The Study of Homer.

Professor Wright gave his second lecture yesterday afternoon in Sever 11. The lecture, as the previous one, was well attended, many students who are not taking the Greek courses to which these lectures are introductory being present, as well as others who have no connection with the university but are interested in the subjects treated.

The lecturer said that when Greek civilization passed away Homer lost much of that broad influence which he had exercised over the life and intellect of the civilized world. He lost his character as a philosopher and came to be regarded merely for his position in literature. Later he was not even accorded the supremacy in literature. In the Augustan age and the later centuries he was not appreciated, and Virgil was held in higher estimation. With the revival of letters, at the period of the Renaissance, the Greek language began to regain much of its lost power and Homer to reassume his proper place in literature. England has the credit for the first protest against the position which criticism then accorded Homer in literature. Chapman, and later Pope, by their translations of his works, did much to arouse the world to a sense of the real superiority of Homer to all other poets. From that time he has been studied with increased interest and greater intelligence by the scholars of all countries.

At first absurd mistakes in the interpretation of Homer were very frequent. This was especially so before the Renaissance, but even modern scholars have sometimes soberly offered the most ridiculous theories to explain Homeric difficulties. However, the study of Homer at the present time is more intelligent than ever before, one reason being that our text is a very pure one, better even than the one used by Virgil. The subject matter of the poem, too, has been thoroughly illumined by the united learning of many eminent scholars; mythology, likewise, is better understood, as is also the civilization of the Homeric age. So that with improved helps and a better point of view we are prepared to do good work in the study of Homer.

The study of Homer is not a study of literature: it is a study of life in all its phases. Homer saw an idealized world, and yet the reality of the picture he has drawn forces us to the conclusion that he has depicted the life of his own age. Society and state is clearly described by him, but religion is not so clearly defined. In the religion of Homer, all men want gods; the gods are near the men and are easily placable; and men communed with the gods directly in their prayers and sacrifices. There is a change in the conception of the gods in the Odyssey; the conception here is a more elevated one.

From the poems of Homer we get a very clear notion of Homeric civilization. It differed from that of the later Greek life; it was an age of transformation, where the noblest tendencies were strangely crossed by the coarsest ones. He has depicted this life so clearly by telling his story in the words and actions of his characters, keeping himself in the back ground. The language and the thought harmonize beautifully, the language showing an astonishing adaptability of the varying phases of the thought.

In reference to the study of Homer, Professor Wright urged that the student approach him with the feeling that he is nearing a monument in literature; not to blend futile research into minor matters with the effort to appreciate the poem. This is not necessary. If the student will read the poems of Homer as a literature he will be brought into direct and vivid contact with the poet and will see and understand as by instinct.