Prolegomena

Summary

ANALYSIS OF THE ILIAD

The reader will find in the Introductions to the several books a detailed analysis of the Iliad, with the grounds for the conclusions arrived at. It is proposed here to summarise these conclusions in a form which will give a general idea of the growth of the poem as conceived by the editor, while avoiding such a minute partition of different epochs as would convey a false impression of confidence in the power of critical analysis to assign every line to its own definite epoch. It is enough if we can indicate the stages at which new episodes, or imitations of older ones, were introduced into the ever-growing epos, without concerning ourselves about the transitional passages composed only to adapt them to a narrative whose continuity was often only the result of a conscious literary recension.

Some of these episodes, early as well as late, remained sterile, and have reached us much as they were first composed; others, like the Iliad as a whole, have given birth to a fresh progeny, till the entire poem assumes something of the aspect of a genealogical tree. But in this important respect it differs; that all generations were alive together, and subject to mutual reactions like the parts of a living organism. The ancestors must have been modified by their descendants in a manner which may defy our powers of analysis; and until the final literary redaction had come we cannot feel sure that any details even of the oldest work were secure from the touch of the latest poet.