- Title Pages
- Title Pages
- Title Pages
- Preface
- Bibliographical note
- Abbreviations and Notes on Citations
-
Chapter 1 Sense and Method of the New Science -
Chapter 2 Genesis of the New Science -
Chapter 3 Structure of the New Science - Introduction
-
Chapter 4 Genesis of the Frontispiece -
Chapter 5 Structure of the Frontispiece - Introduction
-
Chapter 6 Chronological Table -
Chapter 7 Elements -
Chapter 8 Principles -
Chapter 9 Method - Introduction
-
Chapter 10 Tree of Poetic Wisdom -
Chapter 11 Poetic Metaphysics -
Chapter 12 Poetic Logic -
Chapter 13 Poetic Morals, Economy, and Politics -
Chapter 14 Poetic Sciences - Introduction
-
Chapter 15 Search for the True Homer -
Chapter 16 Discovery of the True Homer - Introduction
-
Chapter 17 Threefold Structure of the Course of the Nations -
Chapter 18 Recourse of the Nations -
Chapter 19 On an Eternal Natural Republic - Glossary of Italian Terms
- Key to English Equivalents
- Chronological Summary of Vico’s Life and Principal Works
- Some Works of Secondary Literature on Vico
- Index of Names
- Plates
Discovery of the True Homer
Discovery of the True Homer
- Chapter:
- (p.181) Chapter 16 Discovery of the True Homer
- Source:
- Vico's "New Science"
- Author(s):
Donald Phillip Verene
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
This chapter examines the section on the discovery of the true Homer in Book 3 of the New Science. In his introduction of this section, Giambattista Vico asserts that Homer as an individual author did not exist and that the Trojan War that he describes never occurred. Although the ancient Greeks considered the Homeric poems to be relations of historical events, modern critics agree with Vico. This chapter considers Vico’s argument that calling Homer a “heroic character” implies that Homer himself is a “poetic character” as are the heroic characters of his poems. It also discusses Vico’s claim that Homer composed the Iliad in his youth and the Odyssey in his old age, along with his interpretation of Homer’s epic poems and its implications for the origins of dramatic and lyric poetry.
Keywords: lyric poetry, Homer, New Science, Giambattista Vico, Trojan War, epic poems, Iliad, Odyssey
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- Title Pages
- Title Pages
- Title Pages
- Preface
- Bibliographical note
- Abbreviations and Notes on Citations
-
Chapter 1 Sense and Method of the New Science -
Chapter 2 Genesis of the New Science -
Chapter 3 Structure of the New Science - Introduction
-
Chapter 4 Genesis of the Frontispiece -
Chapter 5 Structure of the Frontispiece - Introduction
-
Chapter 6 Chronological Table -
Chapter 7 Elements -
Chapter 8 Principles -
Chapter 9 Method - Introduction
-
Chapter 10 Tree of Poetic Wisdom -
Chapter 11 Poetic Metaphysics -
Chapter 12 Poetic Logic -
Chapter 13 Poetic Morals, Economy, and Politics -
Chapter 14 Poetic Sciences - Introduction
-
Chapter 15 Search for the True Homer -
Chapter 16 Discovery of the True Homer - Introduction
-
Chapter 17 Threefold Structure of the Course of the Nations -
Chapter 18 Recourse of the Nations -
Chapter 19 On an Eternal Natural Republic - Glossary of Italian Terms
- Key to English Equivalents
- Chronological Summary of Vico’s Life and Principal Works
- Some Works of Secondary Literature on Vico
- Index of Names
- Plates
