Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Classical Review, 1887, Vol. 1
Professor Jebb has. Definitely and boldly thrown in his lot with the adherents of what has been not unhappily called the 'crystal lization theory, ' the hypothesis of a primitive epic of the \vrath of Achilles expanded by the insertion of many lays of various com pass by later hands. The substance of the primary Iliad' is to be found in books l, 11, and 16 to 22 inclusive allowance being made for later interpolations, large or small, in books 16 The group of books 2 to 7 'represents the earliest series of additions made (not all at one time or by one hand) to the primary Iliad.' Books 12 to 15 are 'a skilful and brilliant expansion, ' 'thoroughly worthy of a great poet (though I cannot at all agree with Mr. Jebb in regarding these books as even possibly the work of one hand; in no part of the Iliad is the narra tive more uneven and complicated than here). \vhen the additions had reached this point, no further amplification of the original simple plot would be possible for the space between 11 and 16 was now filled with events, while any further retardation be tween] and 11 would be tedious. Hence the artifice of 'duplicating' the turning point of the story, the discomfiture of the Greeks, by the insertion of books 8 and 9 book 10 did not yet exist.
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