture. We look over his shoulder, and are pleased because we see the beauty of the drawing, but still more so through admiration for the skill of the artist. But when he passes on we are conscious that we have to get up with him and go farther. Homer, however, when he comes to a beautiful prospect in nature takes us up gently, and noiselessly places us for a moment on some elevation where the whole scene is taken in at a glance; so that before we are aware of having stopped we see all the beauty he saw, all that was to be seen; and we follow not him, for this poet is never seen, but his heroes as they

go in quest of new adventures.