标签： 荷马史诗 Analysts Unitarians

荷马史诗分析派与整体派

Introduction: Homer 
E.R. Dodds 
*Source: M. Platnauer (ed.) Fifty Years (and Twelve) of Classical Scholarship, Barnes and Noble, New York,2 1968, pp. 1-13, 31-4.

Irene J. F. De Jong (eds.), Homer, Critical Assessments: Vol. I: The Creation of the Poems, London; New York: Routledge, 1999.

i Homer and the Analysts
ii Homer and the Unitarians

i Homer and the Analysts

Eduard Meyer总结19世纪的荷马研究

It could, he said, be considered as scientifically proved that they were neither the work of an individual nor yet a conglomerate of ‘lays’, but the outcome of an activity of minstrel-poets which had extended over centuries; and he added that the stratification within each poem could be determined with an adequate measure of confidence.（P3）

Unitarianism was not indeed dead (despite frequent announcements of its demise), but it was a heretical minority view, at least among professional scholars; （P3）

On the other hand, Lachmann’s fantastic ‘lay-theory’ had been abandoned for good, （P3）

That both the Homeric poems have in their present form a carefully conceived design and a basic structural unity has long been recognized by analysts as well as Unitarians. (P3)

on the whole the tendency of modern analysis has been to place increasing emphasis on the element of design at all stages in the assumed development of the poems; (P4)

The view of the Iliad which held the field at the turn of the century, and is still today the most widely accepted alternative to unitarianism, maintains that its central subject was from the first the theme announced in the poem, the Wrath of Achilles, but that the poem has been gradually enlarged by the accretion of other material round this central nucleus. (P4)

Originally propounded in 1832 by one of the greatest of all Greek scholars, Gottfried Hermann,

Later it was for a time eclipsed by the rival theory of Wilamowitz (see below) and by the sudden growth of unitarianism; but it has been revived in several recent analyses of the Iliad

By most of these writers the author of the original Wrath- poem is identified, either firmly or tentatively, with the historical bearer of the personal name ‘Homer’; the old view which saw in ‘Homer’ a mere personification of the genius of epic poetry, or the mythical eponymous ancestor of the Homeridae, has been generally (and rightly) abandoned. (P4)

The minimum content of the Wrath-poem must have included at least the Quarrel of the Chiefs (Book I), the Greek defeat in Book XI, the Patrocleia (Book XVI, with the end of XV), and the death of Hector (Book XXII), together with connecting pieces which are no longer recoverable in their original form.

But how much more it included remains, and seems likely to remain, a matter of dispute. (P4)

the final book of the Iliad is in its present form relatively late work. (P5)

Again, is it certain that the original poem included no ‘retardations’ at all?

学者们对史诗最初内核所包含的内容分歧很大

Such differences indicate the limited usefulness of the nucleus-theory, though they do not, of course, disprove its correctness.

There is hardly less disagreement about the ‘stratification’ of the expansions and the manner in which they were brought about.

It is, however, untrue to suggest that no generally agreed conclusions have emerged. There are at least a few specific problems on which there is an approach to unanimity. （P5）例如：

It is, again, agreed by most analysts (and some Unitarians) that the Embassy (Book IX), and the battle in Book VIII which was invented to lead up to it,13 formed no part of the original Wrath-poem; （P6）

and that certain subordinate figures - Nestor, Glaucus and Sarpedon, Aeneas - owe their prominence in the Iliad to later poets who introduced them to gratify local interests. （P6）

The nucleus-theory, in its traditional form, places its ‘Homer’ at the beginning of the long poetic development which produced our Iliad. To this it has been objected

(a) that the language and style of the Iliad, even in its ‘oldest’ parts, is far from being primitive’, but has a technical perfection which presupposes a long tradition of epic poetry;

(b) that the matter of many parts of the Iliad seems to be saga-stuff, which presumably was current long before the tale of the Wrath was invented. （P6）

对此，Wilamowitz提出了一个理论

Wilamowitz’s Homer comes in the middle of the development: living at Chios in the eighth century, he took over, combined, and in some cases remodelled, the work of various pre-Homeric poets; his own work was in turn enlarged, and in places remodelled, by a succession of post-Homeric poets.

虽然该理论的许多分析不可信，但是Wilamowitz的 Die Ilias und Homer is one of the great books on Homer.

style-analysis being for Wilamowitz quite as important as structural analysis.

It also marked an important advance in the understanding of the genesis of the poem. 这对后来学者影响很大

Wilamowitz’s date for Homer is also now widely accepted, by Unitarians as well as analysts. （P6）

it is now seen that both Homer’s silences and the survival in the poems of Mycenaean elements can be explained by the conservatism of an epic tradition and, in particular, by the conservative influence of a formulaic diction. （P7）

But the dating of the various posthomerica and antehomerica incorporated in the Iliad still presents many unresolved problems.

The Odyssey is a very different kind of poem from the Iliad, and is thought by most analysts (and some Unitarians) to have had a different authorship and a rather different history.

Among other differences, it has a much closer structural unity and lends itself less easily to a theory of gradual （P7） 
accretion round a nucleus. （P8）

Nevertheless it reveals some striking structural inconsistencies, and the range of variation in style is perhaps wider than in the Iliad. （P8）

Many of the problems which it poses were already seen and stated by Kirchhoff (Die homerische Odyssee und ihre Entstehung, 1859);

But certain general probabilities may be said to have emerged from the long debate,

(i) Whereas the Iliad grew out of a Wrath-poem, 'the Odyssey', as Von der Mühli has put it, 'was always an Odyssey'; from the first it told a connected tale of Odysseus’ homeward voyage and his vengeance on the suitors.

(ii) The 'Telemachy’ (i.e. approximately Books I to IV, with XV, XVI, and the beginning of XVII) formed no part of the older Odyssey. (P8)

In conclusion, it may be suggested that what is most needed now is not further analyses of either poem, which at the present time would, one fears, have even less prospect of general acceptance than had their predecessors, but rather a careful review of the traditional analytic arguments and methods, in the light both of Unitarian criticisms and of Milman Parry’s proof that the poems are oral compositions. (P9)

ii Homer and the Unitarians

The notion of a monolithic Homer, a supreme poetic genius whose work it was sacrilege to analyse, undoubtedly corresponded to certain tendencies of the time — a distrust of cold logic, a yearning to follow ‘the dictates of the heart’, and, (P9) 
more specifically, a widespread rejection of the intellectual approach to poetry. (p10)

The Unitarian reaction was thus to some extent a manifestation of the Zeitgeist.

It was announced almost simultaneously by J.A. Scott in America, by Sheppard in England, and by Drerup in Germany.

A feature common to Scott, Drerup, and many later Unitarians is their passionate insistence on Homer's ‘originality'. (P10)

In short, 'naive’ unitarianism is slowly being replaced by a ‘critical’ unitarianism which does not despise analytical methods and is prepared to adopt some part of the analysts' conclusions. (P11)

One may even feel that between the more moderate spokesmen of the two schools the (p11) 
difference is now largely one of terminology: what the analysts call nuclei or prototypes, the Unitarians call sources; what the analysts call expansions, the Unitarians call interpolations. (p12) 
Nevertheless, the schizophrenia which has so long afflicted Homeric studies has not been completely overcome.

the main positive work of the Unitarians in recent years has been directed towards the exploration of ‘Homer’s sources’.

This is really the old analytic game in a new form, which is felt to be compatible with a proper recognition of the essential unity of each of the poems.

It may be thought, finally, that the Unitarians, no less than their rivals, ought to re-examine the validity of some of their own arguments.(P12)

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