The Frame

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.

I feel for A.D. Harvey and the research he put into writing the Neo-classical vs. Romantic section of this book Literature and History, especially in hunting down and examining the hundreds of epics written according to the Neo-classical guidelines in the late-18th, early-19th century, hoping to come up with something to rival the ancient Greeks.

I have hunted the early nineteenth-century epic through bibliographies and literary journals, ordering up hundred weights of volumes, some handsome quartos in crumbling calf, others cheap editions with mildewed uncut pages, rare, sometimes unique survivors of the piled-up brand-new volumes which once went forth from the warehouse with the pride of the epic poet and have been long since almost all consumed by the various destructiveness and impatiences of the world; I have turned page after page insistently different yet endlessly the same, like tombstones in a forgotten war cemetery; I have searched through the obscuring medium of French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, German, Danish, Swedish and Dutch for a glimmer of hitherto unacknowledged genius, a unique sensibility attempting to liberate itself from the marble blocks of verse, a voice expressing a perception of something that needed to be preserved; and sometimes I have thought that all I was achieving with my growing lists of titles was that for the first time statistical proof was being given of how many boring people there were in the early nineteenth-century (137-138).

It’s rare that a scholarly volume will make me laugh out loud, but that did. Oh, those Neo-classicists and their sameness-inducing rule-bounded-ness.

In other news, I burned my brownies. :( Note to self: when the timer goes off, TAKE THE FOOD OUT. *facepalm*

Over the past two days, I have read (or skimmed) G.W.F. Hegel, J.G. Herder, David Hume, and Karl Marx (but not much Marx, because I got bored). I have also read about Alexander Pope, Homer, Friedrich Schiller, Montesqieu, neo-classicism, and the philosophy of history. (Being a grad student does wonders for your speed-reading abilities…)

All that to say that I found this passage in Hegel to be rather amusing, but that could be just because I’m going cross-eyed.

Here in Germany, the so-called “higher criticism” has invaded not only the whole realm of literary studies, but also that of historical writing (in which, by abandoning the basic task of history, i.e., judicious historical studies, writers have left the way open for the most arbitrary ideas and combinations). This higher criticism has been the pretext for introducing all the un-historical monstrosities a vain imagination could suggest. It too is a method of bringing a present into the past, namely by substituting subjective fancies for historical data–fancies which are considered the more excellent the bolder they are, that is, the less they have to substantiate them, the scantier the details on which they are based, and the more widely they diverge from the best established facts of history. (Hegel, Introduction to the Lectures on the Philosophy of History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975, p 23)

Note that Hegel’s Philosophy of History and his History of Philosophy are two entirely separate works. Yeah, that confused me for a while. Especially since the editions I got from the library are just the introductions, anyway. Because the Introduction to the Lectures on the Philosophy of History is in the philosophy section, but the actual Lectures on the Philosophy of History is in the history section. Which sort of makes sense, but didn’t really when I didn’t know the intricacies of Hegel’s works as well as I do now. My professor tried to scare me away from Hegel, but I actually enjoyed what I read of him. Not as hard as Kant, and more interesting. (But then, I find history more interesting than philosophy–if I tried to read some of Hegel’s more philosophic stuff, I might have more difficulty. The Phenomenology of Spirit certainly sounds daunting, at least.)

My European Romanticism class has apparently turned into a philosophy class, hasn’t it? At least as far as the topics I keep picking go (the current topic being the differences between neo-classical and Romantic views of history, especially as it relates to their appropriation of/imitation of/admiration for Homer and classical poetry). Oh, well. It’s actually really interesting…these are the kind of philosophers I wanted to learn about in the Intro to Philosophy class I took my senior year of college. Instead I got a whole semester on pre-Platonic Greek philosophy, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and the definition of worldview, which I already knew, thank you very much. Now if I can just figure out a way to study the existentialists (i.e., tie them into a paper, because without accountability I’ll never study them), I’ll be happy. :) Also, what does it say about me and poetry that I’d rather attempt Kant, Hegel, Hume, and Herder than Shelley and Wordsworth? Hmmmm…..

In other news, if my browser would quit freezing every few seconds, it would be enormously beneficial to my ability to, I don’t know, DO ANYTHING?! Firefox has been hogging resources even more than usual lately, and even restarting everything doesn’t seem to help for very long. I just uninstalled several plugins I don’t use very much…hopefully that will help.