(_Continued from_ Vol. v., p. 100.)
_The Wolfian Theory._
The most important consideration concerning Homer is the hypothesis of
Wolf, which has been contested so hotly; but before entering on the
consideration of this revolution, as it may be called, I shall lay
before your readers the following quotation from the introduction of
Fauriel to the old Provençal poem, "Histoire de la Croisade contre les
Albigeois," in the _Collection des Documens Inédits sur l'Histoire de
France_. He observes:--
"The romances collectively designated by the title of
Carlovingian, are, it would seem, the most ancient of all in the
Provençal literature. They were not, originally, more than very
short and simple poems, popular songs destined to be recited with
more or less musical intonation, and susceptible, consequently on
their shortness, of preservation without the aid of writing, and
simply by oral tradition among the _jongleurs_, whose profession
it was to sing them. Almost insensibly these songs developed
themselves, and assumed a complex character; they attained a fixed
length, and their re-composition required more invention and more
design. In another point of view, they had increased in number in
the same ratio as they had acquired greater extent and complexity;
and things naturally attained such a position, that it became
impossible to chant them from beginning to end by the aid of
memory alone, nor could they be preserved any longer without the
assistance of a written medium. They might be still occasionally
sung in detached portions; but there exists scarcely a doubt, that
from that period they began to be read; and it was only necessary
to read them, in order to seize and appreciate their contents."[1]
[Footnote 1: P. xxx., quoted in Thirlwall's _History of Greece_
(Appendix I.), vol. i. p. 506., where it is given in French.]
These remarks, though applied to another literature, contain the
essentials of the theory developed by Wolf in regard to Homer. Before
the time of Wolf, the popularly accepted opinion on this subject was as
follows: That Homer, a poet of ancient date, wrote the _Iliad_ and
_Odyssea_ in their present form; and that the rhapsodists having
corrupted and interpolated the poems, Peisistratos, and Hipparchos, his
son, corrected, revised, and restored these poems to their original
condition.
Such was the general opinion, when at the end of the seventeenth century
doubts began to be thrown upon it, and the question began to be placed
in a new light. The critics of the time were Casaubon, Perizon, Bentley,
Hédelin, and Perrault, who, more or less, rejected the established
opinion. Giambattista Vico made the first attempt to embody their
speculations into one methodical work. His _Principi di Scienza nuova_
contain the germ of the theory reproduced by Wolf with so much
scholarship. Wolf, founding his theory on the investigations of Vico and
Wood, extended or modified their views, and assumed that the poems were
never written down at all until the time of Peisistratos, their
arranger. In 1778, the famous Venetian Scholia were discovered by
Villoison, throwing open to the world the investigations of the
Alexandrian critics; and by showing what the ideas of the Chorizontes
were (on whom it were madness to write after Mure), strengthening the
views of Wolf. In 1795, then, were published his famous _Prolegomena_,
containing the theory--
"That the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ were not two complete poems, but
small, separate, independent epic songs, celebrating single
exploits of the heroes; and that these lays were, _for the first
time_, written down and united as the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ by
Peisistratus, tyrant of Athens."[2]
[Footnote 2: Smith, ii. p. 501.]
The former critics (Hédelin and Perrault) had been overruled, derided,
and quashed by the force of public opinion; but Wolf brought so many
arguments to support his views,--collected so formidable a mass of
authorities, both traditional, internal, and written, that the classical
world was obliged to meet him with fresh arguments, as ridicule would
not again succeed. Thus arose the formidable Wolfian controversy, which
"scotched," though not "killed," the belief of the critical world in
Homer. The principal arguments he adduces are from the poems themselves,
in his attempt to establish the non-being of writing at the time of
their composition.
Thus, in the _Odyssea_,[3] a master of a vessel has to remember his
cargo, not having a list of his goods; in the _Iliad_,[4] Bellerophon
carries a folded tablet containing writing or signs to Prætos in Lycia.
This Wolf interprets to signify conventional marks, like the picture
writing of the otherwise civilised Mexicans.[5] Again, in the _Iliad_
(VII. 175.), the chiefs are represented as throwing lots in a helmet,
and the herald afterwards handing the lots round for recognition, as
each of the lots bore a mark known only to the person who made it. From
this Wolf argues that writing was unknown at the time, or the herald
would have immediately read the names aloud. But do we not even now make
use of such marks without confounding them with writing? This is nothing
at all; and it must be remembered, firstly, that this does not apply to
the Homeric time, but to the period of Troy; secondly, that if it had
applied to that time, it would be absurd to expect from illiterate
warrior chiefs, education superior to the mediæval crusaders, their
counterparts at a later period of the world's progress. These are the
principal arguments that Wolf adduces to prove the non-existence of
writing at the Homeric period; whereas, far from proving anything, they
are self-contradictory and incorrect.
[Footnote 3: Lib. viii. 163.]
[Footnote 4: Lib. vi. 168.]
[Footnote 5: See Mure, vol. iii., Appendix L., p. 507. foll.; and
Appendix M. vol. iii. p. 512. foll.; and see chap. vii. book III.
vol. iii. p. 397. _passim_.]
To prove that the Peisistratidæ first wrote down the poems of Homer, he
cites Josephus (Orat. contr. Apion., I. 2.), who observes that--
"No writing, the authenticity of which is acknowledged, is found
among the Greeks earlier than the poetry of Homer; and, _it is
said_, that even he did not commit his works to writing, but that,
having been preserved in the memory of men, the songs were
afterwards connected."
Josephus had merely heard this reported, as is evident from his use of
the words "it is said." Pausanias, in the _Tour in Greece_ (vii. 26.
6.), has the following observation:--
"A village called Donussa, between Ægira and Pellene, belonging to
the Sicyonians, was destroyed by that people. Homer, _say they_,
remembered this town in his epic, in the enumeration of the people
of Agamemnon, 'Hyperesia then, and Donoessa, rocky town' (Ιλ.
β. 573.); but when Peisistratos collected the torn and widely
scattered songs of Homer, either he himself, or one of his
friends, altered the name through ignorance."
Wolf also makes use of this report, liable to the same objections as the
above, as one of his proofs. It is even doubtful whether Peisistratos
did edit Homer at all; but, under any circumstances, it was not the
first edition;[6] for is not Solon represented as the reviser of the
Homeric poems?
[Footnote 6: Granville Penn, _On the primary Arrangement of the
Iliad_; and Appendix B to Mure, vol. i.]
Cicero (_de Oratore_, III. 34.) says:
"Who is _traditionally_ reported to have had more learning at that
time, or whose eloquence received greater ornaments from polite
literature than that of Peisistratos? who _is said to have been_
the first that arranged the books of Homer, from their confused
state, into that order in which we at present enjoy them."
This also is produced as a proof by Wolf, though, for the same reason,
it is doubtful. But see Wolf's principal inaccuracies ably enumerated
and exposed by Clinton (_F.H._, i. p. 370.).
Such is the far-famed theory of Wolf, which, as most modern scholars
agree, is only calculated "to conduct us to most preposterous
conclusions."[7] And this last dictum of Othello's, Mr. Editor, reminds
me, that here it would not be preposterous to come to a conclusion for
the present, and to close my observations in another paper, where I
shall a theory "unfold," which, after the most patient consideration and
reconsideration, I am inclined to think the most approximative to the
truth.
[Footnote 7: _Othello_, Act I. Sc. 3.]