The Frame » Blog Archive » Voltaire on Homer

Notwithstanding the Veneration due, and paid to Homer, it is very strange, yet true, that among the most learn’d, and the greatest Admirers of Antiquity, there is scarce to be found, who ever read the Iliad, with that Eagerness and Rapture, which a Woman feels when she reads the Novel of Zaida¹; and as to the common Mass of Readers, less conversant with letters, but not perhaps endow’d with a less Share of Judgment and Wit, few have been able to go through the whole Iliad, without struggling against a secret Dislike, and some have thrown it aside after the fourth or fifth Book. How does it come to pass, that Homer has so many Admirers and so few Readers? And is at the same Time worshipp’d and neglected? (Voltaire, An Essay on Epick Poetry, 48-49)

The more things change, the more they stay the same…there were fake bibliophiles even back in the 18th century! (I typed that from a fascimile, thus the weird spellings and capitalization. I could’ve modernized it, but why? But I did use a regular “s” everytime he had an “s” that looks like an “f”. That’s the bad thing about fascimile versions.) Anyway. I found that amusing. I can just see some 18th-century schoolboy hurling his Homer across the room.

¹ Apparently a popular novel of the time. I found one Zaida written by Augustus von Kotzebue, but I’m pretty sure it’s not the same, since this essay was published in 1727, and Kotzebue wasn’t born until, like 1760. In any case, novels were new at the time and generally held in contempt and considered only suitable for flighty women, which is the import of what he’s saying here.

http://hornes.org/mark/ Mark Horne

I think you might be able to find somewhere on the web the Southern Presbyterian R. L. Dabney writing tracts against novels.

I think novels, as technological innovations (printing press, cheaper bookbinding, maybe) were viewed much the same way some Christians later reated to television.
http://hornes.org/mark/ Mark Horne

I think you might be able to find somewhere on the web the Southern Presbyterian R. L. Dabney writing tracts against novels.

I think novels, as technological innovations (printing press, cheaper bookbinding, maybe) were viewed much the same way some Christians later reated to television.
http://www.the-frame.com/blog Jandy

Well, it’s not just a question of technology (I mean, books of perfectly acceptable poetry took advantage of the printing press, too), but one of content–the earliest (English-language) novels came along with the burgeoning Romantic movement (think Gothic novels), and the literary establishment of the time was still firmly neoclassical. There were no novels in ancient Greece, so therefore they must be some upstart sort of bastard form, thus they were inherently inferior to the high art of epic and tragic poetry.

There was also the moral concern, as Dabney argues (like here; thanks for suggesting I search for that, it’s interesting! And sort of funny, though he obviously didn’t think it was…), which I guess stemmed, again, from the Romantic influence which tended toward horrific and titillating narratives and sentimentality rather than edifying morality. The morality issue is important to neoclassicists like Voltaire really only from a position of manners and social acceptability. Voltaire, after all, epitome of the athiest. (Reading further in the Dabney piece, he sounds like a consummate neoclassicist, just with a more religious bent than usual.)

Your comparison to television is a really good one, though I suspect it’s a high art/low art distinction more than a technological one (except insofar as technological advances helped make low art easier to produce, just at it did high art). I guess I just see technology as a means rather than a cause.
http://www.the-frame.com/blog Jandy

Well, it’s not just a question of technology (I mean, books of perfectly acceptable poetry took advantage of the printing press, too), but one of content–the earliest (English-language) novels came along with the burgeoning Romantic movement (think Gothic novels), and the literary establishment of the time was still firmly neoclassical. There were no novels in ancient Greece, so therefore they must be some upstart sort of bastard form, thus they were inherently inferior to the high art of epic and tragic poetry.

There was also the moral concern, as Dabney argues (like here; thanks for suggesting I search for that, it’s interesting! And sort of funny, though he obviously didn’t think it was…), which I guess stemmed, again, from the Romantic influence which tended toward horrific and titillating narratives and sentimentality rather than edifying morality. The morality issue is important to neoclassicists like Voltaire really only from a position of manners and social acceptability. Voltaire, after all, epitome of the athiest. (Reading further in the Dabney piece, he sounds like a consummate neoclassicist, just with a more religious bent than usual.)

Your comparison to television is a really good one, though I suspect it’s a high art/low art distinction more than a technological one (except insofar as technological advances helped make low art easier to produce, just at it did high art). I guess I just see technology as a means rather than a cause.
Tineke

Unrelated. But, OoooO. Your layout changed. Is that music thing in the corner meant to be playing music? Because I can’t hear anything. :(
Tineke

Unrelated. But, OoooO. Your layout changed. Is that music thing in the corner meant to be playing music? Because I can’t hear anything. :(
http://www.the-frame.com/blog Jandy

Tineke, yeah, I got stifled by only having one sidebar. And you have to press play on the music thing in the corner (or double-click one of the tracks). I hate sites that start playing music as soon as it loads, so I didn’t want to force that on other people. ;)
http://www.the-frame.com/blog Jandy

Tineke, yeah, I got stifled by only having one sidebar. And you have to press play on the music thing in the corner (or double-click one of the tracks). I hate sites that start playing music as soon as it loads, so I didn’t want to force that on other people. ;)
Tineke

That’s awesome. Music to listen to while reading your blog.
Tineke

That’s awesome. Music to listen to while reading your blog.