COMPOSITION AND PLOT OF THE ODYSSEY¹.

The Odyssey is generally supposed to be somewhat the later in date of the two most ancient Greek poems which are concerned with the events and consequences of the Trojan war. As to the actual history of that war, it may be said that nothing is known. We may conjecture² that some contest between peoples of more or less kindred stocks, who occupied the isles³ and the eastern and western shores of the Aegean, left a strong impression on the popular fancy. Round the memories of this contest would gather many older legends, myths, and stories, not peculiarly Greek or even ‘Aryan,’ which previously⁶ floated unattached, or were connected with heroes whose fame was swallowed up by that of a newer generation. It would be the work of minstrels, priests, and poets, as the national spirit grew conscious of itself, to shape all these materials into a definite body of tradition. This is the rule of development — first scattered⁸ stories, then the union of these into a NATIONAL legend. The growth of later national legends, which we are able to trace, historically, has generally come about in this fashion. To take the best known example, we are able to compare the real history of Charlemagne with the old epic⁹ poems on his life and exploits. In these poems we find that facts are strangely exaggerated, and distorted; that purely¹⁰ fanciful additions are made to the true records, that the more striking events of earlier history are crowded into the legend of Charles, that mere¹¹ fairy tales, current among African as well as European peoples, are transmuted¹² into false history, and that the

分享到：