The Journal of Philology, Vol. 19 (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from The Journal of Philology, Vol. 19Apollonius imitated Homer not as a humble disciple but as a rival. Homer the poet of the antique world sang of the war before Troy: modern Alexandria also must have its Epic poet, and he chose to Sing of the Argonautic expedition. The theme was hackneyed no doubt, to judge from the list we have Of poets who had already tried their hands on it, but Epic subjects are not numerous. Apollonius would therefore use Homer's language but he would also freely introduce the diction and usages of later days, and in fact he does so, e.g. He Often uses words unknown to Homer and uses Homeric words in the sense they have in Herodotus and tragedy. But he has not genius enough to carry it off. He is as far below Homer in real poetic power as he is below Virgil, and he suffers at the hands of both. When compared with Homer he appears an artificial plagiarist. Where Virgil imitates Apollonius, the former carries Off all the honours. He gathers up all that is good in Apollonius and im proves upon it, and who shall blame him? For it is the pre rogative Of genius so to do. Whether in any particular case Apollonius intends to imitate Homer must be decided on its own merits. We can say generally only that if Apollonius has an isolated use which also occurs in Homer it is probable that he did there intend simple imitation, or perhaps takes the Opportunity of recording his own interpretation of a Homeric expression.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.