The aim of this book is to prove that the Homeric Epics, as wholes, and apart from passages gravely suspected in antiquity, present a perfectly harmonious picture of the entire life and civilisation of one single age. The faint variations in the design are not greater than such as mark every moment of culture, for in all there is some movement; in all, cases are modified by circumstances. If our contention be true, it will follow that the poems themselves, as wholes, are the product of a single age, not a mosaic of the work of several changeful centuries.
This book is annotated with a rare extensive biographical sketch of the author, Andrew Lang, written by Sir Edmund Gosse, CB, a contemporary poet and writer.
Contents:
Preface
Chapter I — The Homeric Age Chapter Ii — Hypotheses As To The Growth Of The Epics
Chapter Iii — Hypotheses Of Epic Composition
Chapter Iv — Loose Feudalism: The Over-Lord In “Iliad,” Books I. And Ii.
Chapter V — Agamemnon In The Later “Iliad”
Chapter Vi — Archaeology Of The “Iliad”. Burial And Cremation
Chapter Vii — Homeric Armour
Chapter Viii — The Breastplate
Chapter Ix — Bronze And Iron
Chapter X — The Homeric House
Chapter Xi — Notes Of Change In The “Odyssey”
Chapter Xii — Linguistic Proofs Of Various Dates
Chapter Xiii — The “Doloneia”
Chapter Xiv— The Interpolations Of Nestor
Chapter Xv — The Comparative Study Of Early Epics
Chapter Xvi — Homer And The French Mediaeval Epics
Chapter Xvii — Conclusion
