On Aristotle’s Estimation of Homer

in the Poetics and Elsewhere:

A Brief Compendium of Readings

© 2019; 2024 Bart A Mazzetti. All Rights Reserved

1
REFERENCES.

Carroll, Mitchell, “On the Nature and Scope of Aristotle’s Homeric Criticism”, TAPhA
(1898) xxi-xxv.

Heath, Malcolm, CLAS3152: FURTHER GREEK LITERATURE II: Aristotle’s Poetics,

Notes on Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, §1. What does Aristotle say?
(http://www.leeds.ac.uk/classics/resources/poetics/poet-hom.htm: 12/8/97).

Halliwell, Stephen, Aristotle’s Poetics (Chicago: 1986; Second Impression 1998).

Huxley, G. L., “Historical Criticism in Aristotle’s Homeric Questions”, PRIA Vol. 79, C,
Number 3 (1979), pp. 73-81.

Lamberton, Robert and Keaney, John J. (ed.), “Introduction”, in Homer’s Ancient

Readers ed. R. Lamberton & J. J. Keaney (Princeton: 1992).

Richardson, N. J., “Aristotle’s reading of Homer and its background”, in Homer’s

Ancient Reader: The Hermeneutics of Greek Epic’s Earliest Exegetes ed. R. Lamberton & J. J.
Keaney (Princeton: 1992).

Sandys, Sir John Edwin, A History of Classical Scholarship, Vol. 1 (New York: 1958).

ABBREVIATIONS.

GLH G. L. Huxley
JES John Edwin Sandys
MC Mitchell Carroll
NJR N. J. Richardson

PRIA Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy

TAPhA Transactions of the American Philological Association

N.B. While the focus of this collection is on Aristotle’s estimation of Homer in the Poetics, I
have included several excerpts discussing the so-called Homeric Problems, itself having dealt
with problems and solutions in the poetic art, the subject-matter of ch. 25.

2
OUTLINE OF ARISTOTLE ON HOMER IN THE POETICS.

Malcolm Heath, CLAS3152: FURTHER GREEK LITERATURE II: Aristotle’s Poetics.

Notes on Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey1

1. What does Aristotle say?

Aristotle makes the following references to Homer:

(i) ch. 2 (48a11-12): object: Homer imitates men ‘better than we are’;
(ii) ch. 3 (48a21-22): mode: narrative, but with impersonation of the characters;
(iii) ch. 4 (48b34-49a2): Homer’s excellence he uniquely achieves pre-eminence in both the
serious and comic traditions of poetry, and his quasi-dramatic style points the way to tragedy and
comedy in the strict sense;
(iv) ch. 8 (51a22-30): Homer’s excellence: unity of plot (contrasted with defective plots based on
a single person);
(v) ch. 15 (54b1-2): an inappropriate use of divine intervention in the Iliad;
(vi) ch. 15 (54b14-15): Homer’s portrayal of Achilles;
(vii) ch. 16 (54b25-30): the use of the scar in the recognition of Odysseus by the nurse
(combined with reversal) and the swineherds ;
(viii) ch. 16 (55a2-4): the recognition of Odysseus in Alcinous’ palace;
(ix) ch. 18 (55b15-23): episodes in epic and the plot of the Odyssey;
(x) ch. 23 (59a30-b7): excellence in plot-construction (contrasted with defective plots
constructed like a work of historiography and with plots that are well-formed but have ‘many
parts’);
(xi) ch. 24 (59b12-16): the Iliad and Odyssey compared;
(xii) ch. 24 (59b12-16): the excellence of Homer’s quasi-dramatic style;
(xiii) ch. 24 (60a18-26): a Homeric model for the handling of irrationalities: false inference.
(xiv) ch. 24 (60a34-b5): Homer’s ability to conceal irrationalities by other good qualities.

Some general comments on epic:

(i) ch. 5 (49b9-20): a general introduction;

(ii) ch. 18 (49b9-20): tragedy and epic: the difference in scale;
(iii) ch. 24 (59b16-60a2): differences between tragedy and epic;
(iv) ch. 24 (60a11-18): astonishment in epic;
(v) ch. 26 (62a18-b11): epic length may result in dilution and loss of unity.

In addition, the discussion of problems and solutions (ch. 25) is mainly concerned with points
from the Homeric poems. Aristotle discussed this kind of material more extensively in his
Homeric Questions, of which only a few fragments survive; a selection of these fragments is
available in the collection of supporting texts.

1
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/classics/resources/poetics/poet-hom.htm accessed 12/08/98.
3
READINGS.

Mitchell, Carroll, “On the Nature and Scope of Aristotle’s Homeric Criticism”, pp. xxii-xxiv.

It is a noticeable fact that, though the Poetics is devoted most largely to tragedy, yet Homer is cited
far more frequently than any other poet, and in a way that shows him to be the object of the
author’s chief study and his poems the ideal works from which Aristotle derived his principles. The
following remarks indicate the truthfulness of this statement:

1. Homer in the discussion of poetic imitation.

In his treatment of the means, the objects, and the manner of poetic imitation, Aristotle cites
Homer in illustration of his teachings regarding each. Thus in discussing the means, he shows that
poetry is not a matter of metre, and to prove his point contrasts Homer with Empedokles, the
former being essentially a poet, the latter a physicist; under manner he states that Homer is a poet
who in narration takes another’s personality; regarding the objects of imitation, Homer and
Sophokles are cited as imitators of ideal character (1448 a 26, 27).
2. Homer in the treatment of the rise of tragedy and comedy.
Aristotle finds in Homer the first poetry of the satirical kind, who in his Margites sketched out
the main lines of comedy by dramatizing the ludicrous, while being at the same time preeminent
among poets in the serious style. Thus, “The Margites,” says he, “has the same relation to comedy
as the Iliad and Odyssey to tragedy” (1448 b 34-40).
3. Homer in the points of likeness between epos and tragedy.
Aristotle in a number of passages emphasizes the similarities between epos and tragedy, and
concludes that one who knows the beauties and defects of tragedy is also a judge of the beauties
and defects of epic poetry (1449 b 16-20). These points of likeness are as follows: (a) Both imitate
characters of ideal grandeur, as in the poetry of Homer and Sophokles; (b) epos has the same
constituent parts as tragedy, excepting song and scenery,—viz. plot, character, sentiments, and
diction; (c) it requires, like tragedy, reversals of fortune, recognitions, and tragic incidents; (d) it
must, like tragedy, be simple, complicated, ‘ethical’, or ‘pathetic’, the Iliad being at once simple
and ‘pathetic’, the Odyssey complicated and ‘ethical’.
“In all these respects,” says Aristotle, “Homer is our earliest and sufficient model” (1459 b 8-13).
Aristotle discusses in cc. vi-xxii the constituent parts of tragedy, one by one; and later, in treating
epic poetry (cc. xxiii-xxiv), merely sums up his observations about tragedy, and applies them,
where appropriate, to epos.

A. The unity of plot is demanded in both; i.e. the law of necessity or probability, so frequently
emphasized, must be strictly observed. In respect to plot, as in all else, he finds Homer, whether
from art or genius, to be of surpassing merit (1451 a 23), and cites both the Iliad and the Odyssey
as examples of artistic unity. Thus, in composing the Odyssey he did not bring in all the adventures
of Odysseus, between which there was no necessary or probable connection, but made it to centre
around one, complete action (1451 a 23-30 [cf. ch. 23 (1459 a 17-30)—B.A.M.]). Likewise in the
Iliad he did not make the whole Trojan war the subject of his poem, which would have been too
cumbrous a theme; but he selects a single portion, and merely diversifies the poem by admitting
many episodes from the general story of the war (1459 a 30-38).

B. All that is said of character in c. xv he applies to epos as well, and commends Homer for
introducing personages not “wanting in characteristic qualities, but each with a character of his
own” (1460 a 9-11).

C. As regards the sentiments, defined as “the faculty of saying what is possible or pertinent in
given circumstances”, they must be artistically expressed, and Aristotle finds in Homer as
unrivalled example of the proper manner of treatment (1459 b 16-17).

4
 D. So, too, the diction must be artistic, and in this respect also he considers Homer unequalled
(1459 b 16-17).

John Edwyn Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship, Vol. 1, p. 35.

Aristotle, in his treatise on Poetry, describes Homer as ‘representing men as better than they are’, 1
and as ‘pre-eminent in the serious style of poetry’, 2 as ‘the earliest and the most adequate model’ of
all the excellences of epic poetry, and as ‘unequalled in diction and thought’. 3 The poet keeps
himself in the background, leaving his characters, which are clearly marked, to speak for
themselves.4 He has taught all other poets the art of illusion. 5 In ‘unity of plot, as in all else, he is
of surpassing merit; he has made the Iliad, as well as the Odyssey, centre round a single action’. 6
These two poems ‘have many parts, each with a certain magnitude of its own; yet they are as
perfect as possible in structure’.7 In the Rhetoric Aristotle, in explaining what he means by
‘bringing things before they eye’, or vividness of expression, cites a series of metaphors from
Homer:—the stone of Sisyphus ‘remorseless’ in its bounding down into the valley, the flying arrow
‘yearning’ for its mark, the javelins ‘thirsting’ for the foeman’s blood, and the ‘passionate’ spear-
point, speeding through the hero’s breast. The same vivid effect, he adds, is produced by the
similes, in which Homer gives life and movement and animation to things inanimate, as in the line
where he says of the ‘waves of the bellowing ocean’,—‘Arch’d and crested with foam, they sweep
on, billow on billow.’8

2 § 3.
2
4 § 9.
3
24 § 1, 2.
4
§ 7.
5
§ 9.
6
8 § 3.
7
26 § 6. Cp. Jebb’s Homer, p. 4 f.; Monroe, 417 f.
8
Rhet. iii 11 §§ 3, 4.

John Edwin Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship, Vol. 1.

It was probably in one of his lost chapters on Poetry that Aristotle observed that ‘the most
striking thing in Homer’ was the passage describing the effect produced on the Trojans when they
first see Patroclus, gleaming in the armour of Achilles, and fancy for the moment that Achilles has
laid aside his ‘wrath’, and has been reconciled to the Greeks:—’each several man peered round to
seek escape from sheer destruction’. This, adds Aristotle, is characteristic of barbarians. 1

Townley Schol. on Il. xvi 283 (Arist. Frag. 130 Rose) pa/pthnen: deino/taton tw=n e)p%n (Omh/rou tou=to/
fhsin )Aristote/lhj e)n %(= pa/ntej feuktiw=si, kai\ oi)kei=on barba/rwn.

G. L. Huxley, “Historical Criticism in Aristotle’s Homeric Questions”, excerpts from pp. 73-80.

ABTRACT

In his Homeric Problems Aristotle defended Homer against detractors. One method of
defence was to demonstrate that in certain passages the poet represented things as they were or
had been, so that charges of unseemly invention were mistaken. The historical fragments of the
Homeric Problems and related parts of the Poetics show Aristotle effectively applying his
antiquarian knowledge to questions of literary criticism. At the same time they reveal his deep
veneration of Homer and his penetrating insight into the nature of early Hellenic society.

5
 Aristotle’s admiration of Homer pervades his writings. From the magisterial reproof of the poet by
Xenophanes,2 or Plato’s insistent censure in Republic III, or the peevish mockery in the fragments
of Zoilos the Homeromastix,3 it is especially pleasant to turn to the Poetics. In the treatise we are
assured that Homer excels every other epic poet not only because in the Iliad and in the Odyssey he
takes an action that is a unity (1451a 28), but also because he is aware of the part to be played by
the poet himself in the poem (1460a6). In Aristotle’s detailed defenses of Homer in Chapter 25 the
allusive use of quotations from the epics presupposes knowledge of discussions by the philosopher
himself in his lectures. His list of problh/mata and lu/seij was collected in the Homeric Questions
(A)porh/mata (omhrika\), a work said to have been published in six books; 4 the fragments reveal
how seriously Aristotle took the task of defending the poet from particular censures—that is to say,
from unsolved problh/mata turned into e)pitimh/mata. (p. 73)
Aristotle distinguishes in the Politics and elsewhere between recent and ancient historical events:
recent events happened nu=n or newsti/ (see e.g. 1329a 40), ancient happened e)n toi=j a)rxai/oij
xro/noij, e)pi\ tw=n a)rxai/wn xro/nwn, pa/lai, to\ palaio/n. Thus the recent burning of the temple at
Ephesos in 356 B.C. was witnessed lately (nu=n e)qewrou=men. Meteor. 3.1.371a 32), but the
oligarchies of knights existed e)pi\ tw=n a)rxai/wn xro/nwn (Pol. 1289b 36-7). In the Constitution of
the Athenians (28.5) three Athenian statesmen of the fifth century—Nikias, Thucydides and
Theramenes—are said to have lived later than the a)rxai=oi. The time of the heroes was part of the
ancient period, and ai( kata\ tou\j h(rwikou\j xro/nouj monarxi/ai are discussed in the Politics (1285b 4-
5; cf. b21). If Aristotle included the Return of the Herakleidai in the time of heroes, then Homer,
who was born at the time of the Ionian migration (F.76R.), could be assigned to the h(rwikoi\ xro/noi
too; but some held that the heroic age at Argos ceased with the Dorian settlement there. 5 (p. 74)
The reasoning to the past from the present is neatly employed in a zh/tema mentioned in the
Poetics (1461a 1-4) and discussed in the Homeric Questions (F.160R.). When Diomedes and his
companions were sleeping outside their tent, why were their spear-butts stuck in the ground?
Would not a spear fall down, knock the others, and wake the sleepers? Aristotle’s lu/sij to the
problem takes the same form in both discussions:

(1) Homer’s account6 seems inappropriate (H.Q. fau/lh dokei= ei)=nai h( tw=n dora/twn e)pi\
saurwth=raj sta/sij.7 Poetics. ou) be/ltion)). But,
(2) that is the way things used to be (H.Q. lu/ei d )Aristote/lij le/gwn o(/to toiau=ta a)ei\ poiei= O(/meroj,
oi)=a h)=n to/te. Poetics. a)ll ) ou)/twj ei)=xen and ou(/tw ga\r tot ) e)no/mizon).
(3) The evidence is still to be seen among the barbarians (H.Q. h)= de\ toiau=ta ta\ palaia/, oi(/aper kai\
nu=n e)n toi=j barba/roij. Poetics. w(/sper kai\ nu=n I)llurioi/) [Huxley’s note omitted]. (pp. 74-5)

Reference to historical fact can free Homer from charges of unseemly invention. In Plato’s
Republic (391b 5-6) Socrates insists that Achilles should not be said to have dragged the corpse of
Hector around the tomb of Patroklos; such behavior was unworthy of a grandson of Zeus and a
pupil of Cheiron (319c 2-3). To Aristotle, however, the moral censuring of Homer’s account
seemed irrelevant because the dragging of the corpse corresponded with a historical fact: there still
was in his time a custom in Thessaly—that is, in or close to the homeland of Achilles—of dragging
the corpses of murderers around the tombs of their victims e)/sti de\ lu/sij, fhsi\n A)ristote/lhj, kai\ ei)j

2
D.K. 21 B 11.
3
F.Gr.Hist. No. 71.
4
No 118 in the list of his writings in Diogenes Laertius [I. During, Aristotle in the Ancient Biographical Tradition
(Göteborg 1957), 48] No. 116 in the Vita Hesychii (During, op. cit. 86). Ptolemy ‘el-Garib’ (No. 98) says that there
were ten books (During, op. cit. 230).
5
Pausanius 7.17.1; compare W. L. Newman, The Politics of Aristotle 3 (Oxford 1902) 271. For the distinction
between ancient and recent in Aristotle’s chronological perspective see R. Weil, ‘Aristotle’s View of History’ in
Articles on Aristotle 2. Ethics and Politics ed. J. Barnes, M. Schofield and R. Sorabji (London 1977) 210-11.
6
Iliad 10.150-156.
7
V. Rose, Aristotelis qui ferebantur Librorum fragmenta (1887, repr. 1967) 165. Porph., Quaest. Hom. ed. H.
Schrader 1 (Leipzig 1880) p. 145, 13….
6
 ta\j u(pa/rxonta e)/qh, o(/ti toiau=ta h)=n, e)pei kai\ nu=n e)n Qettali/a pepie/lkousi peri\ tou\j ta/fouj (tw=n
foneuqe/ntwn tou\j fone/aj vel sim.).8 Plato’s Socrates also objected to the killing of twelve sons of
the Trojans at the pyre of Patroklos (Rep. 319b 6 on Iliad 23.175-6). To the censure we can now
reply with an archeological argument in the Aristotelian manner. In the eighth century B.C. at
Salamis in Cyprus the ceremonies at the tombs of the deceased princes included the ritual slaughter
of humans and also of horses. 9 It is a question whether an Achean practice was revived when the
Cypriotes were reminded of it by the Iliad and other epics, or whether the Cypriotes perpetuated an
ancient Achaean custom also recalled in Homer; the fact remains that the poet described a practice
that was current amongst the Greeks in early times. Since Homer told what happened, he is not
liable to the charge of unseemly invention; the description of the slaughter at the pyre, Aristotle
argued, is not something a)/prepej deserving e)piti/mhsij. (Whether captives should be killed and
their corpses thrown on pyres us a quite different problem.)
In the Politics Aristotle’s treatment of kingship illumines and is illumined by Homer. Since
kingship is a kind of fatherhood, and patriarchy a form of monarchy, the poet is praised for calling
Zeus the king of gods “father of gods and men” (1259b 13-14). 10 Zeus’s place in the political
system of Olympos resembles that of Agamemnon, “shepherd of the people”, in the Iliad.11 The
analogy was made more explicit by Martin Nilsson: “Zeus has full power by right of inheritance, as
has Agamemnon. The other gods appear as his retainers whom he summons to counsel or meals,
just as Agamemnon summons the chiefs. Just as the war-king summons the army assembly, so
Zeus summons twice an assembly of the gods, in which even the lesser gods, the rivers and the
nymphs of the springs and meadows, take part.” 12 (Note however that the venerable Okeanos was
not summoned—20.7.) Aristotle expresses the connexion between the human and divine polities
with greater generality when he remarks “all men say that the gods are ruled by a king, because
some men are still ruled by kings, and others formerly were, and as men liken the form of the gods
to themselves, so also do they liken the god’s ways of life” (1252b 24-27).
Historical study of heroic society enabled Aristotle to dissolve a political zh/thma in the Iliad.
When, in Book 2, Agamemnon put the army to a test of will by suggesting that all of them should
flee homewards in their ships, he addressed the entire host as “ w)= fi/loi h(/rwej Danaoi/, qera/pontej
A)/rhoj” (Iliad 2.110); here the word “hero” has little more than its basic meaning “warrior”, since
the whole expedition is addressed. At the beginning of Book 9 all the troops are again assembled,
having been summoned to the agora by the heralds, and Agamemnon again expresses a wish to sail
for home. But this time he addresses only the leaders: “ w)= fi/loi, A)rgei/wn h(gh/tprej h)de\
me/dontej” (9.17). The difference in the expressions is noticed in the scholia, 13 and Aristotle himself
asked why in Book 9 Agamemnon spoke only to the “leaders and rulers” though all the troops were
present. His reply to the zh/thma was that the host had only the power to listen, but the leaders had
also the power to act—o( me\n dh=moj mo/nou tou= a)kou=sai ku/rioj, oi/ de\ h(geno/nej ki\ tou= pra=xai
(F.158R.); the address to the whole army at 2.110 is therefore to be explained by the special
circumstances of the test of will made by Agamemnon. (pp. 75-6)

Next there is a historical question about weights and measures in the Iliad. At the funeral games
for Patroklos, Achilles provides prizes for the charioteers: the first, a woman skilled in fine crafts
and a tripod of twenty-two measures in capacity; for the second, a mare six years old and carrying
in her womb a baby mule; for the third, a cauldron, unblackened by the flames, to hold four

8
F.166 R. (Schol. B. Il. 24.15). See also, for the custom, Callimachus F.588, Pf. with R. Pfeiffer, History of
Classical Scholarship (Oxford 1968) 70-1 and D. C. Kurtz and J. Boardman, Greek Burial Customs (London 1971)
3202.
9
J. N. Coldstream, Geometric Greece (London 1977) 349.
10
The fatherhood of Zeus is also discussed in E.N. 1160b 24-27.
11
Compare E.N. 1161a 12-18 on the analogy between the basileu/j, the nomeu\j proba/twn and the father of children.
12
Homer and Mycenae (London 1933) 270. Compare Nilsson, The Mycenaen Origins of Greek Mythology (repr.
California U. P. 1972) 274-251.
13
Schol. A.T., Iliad 9.17 (2.401-2 Erbse). Compare Probl. 19.48 (922b 18-20), 1.412 Hett: e)kei=noi (actors on the
stage) me\n ga\r h(rwwn mimhtai/ o)i\ de\ e(ge\mo/nej tw=n a)rxai/wn mo/noi h)=san h)/rwej, oi( de\ lasoi\ a)/nqrwpoi, w)=n
e)sti\n o( xoro/j.
7
 measures; for the fourth, two talents of gold; for the fifth a two-handled phiale not yet exposed to
the fire (Iliad 23.262-9). The problem is that the most valuable prize, the two talents, is in the
fourth place, and they had more worth than a horse and a woman (F.164 R.). 14 In the embassy to
Achilles in Book 9 (122-130 = 264-272) Agamemnon’s offer of gifts includes ten talents of gold;
they are mentioned before twelve racing horses and seven skilled craftswomen from Lesbos.
Aristotle’s lu/sij has two parts: firstly, the talent in early times ( to/te) did not have the same value as
in his own day (nu=n); secondly, the talent did not have a definite weight formerly. He had studied
weights and measures in the Constitutions; a change of standard measures, weights and coinage
was ascribed to the reformer Solon in the Constitution of the Athenians,15 and in the Syracusan
Constitution (F.589 R.) Aristotle stated that the Sicilian talent had formerly been equal to twenty-
four nou=mmoi, but later to twelve. (So either the Sicilian talent was halved in weight and value or
the worth of the coin called a nou=mmoj was doubled.) The Tarentine nou=mmoj was also discussed
by Aristotle (F.590 R.), and he remarked that wholesale measures of corn and wine could differ
from those used in retail purchases (E.N. 1135a 1-2).
Aristotle knew that the weight and value of the talent of the number of its parts had not
everywhere been uniform, and so he assumed differing weights in Homer; but the assumption was
not necessary, because the gifts in the embassy are not listed in ascending or descending order of
value.16 His second lu/sij is therefore mistaken, but the first has merit: Aristotle had reason to infer
that Homer knew of a smaller talent than that current in the fourth century. (pp. 78-9)
Tradition concerning the heroes was inseparable from history in Aristotle’s view of the past.
Knowledge of tradition enabled him to dissolve some problems by showing that they lacked
substance. For example, some people supposed that Ikarios, the father of Penelope, was a
Lakonian. They then asked why, in the Odyssey, Telemachos did not go to see his maternal
grandfather when he visited Menelaos. The problem, Aristotle showed, can be dissolved, because
the Kephallenians, who called Ikarios Ikadios, claimed that the hero lived amongst themselves.
Telemachos therefore should not be expected to have met Ikarios in Lakedaimon. Thus the
spurious problem results from a baseless supposition (Poetics 1461b 4-8). Aristotle could have
added the story of Ikarios’ expulsion from Sparta by Hippokoon; the hero fled to Pleuron, and later
settled in Akarnia, where he begat Penelope and her brothers. This tale also shows that Telemachos
would not have lodged with him at Sparta.17 (p. 79)
An archaelogical and military problem is likewise shown to be illusory. Homer describes a
massive wall built beside a tomb of dead warriors at the Achaean camp. The wall with its high
towers enclosed the ships, and a roadway between gates [79-80] permitted chariots to be driven
through. Outside there was a deep trench with stakes fixed in it (Iliad 7.435-441). The wall was
built in the tenth year of the war and Homer says nothing about defence works around the ships
before the events of Book 7. It was a problem that there was no evidence of such a fortification on
the coast of the Troad facing Troy. The explanation, according to Aristotle’s neat lu/sij, was that the
poet, having made the wall himself, destroyed it – o( de\ pla/saj poieth\j h)fa/nisen (FR.162 R.) Homer
himself makes Zeus instruct Poseidon to flatten the wall after the Achaenas have sailed for home
(7.459-463), and the work of Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo and the Troadic rivers in blotting it out as
explained in Book 12 (12-13) with purposeful emphasis.
Thucydides (1.11.1) insists that the Achaeans won a victory when they first landed at Troy, so
that they were able to construct a barrier—he uses the word e)/ruma, not tei=xoj18—around the
landing place. Aristotle is not known to have said anything about the e)/ruma, but he recognized the
great wall of Book 7 as a poetical creation not fit to form the basis of a historical argument. (pp.79-
80)

14
Porphyry, ed. cit. (note 7 supra) 1.261, 16-262, 5.
15
A)qp. 10. 1-2. For discussion see P. J. Rhodes, N.C.7 15 (1975) 1-11.
16
Hintenlang, op. cit. (note 4 supra) 30-31.
17
Strabo, 10.2.24 (461C) See also Mitchell Carroll, Aristotle’s Poetics c.xxv, in the Light of the Homeric Scholia
(Baltimore [Diss. Johns Hopkins] 1895) 53.
18
Tsagarakis, art. cit. (note 32 infra) 134 distinguishes the two words.
8
Stephen Halliwell, Aristotle’s Poetics (Chicago: 1986; Second Impression 1998), n. 20, p, 266.
20
For a thorough reappraisal of ch. 25 see Rosenmeyer’s article. 19 For the Homeric Problems see
frs. 142-79 Rose: the range of subjects covered includes heroic behavior, problems of consistency
and probability, points of morality, social customs and politics, and various technicalities. Cf. G. L.
Huxley, ‘Historical Criticism in Aristotle’s Homeric Questions’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish
Academy (c) 79 (1979) 73-81. Fr. 142 of the work refers to the same point as Poet. 54b 2, and for
other similarities compare e.g. frs. 160, 164, 166 with Poet. 61a 1-4, and fr. 168 with 54a 26ff.

Robert Lamberton and John J. Keaney (ed.), “Introduction” to Homer’s Ancient Readers: The
Hermeneutics of Greek Epic’s Earliest Exegetes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992),
pp. xi-xii.

Although it is manifestly not part of his program to offer a reading of Homer, Plato is the first
author in whom we find an examination of the paradox of reading, coupled with a detailed critique
of epic tradition that extends from the level of an ontological esthetics, by way of theology to
pedagogy. Needless to say, the Iliad and the Odyssey are found wanting on all levels, and it is left
to the subsequent generation—that is to Aristotle—to redefine the terms on which the esthetic
object, and specifically the poetic text, may be recovered as a worthy object of philosophical
inquiry.
Thus the contribution of Nicholas Richardson to this volume, “Aristotle’s Reading of Homer and
its Background,” has by its very nature a vast, perhaps an impossibly vast, task to perform. It must
bridge the gap between the audiences projected in the poems themselves and readers of the third
quarter of the fourth century. But although Aristotelian tradition itself claimed that the first critic of
Homer was his rival Sagaris, succeeded after Homer’s death by Xenophanes of Colophon, 20 and the
less extravagant tradition that reached Porphyry made Theagenes of Rhegium, whom we can date
around 525, the “first to write on Homer,” 21 Aristotle remains the earliest author to devote to the
explication of Homer a book of which we possess significant fragments. Because this book of
Homeric Questions secured for Aristotle his place at the head of the tradition of Homer’s readers,
as here defined, a look at just what it seems to have contained will be useful. 22 We may also pose at
this point the question of the continuity that has been claimed between the Homeric researches of
Aristotle and those of the scholars of the Museum in Alexandria, which began a generation or two
after his death.23
The thirty-seven fragments assembled by V. Rose, almost entirely from the scholia, and
attributed to the Homeric Questions of Aristotle, support the evidence of the title that the book
consisted of solutions to a series of difficulties, rather than a continuous analytic essay. The
problems are identified as “unreasonable things,” “paradoxes,” or things “one might be surprised

19
Rosenmeyer, T. G., “Design and Execution in Aristotle Poetics ch. 25”, CSCA 6 (1973) 231-52.—ed.
20
Diogenes Laertius 2.46 = Aristotle fr. 75 (Rose), one of the mysterious bits of information assigned to the “third
book” of the Poetics, but placed by Rose, quite reasonably, with the other fragments of his dialogue Peri\ poihtw=n.
The Sagaris of the mss. is conventionally amended to Syagros, but there seems little to chose between them.
21
Porphyry, Quaest. Hom. Il. (Schrader), 241, 10-11.
22
The title is variously reported as O(mhrika\ a)porh/mata, problh/mata, and zhth/nmata, but this confusion of virtual
synonyms is frequent in titles of this pattern. The fragments were collected by Valentinus Rose ( Aristotelis qui
ferebantur librorum fragmenta, nos. 142-79). Rose considered the book a Peripatetic compilation (Aristoteles
pseudepigraphus, 149) and as with other works in the Aristotelian canon, we should not assume that the collection
of “Aristotelian” a)porh\mata was closed at his death. The forty fragments Rose published in Aristoteles
pseudepigraphus included three (Nos. 20a [145], 30a [156], and 38 [165]) that he chose not to republish in the
Fragmenta. These are referred to below by reference to Aristoteles pseudepigraphus.
23
The idea of Aristotle as the founder of kritikh/ and grammatikh/ is as old as Dio Chrysostom (36.1). For the modern
scholars who have embraced this view and asserted the continuity between Aristotle’s work on Homer and that of
the Alexandrians, see R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship from the Beginnings, 67. Pfeiffer notably rejected
this idea and emphasized the originality of the Alexandrian enterprise (88-104).
9
 at.”24 Sometimes the scholiast simply tells us that “Aristotle asked” or “was puzzled” at a given
problem, and however the difficulty itself may be formulated, we are most frequently told that
Aristotle “solved” the problem in a given way. 25 To take a typical example, “Aristotle asks” how
Polyphemus came to be born a Cyclops, given that his father was a god and his mother a sea
nymph, and “it is solved” from the nature of myth: Comparanda are mustered to show that Boreas
fathered horses in myth and Pegasus was born to Poseidon and Medusa (fr. 172). The same pattern
of appeal to the mythic as a realm in its own right with its own rules, often at odds with those of the
real world, can be found in a crucially important Aristarchan scholion as well, where it clearly
serves as an alternative to allegorical explanation of the myth in question. 26 We see already that
there is a reason to believe that certain fundamental strategies that we find in the Alexandrian
tradition of commentary on Homer are solidly Aristotelian.
Aristotle’s “reading,” then was composed of a series—perhaps quite a large one—of cruxes
requiring solutions. As we shall see, this piecemeal approach characterizes the critical stance of
most of the ancient readers of Homer of whom we have any record. Though this approach to the
problem of meaning in the epics was clearly the one that prevailed through most of Aristotle’s
interpretive book, there is nevertheless evidence in our limited sample to indicate that it did not
exhaust the range of Aristotle’s inquiries. 27 First of all, though the precedent for the Alexandrians’
side-stepping of the allegorical reading of myth can be found here, it is nevertheless unavoidable
that several of the “solutions” attributed to Aristotle are allegorical solutions—that is, they take the
form of claims that, although Homer’s text superficially says one thing, it is in fact “saying
something else.”28 This sort of explanation of problematic passages was certainly not new in
Aristotle’s time—indeed, it was probably the mainstay of pedagogic explication of Homer in the
fifth century29—but the interesting thing is that we find it enshrined here in Aristotle’s collection of
interpretive “solutions.”
The most striking instance relates to the oxen of Helios (fr. 175), which scholiasts on the passage
report was read “as a physical allegory” ( fuseikw=j) by Aristotle. The seven flocks of fifty cattle
belonging to the sun were the mythical representation of the 350 (actually 354) solar days of the
lunar year. When Eustathius elaborates on this reading, he simply observes that “they say that
Aristotle read these herds allegorically as the 350 days of the twelve lunar months.” 30 This sounds
more like the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise “On the Cosmos” than the authentic Aristotle (though
this particular bit of lore is not found in that work). 31 But even if this egregious bit of physical

24
a)/logon, fr. 147; a)/topon, frs. 146, 152, cf. 159; qaumas/ai d) a)/n tij, fr. 144. In one case the need for explanation
appears to derive from the more conventional appeal to appropriateness: a)prepe/j, fr. 143, and (rejected) fr. 38 [=
165] from Aristoteles pseudepigraphus.
25
zhtei= )Aristote/lhj, fr. 172; a)po/rhsen o( )Aristote/lhj, frs. 145, 149; lu/wn or lu/ei in frs. 149, 152, 160, 161, 164,
170-74. On the subject generally, see A. Gudeman, “Lu/seij.”
26
Schol. D E 385. See below, 70.
27
Rather surprisingly, Rose’s fragments give little indication to specific lexical problems in the Homeric Questions,
but a fragment from Eustathius that Rose rejected (fr. 20a = 145 in Aristoteles pseudepigraphus) claims that
Aristotle said regarding the epithet ke/ra a)glae/ (Il. 11.385), ke/ra a)glao\n a)nti tou= ai)doi/% semnuno/menon, going on
to observe that Aristotle probably was thinking of the scorpion-tongued Archilochus who used “soft horn” a(palo\n
ke/raj for “penis” (ai)doi=on). That there is a metonymy here is certain. “Horn” can mean (according to Heschyius)
either “hair,” “bow,” or “penis.” The latter is by far the most attractive meaning in context, and there is no real
reason to doubt that the contribution might have been Aristotle’s (rather than that of Aristophanes of Byzantium, to
whom Rose arbitrarily reassigned it). If it belongs here, it shows at least an early Peripatetic concern with lexical
problems of a sort that extend beyond primary senses of words to metaphorical extensions of those primary
meanings—a matter well enough attested in the authentic works of Aristotle.
28
[Lamberton’s footnote omitted.]
29
See Plato, Rep. 2.378d, and Konrad Muller, “Allegorische Dichtererklarung,” col. 17.
30
i)ste/on de\ o(/ti ta\j a)ge/aj tau=taj kai\ ma/lista ta\j tw=n bow=n fasi\ to\n )Aristote/lhn a)llhgorei=n ei)j ta\s kata\ dwdeka/da
tw=n selhniakw=n mhnw=n h(me/raj…. Eustathius 1717 (Aristotle fr. 175, Rose).
31
There is no doubt that we receive as “Aristotelian” interpretive material from other sources. One of the fragments
from Eustathius that Rose rejected—in all probability correctly—attributes to Aristotle a very Stoic-sounding
allegory about the nourishment of the gods (= the celestial bodies) by “exhalations” (fr. 30 = 156 in Aristoteles
pseudepigraphus, from Eustathius ad Od. 12.62).
10
 allegory with its strongly Stoic flavor might be an intrusion into the fragmented corpus of
Aristotelian readings of Homer, three of the other fragments also relate “solutions” we would call
allegorical. Each in fact points to an area where allegorical reading was to predominate in the later
tradition. The first relates to the “marvel” ( te/raj) revealed to the Greeks at Aulis, and what troubled
Aristotle here, we are told, is the fact that although the unremarkable devouring of the nestlings by
the snake was duly interpreted as prophetic by Calchas, the truly remarkable transformation of the
snake into stone is left without comment. Aristotle provides the missing interpretation: the
lithification of the snake represented “the slowness and toughness of the war” (fr. 145). 32 The
context demands that this element be a sign, a shmei=on, and the interpretation offered supplies a
glaring omission. In another instance, the description of a supernatural object turns out to be
characterized by an unexpected metonymy. Homer speaks of the head of a Medusa as residing in
Hades (Od. 11.634), but he has already located it in its traditional place on Athena’s aegis (Il.
5.741). Aristotle’s solution (fr. 153): “She never had the actual head of the Gorgon on her shield,…
but rather the capacity to stun that emanated from the Gorgon and affected those who looked upon
her.”33
The final Aristotelian allegory is of particular interest, because it turns on a matter of theology,
precisely the area in which the allegorical reading of the revered archaic poems had the riches
future before it. Aristotle seems to have offered a series of alternative solutions to the problem that
Helios in Homer is said at one point to “see and hear all things” (Il. 3.277) but then in the Odyssey,
in the episode of the oxen of the sun, requires nymphs to herd and look after his flocks (fr. 149). 34
One solution, according to Aristotle, is to say “that that which reports—i.e., Lampetia—is to Helios
as sight is to a human being.” 35 The Homeric theological panoply, far from innocent by Aristotle’s
time, had endured generations of attacks and defenses, generally allegorical. Nevertheless, this
striking claim—that the nymphs who serve Helios are to be read as metaphors for whatever quality
it is (analogous to one of our senses) that allows that deity universal perception—is a treatment of
that theology that looks forward to developments associated with later Platonism.
But beyond all the “solutions,” allegorical or otherwise, Aristotle’s Homeric Questions seem to
have included something else. Aristotle probably did not produce an edition of Homer, 36 but he did
sometimes propose alternate readings. When a problem was resolve in this way, the scholiast who
reports the only surviving example indicates, this was not a “solution,” but something else, a
“rewriting (kai\ lu=sai me\n ou) bebou/lhtai, metagra/fei, fr. 171). Specifically, the Homeric epithet
au)dh/essa (which must mean something like “having the power of speech” but does in fact still
pose problems of interpretation) bothered him in several of its applications—for Circe and
Calypso, he preferred his own coinage au)lh/essa, intended to indicate that they lived alone, and for
Ino ou)dh/essa, or “earth-dwelling”. His reasoning, as reflected in the scholion, would hardly
impress a modern textual critic, and no Aristotelian conjectures or corrections are known to have
found favor and entered the received text. Already, before the work of the Alexandrians, the Iliad
and Odyssey had long been interacting in such ways with scholarly readers’ ideas about their

32
The interpretative effort is more complex and interesting than this brief paraphrase indicates, and Aristotle, as
often, seems to have been concerned to pry into the motives and the latent dynamics of the interpretation of
characters. What he interrogates here is Calchas’s silence, his failure to interpret what so obviously needs
interpretation. Is it that he sees, as others must have, that the lithification of the snake represents the fact that the
expedition—or much of it—will never return, will be a)/nostoj? But the brief version boils down to what is evoked
above: h( de\ tou= dra/kontoj a)poli/qwsij kata\ me\n )Aristote/lhn th\n braduth=ta e)dh/lou kai\ to\ sklhro\n tou= pole/mon
(Schol. B 305, from Aristotle fr. 145 [Rose]).
33
fhsi\ d )Aristote/lhj o(/ti nh/pote e)n t$= a)spi/di ou)k au)th\n ei)=xe th\n keqalh\n th=j Go/rgonoj, a)lla\ to\ e)k th=j Go/rgonoj
gigno/menon toi=j e)norw=si pa/qoj kataplhktiko/n. Schol. B E 741 (= Aristotle fr. 153, Rose).
34
This particular fragment evokes the genre of “Problems” familiar from Plutarch’s Greek and Roman Questions,
where a series of solutions is supplied but the author normally offers no final choice among them. It is certainly
possible that some of Aristotle’s “solutions” took this rather disappointing, inconclusive form.
35
lu/wn d ) Aristote/lhj fhsi, o(/to…, h)\ o(/ti t%= h(li/% h)=n to\ e)caggei=lan h( Lampeti/a w(/sper t%= a)nqrw/p% h( o)/yij
….Schol. B G 277 (= Aristotle fr. 140, Rose).
36
So R. Pfeiffer (History of Classical Scholarship From the Beginnings, 71) believed, almost certainly correctly.
11
 meanings, so that the text itself had become inseparable from the history of its meanings. (pp. xi—
xv)

N. J. Richardson, “Aristotle’s Reading of Homer and its Background”, Homer’s Ancient

Readers: The Hermeneutics of Greek Epic’s Earliest Exegetes (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1992), pp. 37-9.

In the main body of this work, Aristotle is primarily interested in tragedy and sees Homer very
much in dramatic terms. But, despite his eventual conclusion (in chapter 26) that tragedy is
superior to epic because of its greater dramatic immediacy and concentration (reversing Plato’s
preference for epic), his intense admiration for Homer shines through again and again. Here for the
first time the fundamental differences between the Iliad and the Odyssey and other epic poems are
clearly stated. Homer is outstanding for his dramatic qualities and his portrayal of character
through speeches (1448b34-36, 60a5-11). His plots, even if by necessity less strictly unified than
those of tragedy, are far more so than those of other epic poets, whose works are essentially
episodic and often centred on a single character or concerned with a sequence of unrelated actions,
rather than aiming at unity of action (51a16-30, 59a30-b7, 62b3-11). He was the first to use all the
forms and parts of epic (as defined in Aristotle’s chapters on tragedy) and to do so successfully,
and he surpasses all others in style and thought (59b12-16). Moreover, he has taught other poets the
art of making fictions plausible (60a18 ff.). In view of the generally evolutionary approach of
Aristotle, it is really very remarkable that he should see the Homeric poems as so highly developed
artistically, although they stand relatively early in his conspectus of literary development.
Aristotle provides answers to Plato’s main attacks on epic and tragedy in his discussion of the
nature of poetic imitation and in his account of the “catharsis” ( ka/qarsij) achieved by tragedy. The
first reinstates poetry in general as a philosophically serious pursuit, and the second gives to
tragedy a special value on the emotional plane. Aristotle never explicitly ascribes to epic a similar
cathartic function, but the close analogies he draws between epic and tragedy do surely imply that
epic can act in a similar way. More specifically, the fact that epic in his view should have reversals,
recognitions, and “sufferings” (paqh/mata) and should produce similarly powerful effects of
e)/kplhcij must (I think) point this way. The implication of Aristotle’s final comparison of epic and
tragedy is most probably that the kind of pleasure that both should arouse is similar and should be
associated with an emotional ka/qarsij, but that tragedy does this more powerfully and effectively
than epic does. At the same time, the Iliad is evidently much closer to tragedy than the Odyssey is,
for it is concerned above all with suffering and emotion ( pa/qoj), whereas the Odyssey is primarily
concerned with character (h)=qoj, 59b14-15) and its happy ending is more like that of comedy
(53a30-39). Where the Odyssey seems to come closest to tragedy (in Aristotle’s view) is in its
recurrent use of the device of recognition (59b15). This is a theme to which Aristotle devotes
considerable attention, and it surely deserves more attention than it has received in recent criticism
of both Homer and the Poetics.1
Aristotle’s admiration for Homer is focused especially on the extraordinary skill with which he
creates a single, unified story out of a vast and highly diversified body of material, incorporating
many subsidiary episodes without allowing us to lose sight of the main theme. When he comes to
discuss the differences between epic and tragedy (chapter 24), he shows that epic has certain
advantages because of its much greater scale, which gives it grandeur (and the heroic metre adds to
this by its more stately character) and also allows for more variety, which is linked to its more
“episodic” nature. The chief technique for creating this variety is the description of different
sequences of events that are happening at the same time, i.e., the epic poet’s ability to freeze one
sequence and shift the scene, returning later to the point where he left off. This advantage in epic is
linked to its narrative mode, because events do not have to be enacted visually, and also gives
greater scope to “the marvellous” ( to\ qaumasto/n), as in the pursuit of Hector (which would be
impossible on the stage). Here Aristotle picks up the criticisms by earlier readers (Pindar,
Thucydides, etc.) of the tendency of epic poetry to exaggeration but makes a special poetic virtue
of this. He links it with Homer’s exceptional skill in creating plausible fictions, which is based on

12
the accumulation of enough realistic circumstantial detail to make his fantasies credible, again
(presumably) a particular feature of the more leisurely descriptive and narrative mode of epic as
opposed to tragedy.
Although much of what Aristotle says here apparently applies to epic in general, it is clear that he
really has Homer in the forefront of his mind throughout. This of course does not mean that he
would have recommended taking Homer’s work as the model for a new epic poem, which he
explicitly says should be much shorter, roughly in fact the length of Apollonius’s Argonautica
(1459b17-22). There is an underlying conflict here between his intense admiration for the Homeric
poems, which prevents him from criticising them as too long and complex or too “episodic,” and
his preference for a more compressed and more clearly unified structure. But he did not set out to
write a treatise on epic in the Poetics, and so we must not press him too hard for consistency on this
subject. Doubtless he could have replied that in works on the scale of the Homeric poems one must
take a broad view of the overall effect and not subject them to the kind of detailed scrutiny that
might be appropriate to more compressed and briefer works.

D.K. 21 B 11.

13
ARISTOTLE’S REFERENCES TO HOMER IN THE POETICS: A
COMPENDIUM OF TEXTS FROM SECONDARY SOURCES ARRANGED
ACCORDING TO THE OUTLINE FURNISHED BY PROF. MALCOLM
HEATH.

Aristotle makes the following references to Homer:

(i) ch. 2 (48a11-12): object: Homer imitates men ‘better than we are’;

1. Homer in the discussion of poetic imitation. In his treatment of the means, the objects,
and the manner of poetic imitation, Aristotle cites Homer in illustration of his teachings
regarding each.…; regarding the objects of imitation, Homer and Sophokles are cited as imitators
of ideal character (1448 a 26, 27). (MC)

(a) Both imitate characters of ideal grandeur, as in the poetry of Homer and Sophokles….
(MC)

Aristotle, in his treatise on Poetry, describes Homer as ‘representing men as better than
they are’…. (JES)

(ii) ch. 3 (48a21-22): mode: narrative, but with impersonation of the characters;

….under manner he states that Homer is a poet who in narration takes another’s
personality. (MC)

(iii) ch. 4 (48b34-49a2): Homer’s excellence: he uniquely achieves pre-eminence in both the
serious and comic traditions of poetry, and his quasi-dramatic style points the way to
tragedy and comedy in the strict sense;

2. Homer in the treatment of the rise of tragedy and comedy. Aristotle finds in Homer the
first poetry of the satirical kind, who in his Margites sketched out the main lines of comedy by
dramatizing the ludicrous, while being at the same time preeminent among poets in the serious
style. Thus, “The Margites,” says he, “has the same relation to comedy as the Iliad and Odyssey
to tragedy” (1448 b 34-40). (MC)

Aristotle, in his treatise on Poetry, describes Homer…as ‘pre-eminent in the serious style
of poetry’. (JES)

Homer is outstanding for his dramatic qualities…(1448b34-36). (NJR)

(iv) ch. 8 (51a22-30): Homer’s excellence: unity of plot (contrasted with defective plots based
on a single person);

A. The unity of plot is demanded in both; i.e. the law of necessity or probability, so
frequently emphasized, must be strictly observed. In respect to plot, as in all else, he finds
Homer, whether from art or genius, to be of surpassing merit (1451 a 23), and cites both the Iliad
and the Odyssey as examples of artistic unity. Thus, in composing the Odyssey he did not bring
in all the adventures of Odysseus, between which there was no necessary or probable connection,
14
but made it to centre around one, complete action (1451 a 23-30 [cf. ch. 23 (1459 a 17-30)—
B.A.M.]). (MC)

In ‘unity of plot, as in all else, he is of surpassing merit; he has made the Iliad, as well as
the Odyssey, centre round a single action’. (JES)

In the treatise we are assured that Homer excels every other epic poet not only because in
the Iliad and in the Odyssey he takes an action that is a unity (1451a 28)…. (GLH)

His plots, even if by necessity less strictly unified than those of tragedy, are far more so
than those of other epic poets, whose works are essentially episodic and often centred on a single
character or concerned with a sequence of unrelated actions, rather than aiming at unity of action
(51a16-30, 59a30-b7, 62b3-11). (NJR)

Aristotle’s admiration for Homer is focused especially on the extraordinary skill with
which he creates a single, unified story out of a vast and highly diversified body of material,
incorporating many subsidiary episodes without allowing us to lose sight of the main theme.
(NJR)

(v) ch. 15 (54b1-2): an inappropriate use of divine intervention in the Iliad;

(vi) ch. 15 (54b14-15): Homer’s portrayal of Achilles;

B. All that is said of character in c. xv he applies to epos as well, and commends Homer
for introducing personages not “wanting in characteristic qualities, but each with a character of
his own” (1460 a 9-11). (MC)

(vii) ch. 16 (54b25-30): the use of the scar in the recognition of Odysseus by the nurse
(combined with reversal) and the swineherds;

(viii) ch. 16 (55a2-4): the recognition of Odysseus in Alcinous’ palace;

(ix) ch. 18 (55b15-23): episodes in epic and the plot of the Odyssey;

(x) [Heath has here:] ch. 24 (59b12-16), [which is clearly a mistake for ch. 23 (59a 17-30)]:
the excellence of Homer’s quasi-dramatic style;

In ‘unity of plot, as in all else, he is of surpassing merit; he has made the Iliad, as well as
the Odyssey, centre round a single action’. (JES)

(xi) ch. 23 (59a30-b7): excellence in plot-construction (contrasted with defective plots

constructed like a work of historiography and with plots that are well-formed but have
‘many parts’);

Likewise in the Iliad he did not make the whole Trojan war the subject of his poem,
which would have been too cumbrous a theme; but he selects a single portion, and merely
diversifies the poem by admitting many episodes from the general story of the war (1459 a 30-
38). (MC)

15
 These two poems [sc. the Iliad and the Odyssey] ‘have many parts, each with a certain
magnitude of its own; yet they are as perfect as possible in structure’. (JES)

His plots, even if by necessity less strictly unified than those of tragedy, are far more so
than those of other epic poets, whose works are essentially episodic and often centred on a single
character or concerned with a sequence of unrelated actions, rather than aiming at unity of action
(51a16-30, 59a30-b7, 62b3-11). (NJR)

…and its (the Odyssey’s) happy ending is more like that of comedy (53a30-39). (NJR)

ch. 24 (59b12-16): the Iliad and Odyssey compared;

3. Homer in the points of likeness between epos and tragedy. Aristotle in a number of
passages emphasizes the similarities between epos and tragedy… (b) epos has the same
constituent parts as tragedy, excepting song and scenery,—viz. plot, character, sentiments, and
diction; (c) it requires, like tragedy, reversals of fortune, recognitions, and tragic incidents; (d) it
must, like tragedy, be simple, complicated, ‘ethical’, or ‘pathetic’, the Iliad being at once simple
and ‘pathetic’, the Odyssey complicated and ‘ethical’.
“In all these respects,” says Aristotle, “Homer is our earliest and sufficient model” (1459
b 8-13). (MC)

Aristotle, in his treatise on Poetry, describes Homer…as ‘the earliest and the most
adequate model’ of all the excellences of epic poetry. (JES)

He was the first to use all the forms and parts of epic (as defined in Aristotle’s chapters
on tragedy) and to do so successfully, and he surpasses all others in style and thought (59b12-
16). (NJR)

At the same time, the Iliad is evidently much closer to tragedy than the Odyssey is, for it
is concerned above all with suffering and emotion ( pa/qoj), whereas the Odyssey is primarily
concerned with character (h)=qoj, 59b14-15). (NJR)

Where the Odyssey seems to come closest to tragedy (in Aristotle’s view) is in its
recurrent use of the device of recognition (59b15). (NJR)

(xii) ch. 24 (60a18-26): a Homeric model for the handling of irrationalities: false inference.

He has taught all other poets the art of illusion. (JES)

Moreover, he has taught other poets the art of making fictions plausible (60a18 ff.).
(NJR)

This advantage in epic is linked to its narrative mode, because events do not have to be
enacted visually, and also gives greater scope to “the marvellous” ( to\ qaumasto/n), as in the
pursuit of Hector (which would be impossible on the stage). Here Aristotle picks up the
criticisms by earlier readers (Pindar, Thucydides, etc.) of the tendency of epic poetry to
exaggeration but makes a special poetic virtue of this. He links it with Homer’s exceptional skill
in creating plausible fictions, which is based on the accumulation of enough realistic

16
circumstantial detail to make his fantasies credible, again (presumably) a particular feature of the
more leisurely descriptive and narrative mode of epic as opposed to tragedy. (NJR)

(xiii) ch. 24 (60a34-b5): Homer’s ability to conceal irrationalities by other good qualities.

Some general comments on epic:

(i) ch. 5 (49b9-20): a general introduction;

3. Homer in the points of likeness between epos and tragedy. Aristotle in a number of
passages emphasizes the similarities between epos and tragedy, and concludes that one who
knows the beauties and defects of tragedy is also a judge of the beauties and defects of epic
poetry (1449 b 16-20)…. (MC)

(ii) ch. 18 (56a 11-20) [N.B. Heath has (49b9-20) here in error]: tragedy and epic: the
difference in scale;

(iii) ch. 24 (59b16-60a2): differences between tragedy and epic;

C. As regards the sentiments, defined as “the faculty of saying what is possible or

pertinent in given circumstances”, they must be artistically expressed, and Aristotle finds in
Homer as unrivalled example of the proper manner of treatment (1459 b 16-17). (MC)

D. So, too, the diction must be artistic, and in this respect also he considers Homer
unequalled (1459 b 16-17). (MC)

Aristotle, in his treatise on Poetry, describes Homer…as ‘unequalled in diction and

thought’. (JES)

When he comes to discuss the differences between epic and tragedy (chapter 24), he
shows that epic has certain advantages because of its much greater scale, which gives it grandeur
(and the heroic metre adds to this by its more stately character) and also allows for more variety,
which is linked to its more “episodic” nature. The chief technique for creating this variety is the
description of different sequences of events that are happening at the same time, i.e., the epic
poet’s ability to freeze one sequence and shift the scene, returning later to the point where he left
off. (NJR)

Although much of what Aristotle says here apparently applies to epic in general, it is
clear that he really has Homer in the forefront of his mind throughout. This of course does not
mean that he would have recommended taking Homer’s work as the model for a new epic poem,
which he explicitly says should be much shorter, roughly in fact the length of Apollonius’s
Argonautica (1459b17-22). There is an underlying conflict here between his intense admiration
for the Homeric poems, which prevents him from criticising them as too long and complex or too
“episodic,” and his preference for a more compressed and more clearly unified structure. (NJR)

(--) ch. 24 (60a 5-11): on the part the poet should play in his poem (missing from Heath’s
outline, apparently in error);

17
 B. (Aristotle) commends Homer for introducing personages not “wanting in characteristic
qualities, but each with a character of his own” (1460 a 9-11). (MC)

The poet keeps himself in the background, leaving his characters, which are clearly
marked, to speak for themselves (= 60a 5-11). (JES)

In the treatise we are assured that Homer excels every other epic poet…also because he is
aware of the part to be played by the poet himself in the poem (1460a6). (GLH)

Homer is outstanding for his…portrayal of character through speeches (60a5-11). (NJR)

(iv) ch. 24 (60a11-18): astonishment in epic;

The chief technique for creating this variety is the description of different sequences of
events that are happening at the same time, i.e., the epic poet’s ability to freeze one sequence and
shift the scene, returning later to the point where he left off. This advantage in epic is linked to
its narrative mode, because events do not have to be enacted visually, and also gives greater
scope to “the marvellous” ( to\ qaumasto/n), as in the pursuit of Hector (which would be
impossible on the stage). (NJR)

(v) ch. 26 (62a18-b11): epic length may result in dilution and loss of unity.

His plots, even if by necessity less strictly unified than those of tragedy, are far more so
than those of other epic poets, whose works are essentially episodic and often centred on a single
Fhuxcharacter or concerned with a sequence of unrelated actions, rather than aiming at unity of
action (51a16-30, 59a30-b7, 62b3-11). (NJR)

© 2019; 2024` Bart A Mazzetti. All Rights Reserved

18