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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2009
It is difficult to prove the Unitarian view of a single author of the Iliad. The old-fashioned Unitarian scholars of this country, who paid little attention to analytical scholarship, had no doubts. They would just assume one poet; and all the extraordinary qualities of the Iliad could be discussed as the achievement of Homer. But simultaneously, in Germany, even more intelligent scholars were carving up the Iliad, arguing from inconsistencies in the story, or linguistic oddities, that what we have is the work of two or more poets, separated in time. Against this, the Unitarians suddenly seem rather simple-minded, as if they were arguing subjectively, avoiding the difficult questions, saying in effect, ‘I like it, and I wish it to have been the work of a single poet, and therefore it was’. My title may therefore cause a slight sinking of the heart. Am I going to say how wonderful Homer is, and give a list of the features that I think unbelievably brilliant, arguing from them that here we have the work of a single mind? The answer is no. I hope to present a more reasoned argument, based on certain features of the content and structure of the poem.
1. See CQ 14 (1964), 141–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2. See also important distinctions made by Benedetto, V. di, ‘Nel laboratorio di Omero’,RFIC 114 (1986), 257–85 and 385–410Google Scholar; Griffin, Jasper, ‘Words and Speakers in Homer’, JHS 106 (1986), 36–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Richardson, N. J., ‘The Individuality of Homer's Language’ in Homer: Beyond Oral Poetry (Amsterdam, 1987), pp. 165–84Google Scholar.
3. 15.521–2; cf. Virgil, Am. 2.319.
4. The other is Hyperenor: 14.516, 17.24.
5. Lohmann, , op. cit. (p. 1)Google Scholar, pp. 30–33, 119–20.
6. On the Polydamas speeches, see also Bannert, Herbert, Formen des Wiederholens bei Homer (Vienna, 1988), pp. 71–81Google Scholar.
7. I think for example of the theme ‘three times …, but when for a fourth time …’,', on which see Bannert, ibid., pp. 40–57.
8. On these, see particularly Petersmann, G., ‘Die Entscheidungsmonologe in den Homerischen Epen’, Grazer Beiträge 2 (1974), 147–69Google Scholar.
9. These two great figures compete in the wrestling in the Games of Book 23, and Odysseus is ahead on points when the bout is stopped.