[Transcriber's Note:

This lecture was taken from Volume III of _The Complete Works ofFriedrich Nietzsche_, Dr. Oscar Levy, Ed. , J. M. Kennedy, Translator, 1910]

HOMER AND CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY. 

(_Inaugural Address delivered at Bâle University, 28th of May 1869. _)

At the present day no clear and consistent opinion seems to be heldregarding Classical Philology. We are conscious of this in the circlesof the learned just as much as among the followers of that scienceitself. The cause of this lies in its many-sided character, in the lackof an abstract unity, and in the inorganic aggregation of heterogeneousscientific activities which are connected with one another only by thename "Philology. " It must be freely admitted that philology is to someextent borrowed from several other sciences, and is mixed together likea magic potion from the most outlandish liquors, ores, and bones. It mayeven be added that it likewise conceals within itself an artisticelement, one which, on æsthetic and ethical grounds, may be calledimperatival--an element that acts in opposition to its purely scientificbehaviour. Philology is composed of history just as much as of naturalscience or æsthetics: history, in so far as it endeavours to comprehendthe manifestations of the individualities of peoples in ever newimages, and the prevailing law in the disappearance of phenomena;natural science, in so far as it strives to fathom the deepest instinctof man, that of speech; æsthetics, finally, because from variousantiquities at our disposal it endeavours to pick out the so-called"classical" antiquity, with the view and pretension of excavating theideal world buried under it, and to hold up to the present the mirror ofthe classical and everlasting standards. That these wholly differentscientific and æsthetico-ethical impulses have been associated under acommon name, a kind of sham monarchy, is shown especially by the factthat philology at every period from its origin onwards was at the sametime pedagogical. From the standpoint of the pedagogue, a choice wasoffered of those elements which were of the greatest educational value;and thus that science, or at least that scientific aim, which we callphilology, gradually developed out of the practical calling originatedby the exigencies of that science itself. 

These philological aims were pursued sometimes with greater ardour andsometimes with less, in accordance with the degree of culture and thedevelopment of the taste of a particular period; but, on the other hand, the followers of this science are in the habit of regarding the aimswhich correspond to their several abilities as _the_ aims of philology;whence it comes about that the estimation of philology in public opiniondepends upon the weight of the personalities of the philologists!

At the present time--that is to say, in a period which has seen mendistinguished in almost every department of philology--a generaluncertainty of judgment has increased more and more, and likewise ageneral relaxation of interest and participation in philologicalproblems. Such an undecided and imperfect state of public opinion isdamaging to a science in that its hidden and open enemies can work withmuch better prospects of success. And philology has a great many suchenemies. Where do we not meet with them, these mockers, always ready toaim a blow at the philological "moles, " the animals that practisedust-eating _ex professo_, and that grub up and eat for the eleventhtime what they have already eaten ten times before. For opponents ofthis sort, however, philology is merely a useless, harmless, andinoffensive pastime, an object of laughter and not of hate. But, on theother hand, there is a boundless and infuriated hatred of philologywherever an ideal, as such, is feared, where the modern man falls downto worship himself, and where Hellenism is looked upon as a supersededand hence very insignificant point of view. Against these enemies, wephilologists must always count upon the assistance of artists and men ofartistic minds; for they alone can judge how the sword of barbarismsweeps over the head of every one who loses sight of the unutterablesimplicity and noble dignity of the Hellene; and how no progress incommerce or technical industries, however brilliant, no schoolregulations, no political education of the masses, however widespreadand complete, can protect us from the curse of ridiculous and barbaricoffences against good taste, or from annihilation by the Gorgon head ofthe classicist. 

Whilst philology as a whole is looked on with jealous eyes by these twoclasses of opponents, there are numerous and varied hostilities in otherdirections of philology; philologists themselves are quarrelling withone another; internal dissensions are caused by useless disputes aboutprecedence and mutual jealousies, but especially by thedifferences--even enmities--comprised in the name of philology, whichare not, however, by any means naturally harmonised instincts. 

Science has this in common with art, that the most ordinary, everydaything appears to it as something entirely new and attractive, as ifmetamorphosed by witchcraft and now seen for the first time. Life isworth living, says art, the beautiful temptress; life is worth knowing, says science. With this contrast the so heartrending and dogmatictradition follows in a _theory_, and consequently in the practice ofclassical philology derived from this theory. We may consider antiquityfrom a scientific point of view; we may try to look at what has happenedwith the eye of a historian, or to arrange and compare the linguisticforms of ancient masterpieces, to bring them at all events under amorphological law; but we always lose the wonderful creative force, thereal fragrance, of the atmosphere of antiquity; we forget thatpassionate emotion which instinctively drove our meditation andenjoyment back to the Greeks. From this point onwards we must takenotice of a clearly determined and very surprising antagonism whichphilology has great cause to regret. From the circles upon whose help wemust place the most implicit reliance--the artistic friends ofantiquity, the warm supporters of Hellenic beauty and noblesimplicity--we hear harsh voices crying out that it is precisely thephilologists themselves who are the real opponents and destroyers of theideals of antiquity. Schiller upbraided the philologists with havingscattered Homer's laurel crown to the winds. It was none other thanGoethe who, in early life a supporter of Wolf's theories regardingHomer, recanted in the verses--

 With subtle wit you took away Our former adoration: The Iliad, you may us say, Was mere conglomeration. Think it not crime in any way: Youth's fervent adoration Leads us to know the verity, And feel the poet's unity. 

The reason of this want of piety and reverence must lie deeper; and manyare in doubt as to whether philologists are lacking in artistic capacityand impressions, so that they are unable to do justice to the ideal, orwhether the spirit of negation has become a destructive and iconoclasticprinciple of theirs. When, however, even the friends of antiquity, possessed of such doubts and hesitations, point to our present classicalphilology as something questionable, what influence may we not ascribeto the outbursts of the "realists" and the claptrap of the heroes of thepassing hour? To answer the latter on this occasion, especially when weconsider the nature of the present assembly, would be highlyinjudicious; at any rate, if I do not wish to meet with the fate ofthat sophist who, when in Sparta, publicly undertook to praise anddefend Herakles, when he was interrupted with the query: "But who thenhas found fault with him?" I cannot help thinking, however, that some ofthese scruples are still sounding in the ears of not a few in thisgathering; for they may still be frequently heard from the lips of nobleand artistically gifted men--as even an upright philologist must feelthem, and feel them most painfully, at moments when his spirits aredowncast. For the single individual there is no deliverance from thedissensions referred to; but what we contend and inscribe on our banneris the fact that classical philology, as a whole, has nothing whatsoeverto do with the quarrels and bickerings of its individual disciples. Theentire scientific and artistic movement of this peculiar centaur isbent, though with cyclopic slowness, upon bridging over the gulf betweenthe ideal antiquity--which is perhaps only the magnificent blossoming ofthe Teutonic longing for the south--and the real antiquity; and thusclassical philology pursues only the final end of its own being, whichis the fusing together of primarily hostile impulses that have onlyforcibly been brought together. Let us talk as we will about theunattainability of this goal, and even designate the goal itself as anillogical pretension--the aspiration for it is very real; and I shouldlike to try to make it clear by an example that the most significantsteps of classical philology never lead away from the ideal antiquity, but to it; and that, just when people are speaking unwarrantably of theoverthrow of sacred shrines, new and more worthy altars are beingerected. Let us then examine the so-called _Homeric question_ from thisstandpoint, a question the most important problem of which Schillercalled a scholastic barbarism. 

The important problem referred to is _the question of the personality ofHomer_. 

We now meet everywhere with the firm opinion that the question ofHomer's personality is no longer timely, and that it is quite adifferent thing from the real "Homeric question. " It may be added that, for a given period--such as our present philological period, forexample--the centre of discussion may be removed from the problem of thepoet's personality; for even now a painstaking experiment is being madeto reconstruct the Homeric poems without the aid of personality, treating them as the work of several different persons. But if thecentre of a scientific question is rightly seen to be where the swellingtide of new views has risen up, i. E. Where individual scientificinvestigation comes into contact with the whole life of science andculture--if any one, in other words, indicates a historico-culturalvaluation as the central point of the question, he must also, in theprovince of Homeric criticism, take his stand upon the question ofpersonality as being the really fruitful oasis in the desert of thewhole argument. For in Homer the modern world, I will not say haslearnt, but has examined, a great historical point of view; and, evenwithout now putting forward my own opinion as to whether thisexamination has been or can be happily carried out, it was at allevents the first example of the application of that productive point ofview. By it scholars learnt to recognise condensed beliefs in theapparently firm, immobile figures of the life of ancient peoples; by itthey for the first time perceived the wonderful capability of the soulof a people to represent the conditions of its morals and beliefs in theform of a personality. When historical criticism has confidently seizedupon this method of evaporating apparently concrete personalities, it ispermissible to point to the first experiment as an important event inthe history of sciences, without considering whether it was successfulin this instance or not. 

It is a common occurrence for a series of striking signs and wonderfulemotions to precede an epoch-making discovery. Even the experiment Ihave just referred to has its own attractive history; but it goes backto a surprisingly ancient era. Friedrich August Wolf has exactlyindicated the spot where Greek antiquity dropped the question. Thezenith of the historico-literary studies of the Greeks, and hence alsoof their point of greatest importance--the Homeric question--was reachedin the age of the Alexandrian grammarians. Up to this time the Homericquestion had run through the long chain of a uniform process ofdevelopment, of which the standpoint of those grammarians seemed to bethe last link, the last, indeed, which was attainable by antiquity. Theyconceived the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ as the creations of _one single_Homer; they declared it to be psychologically possible for two suchdifferent works to have sprung from the brain of _one_ genius, incontradiction to the Chorizontes, who represented the extreme limit ofthe scepticism of a few detached individuals of antiquity rather thanantiquity itself considered as a whole. To explain the different generalimpression of the two books on the assumption that _one_ poet composedthem both, scholars sought assistance by referring to the seasons of thepoet's life, and compared the poet of the _Odyssey_ to the setting sun. The eyes of those critics were tirelessly on the lookout fordiscrepancies in the language and thoughts of the two poems; but at thistime also a history of the Homeric poem and its tradition was prepared, according to which these discrepancies were not due to Homer, butto those who committed his words to writing and those who sang them. Itwas believed that Homer's poem was passed from one generation to another_viva voce_, and faults were attributed to the improvising and at timesforgetful bards. At a certain given date, about the time of Pisistratus, the poems which had been repeated orally were said to have beencollected in manuscript form; but the scribes, it is added, allowedthemselves to take some liberties with the text by transposing somelines and adding extraneous matter here and there. This entirehypothesis is the most important in the domain of literary studies thatantiquity has exhibited; and the acknowledgment of the dissemination ofthe Homeric poems by word of mouth, as opposed to the habits of abook-learned age, shows in particular a depth of ancient sagacity worthyof our admiration. From those times until the generation that producedFriedrich August Wolf we must take a jump over a long historical vacuum;but in our own age we find the argument left just as it was at the timewhen the power of controversy departed from antiquity, and it is amatter of indifference to us that Wolf accepted as certain traditionwhat antiquity itself had set up only as a hypothesis. It may beremarked as most characteristic of this hypothesis that, in thestrictest sense, the personality of Homer is treated seriously; that acertain standard of inner harmony is everywhere presupposed in themanifestations of the personality; and that, with these two excellentauxiliary hypotheses, whatever is seen to be below this standard andopposed to this inner harmony is at once swept aside as un-Homeric. Buteven this distinguishing characteristic, in place of wishing torecognise the supernatural existence of a tangible personality, ascendslikewise through all the stages that lead to that zenith, withever-increasing energy and clearness. Individuality is ever morestrongly felt and accentuated; the psychological possibility of a_single_ Homer is ever more forcibly demanded. If we descend backwardsfrom this zenith, step by step, we find a guide to the understanding ofthe Homeric problem in the person of Aristotle. Homer was for him theflawless and untiring artist who knew his end and the means to attainit; but there is still a trace of infantile criticism to be found inAristotle--i. E. , in the naive concession he made to the public opinionthat considered Homer as the author of the original of all comic epics, the _Margites_. If we go still further backwards from Aristotle, theinability to create a personality is seen to increase; more and morepoems are attributed to Homer; and every period lets us see its degreeof criticism by how much and what it considers as Homeric. In thisbackward examination, we instinctively feel that away beyond Herodotusthere lies a period in which an immense flood of great epics has beenidentified with the name of Homer. 

Let us imagine ourselves as living in the time of Pisistratus: the word"Homer" then comprehended an abundance of dissimilarities. What wasmeant by "Homer" at that time? It is evident that that generation founditself unable to grasp a personality and the limits of itsmanifestations. Homer had now become of small consequence. And then wemeet with the weighty question: What lies before this period? HasHomer's personality, because it cannot be grasped, gradually faded awayinto an empty name? Or had all the Homeric poems been gathered togetherin a body, the nation naively representing itself by the figure ofHomer? _Was the person created out of a conception, or the conceptionout of a person?_ This is the real "Homeric question, " the centralproblem of the personality. 

The difficulty of answering this question, however, is increased when weseek a reply in another direction, from the standpoint of the poemsthemselves which have come down to us. As it is difficult for us at thepresent day, and necessitates a serious effort on our part, tounderstand the law of gravitation clearly--that the earth alters itsform of motion when another heavenly body changes its position in space, although no material connection unites one to the other--it likewisecosts us some trouble to obtain a clear impression of that wonderfulproblem which, like a coin long passed from hand to hand, has lost itsoriginal and highly conspicuous stamp. Poetical works, which cause thehearts of even the greatest geniuses to fail when they endeavour to viewith them, and in which unsurpassable images are held up for theadmiration of posterity--and yet the poet who wrote them with only ahollow, shaky name, whenever we do lay hold on him; nowhere the solidkernel of a powerful personality. "For who would wage war with the gods:who, even with the one god?" asks Goethe even, who, though a genius, strove in vain to solve that mysterious problem of the Homericinaccessibility. 

The conception of popular poetry seemed to lead like a bridge over thisproblem--a deeper and more original power than that of every singlecreative individual was said to have become active; the happiest people, in the happiest period of its existence, in the highest activity offantasy and formative power, was said to have created those immeasurablepoems. In this universality there is something almost intoxicating inthe thought of a popular poem: we feel, with artistic pleasure, thebroad, overpowering liberation of a popular gift, and we delight in thisnatural phenomenon as we do in an uncontrollable cataract. But as soonas we examine this thought at close quarters, we involuntarily put apoetic _mass of people_ in the place of the poetising _soul of thepeople_: a long row of popular poets in whom individuality has nomeaning, and in whom the tumultuous movement of a people's soul, theintuitive strength of a people's eye, and the unabated profusion of apeople's fantasy, were once powerful: a row of original geniuses, attached to a time, to a poetic genus, to a subject-matter. 

Such a conception justly made people suspicious. Could it be possiblethat that same Nature who so sparingly distributed her rarest and mostprecious production--genius--should suddenly take the notion oflavishing her gifts in one sole direction? And here the thorny questionagain made its appearance: Could we not get along with one genius only, and explain the present existence of that unattainable excellence? Andnow eyes were keenly on the lookout for whatever that excellence andsingularity might consist of. Impossible for it to be in theconstruction of the complete works, said one party, for this is far fromfaultless; but doubtless to be found in single songs: in the singlepieces above all; not in the whole. A second party, on the other hand, sheltered themselves beneath the authority of Aristotle, who especiallyadmired Homer's "divine" nature in the choice of his entire subject, andthe manner in which he planned and carried it out. If, however, thisconstruction was not clearly seen, this fault was due to the way thepoems were handed down to posterity and not to the poet himself--it wasthe result of retouchings and interpolations, owing to which theoriginal setting of the work gradually became obscured. The more thefirst school looked for inequalities, contradictions, perplexities, themore energetically did the other school brush aside what in theiropinion obscured the original plan, in order, if possible, that nothingmight be left remaining but the actual words of the original epicitself. The second school of thought of course held fast by theconception of an epoch-making genius as the composer of the great works. The first school, on the other hand, wavered between the supposition ofone genius plus a number of minor poets, and another hypothesis whichassumed only a number of superior and even mediocre individual bards, but also postulated a mysterious discharging, a deep, national, artisticimpulse, which shows itself in individual minstrels as an almostindifferent medium. It is to this latter school that we must attributethe representation of the Homeric poems as the expression of thatmysterious impulse. 

All these schools of thought start from the assumption that the problemof the present form of these epics can be solved from the standpoint ofan æsthetic judgment--but we must await the decision as to theauthorised line of demarcation between the man of genius and thepoetical soul of the people. Are there characteristic differencesbetween the utterances of the _man of genius_ and the _poetical soul ofthe people_?

This whole contrast, however, is unjust and misleading. There is nomore dangerous assumption in modern æsthetics than that of _popularpoetry_ and _individual poetry_, or, as it is usually called, _artisticpoetry_. This is the reaction, or, if you will, the superstition, whichfollowed upon the most momentous discovery of historico-philologicalscience, the discovery and appreciation of the _soul of the people_. Forthis discovery prepared the way for a coming scientific view of history, which was until then, and in many respects is even now, a merecollection of materials, with the prospect that new materials wouldcontinue to be added, and that the huge, overflowing pile would never besystematically arranged. The people now understood for the first timethat the long-felt power of greater individualities and wills was largerthan the pitifully small will of an individual man;[1] they now saw thateverything truly great in the kingdom of the will could not have itsdeepest root in the inefficacious and ephemeral individual will; and, finally, they now discovered the powerful instincts of the masses, anddiagnosed those unconscious impulses to be the foundations and supportsof the so-called universal history. But the newly-lighted flame alsocast its shadow: and this shadow was none other than that superstitionalready referred to, which popular poetry set up in opposition toindividual poetry, and thus enlarged the comprehension of the people'ssoul to that of the people's mind. By the misapplication of a temptinganalogical inference, people had reached the point of applying in thedomain of the intellect and artistic ideas that principle of greaterindividuality which is truly applicable only in the domain of the will. The masses have never experienced more flattering treatment than in thushaving the laurel of genius set upon their empty heads. It was imaginedthat new shells were forming round a small kernel, so to speak, and thatthose pieces of popular poetry originated like avalanches, in the driftand flow of tradition. They were, however, ready to consider that kernelas being of the smallest possible dimensions, so that they mightoccasionally get rid of it altogether without losing anything of themass of the avalanche. According to this view, the text itself and thestories built round it are one and the same thing. 

[1] Of course Nietzsche saw afterwards that this was not so. --TR. 

Now, however, such a contrast between popular poetry and individualpoetry does not exist at all; on the contrary, all poetry, and of coursepopular poetry also, requires an intermediary individuality. Thismuch-abused contrast, therefore, is necessary only when the term_individual poem_ is understood to mean a poem which has not grown outof the soil of popular feeling, but which has been composed by anon-popular poet in a non-popular atmosphere--something which has cometo maturity in the study of a learned man, for example. 

With the superstition which presupposes poetising masses is connectedanother: that popular poetry is limited to one particular period of apeople's history and afterwards dies out--which indeed follows as aconsequence of the first superstition I have mentioned. According tothis school, in the place of the gradually decaying popular poetry wehave artistic poetry, the work of individual minds, not of masses ofpeople. But the same powers which were once active are still so; and theform in which they act has remained exactly the same. The great poet ofa literary period is still a popular poet in no narrower sense than thepopular poet of an illiterate age. The difference between them is not inthe way they originate, but it is their diffusion and propagation, inshort, _tradition_. This tradition is exposed to eternal danger withoutthe help of handwriting, and runs the risk of including in the poems theremains of those individualities through whose oral tradition they werehanded down. 

If we apply all these principles to the Homeric poems, it follows thatwe gain nothing with our theory of the poetising soul of the people, andthat we are always referred back to the poetical individual. We are thusconfronted with the task of distinguishing that which can haveoriginated only in a single poetical mind from that which is, so tospeak, swept up by the tide of oral tradition, and which is a highlyimportant constituent part of the Homeric poems. 

Since literary history first ceased to be a mere collection of names, people have attempted to grasp and formulate the individualities of thepoets. A certain mechanism forms part of the method: it must beexplained--i. E. , it must be deduced from principles--why this or thatindividuality appears in this way and not in that. People now studybiographical details, environment, acquaintances, contemporary events, and believe that by mixing all these ingredients together they will beable to manufacture the wished-for individuality. But they forget thatthe _punctum saliens_, the indefinable individual characteristics, cannever be obtained from a compound of this nature. The less there isknown about the life and times of the poet, the less applicable is thismechanism. When, however, we have merely the works and the name of thewriter, it is almost impossible to detect the individuality, at allevents, for those who put their faith in the mechanism in question; andparticularly when the works are perfect, when they are pieces of popularpoetry. For the best way for these mechanicians to grasp individualcharacteristics is by perceiving deviations from the genius of thepeople; the aberrations and hidden allusions: and the fewerdiscrepancies to be found in a poem the fainter will be the traces ofthe individual poet who composed it. 

All those deviations, everything dull and below the ordinary standardwhich scholars think they perceive in the Homeric poems, were attributedto tradition, which thus became the scapegoat. What was left of Homer'sown individual work? Nothing but a series of beautiful and prominentpassages chosen in accordance with subjective taste. The sum total ofæsthetic singularity which every individual scholar perceived with hisown artistic gifts, he now called Homer. 

This is the central point of the Homeric errors. The name of Homer, fromthe very beginning, has no connection either with the conception ofæsthetic perfection or yet with the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_. Homer asthe composer of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ is not a historicaltradition, but an _æsthetic judgment_. 

The only path which leads back beyond the time of Pisistratus and helpsus to elucidate the meaning of the name Homer, takes its way on the onehand through the reports which have reached us concerning Homer'sbirthplace: from which we see that, although his name is alwaysassociated with heroic epic poems, he is on the other hand no morereferred to as the composer of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ than as theauthor of the _Thebais_ or any other cyclical epic. On the other hand, again, an old tradition tells of the contest between Homer and Hesiod, which proves that when these two names were mentioned peopleinstinctively thought of two epic tendencies, the heroic and thedidactic; and that the signification of the name "Homer" was included inthe material category and not in the formal. This imaginary contest withHesiod did not even yet show the faintest presentiment of individuality. From the time of Pisistratus onwards, however, with the surprisinglyrapid development of the Greek feeling for beauty, the differences inthe æsthetic value of those epics continued to be felt more and more:the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ arose from the depths of the flood andhave remained on the surface ever since. With this process of æstheticseparation, the conception of Homer gradually became narrower: the oldmaterial meaning of the name "Homer" as the father of the heroic epicpoem, was changed into the æsthetic meaning of Homer, the father ofpoetry in general, and likewise its original prototype. Thistransformation was contemporary with the rationalistic criticism whichmade Homer the magician out to be a possible poet, which vindicated thematerial and formal traditions of those numerous epics as against theunity of the poet, and gradually removed that heavy load of cyclicalepics from Homer's shoulders. 

So Homer, the poet of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_, is an æstheticjudgment. It is, however, by no means affirmed against the poet of theseepics that he was merely the imaginary being of an æstheticimpossibility, which can be the opinion of only very few philologistsindeed. The majority contend that a single individual was responsiblefor the general design of a poem such as the _Iliad_, and further thatthis individual was Homer. The first part of this contention may beadmitted; but, in accordance with what I have said, the latter part mustbe denied. And I very much doubt whether the majority of those who adoptthe first part of the contention have taken the following considerationsinto account. 

The design of an epic such as the _Iliad_ is not an entire _whole_, notan organism; but a number of pieces strung together, a collection ofreflections arranged in accordance with æsthetic rules. It is certainlythe standard of an artist's greatness to note what he can take in with asingle glance and set out in rhythmical form. The infinite profusion ofimages and incidents in the Homeric epic must force us to admit thatsuch a wide range of vision is next to impossible. Where, however, apoet is unable to observe artistically with a single glance, he usuallypiles conception on conception, and endeavours to adjust his charactersaccording to a comprehensive scheme. 

He will succeed in this all the better the more he is familiar with thefundamental principles of æsthetics: he will even make some believethat he made himself master of the entire subject by a single powerfulglance. 

The _Iliad_ is not a garland, but a bunch of flowers. As many picturesas possible are crowded on one canvas; but the man who placed them therewas indifferent as to whether the grouping of the collected pictures wasinvariably suitable and rhythmically beautiful. He well knew that no onewould ever consider the collection as a whole; but would merely look atthe individual parts. But that stringing together of some pieces as themanifestations of a grasp of art which was not yet highly developed, still less thoroughly comprehended and generally esteemed, cannot havebeen the real Homeric deed, the real Homeric epoch-making event. On thecontrary, this design is a later product, far later than Homer'scelebrity. Those, therefore, who look for the "original and perfectdesign" are looking for a mere phantom; for the dangerous path of oraltradition had reached its end just as the systematic arrangementappeared on the scene; the disfigurements which were caused on the waycould not have affected the design, for this did not form part of thematerial handed down from generation to generation. 

The relative imperfection of the design must not, however, prevent usfrom seeing in the designer a different personality from the real poet. It is not only probable that everything which was created in those timeswith conscious æsthetic insight, was infinitely inferior to the songsthat sprang up naturally in the poet's mind and were written down withinstinctive power: we can even take a step further. If we include theso-called cyclic poems in this comparison, there remains for thedesigner of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ the indisputable merit ofhaving done something relatively great in this conscious technicalcomposing: a merit which we might have been prepared to recognise fromthe beginning, and which is in my opinion of the very first order in thedomain of instinctive creation. We may even be ready to pronounce thissynthetisation of great importance. All those dull passages anddiscrepancies--deemed of such importance, but really only subjective, which we usually look upon as the petrified remains of the period oftradition--are not these perhaps merely the almost necessary evils whichmust fall to the lot of the poet of genius who undertakes a compositionvirtually without a parallel, and, further, one which proves to be ofincalculable difficulty?

Let it be noted that the insight into the most diverse operations of theinstinctive and the conscious changes the position of the Homericproblem; and in my opinion throws light upon it. 

We believe in a great poet as the author of the _Iliad_ and the_Odyssey--but not that Homer was this poet_. 

The decision on this point has already been given. The generation thatinvented those numerous Homeric fables, that poetised the myth of thecontest between Homer and Hesiod, and looked upon all the poems of theepic cycle as Homeric, did not feel an æsthetic but a materialsingularity when it pronounced the name "Homer. " This period regardsHomer as belonging to the ranks of artists like Orpheus, Eumolpus, Dædalus, and Olympus, the mythical discoverers of a new branch of art, to whom, therefore, all the later fruits which grew from the new branchwere thankfully dedicated. 

And that wonderful genius to whom we owe the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_belongs to this thankful posterity: he, too, sacrificed his name on thealtar of the primeval father of the Homeric epic, Homeros. 

Up to this point, gentlemen, I think I have been able to put before youthe fundamental philosophical and æsthetic characteristics of theproblem of the personality of Homer, keeping all minor detailsrigorously at a distance, on the supposition that the primary form ofthis widespread and honeycombed mountain known as the Homeric questioncan be most clearly observed by looking down at it from a far-offheight. But I have also, I imagine, recalled two facts to those friendsof antiquity who take such delight in accusing us philologists of lackof piety for great conceptions and an unproductive zeal fordestruction. In the first place, those "great" conceptions--such, forexample, as that of the indivisible and inviolable poetic genius, Homer--were during the pre-Wolfian period only too great, and henceinwardly altogether empty and elusive when we now try to grasp them. Ifclassical philology goes back again to the same conceptions, and oncemore tries to pour new wine into old bottles, it is only on the surfacethat the conceptions are the same: everything has really become new;bottle and mind, wine and word. We everywhere find traces of the factthat philology has lived in company with poets, thinkers, and artistsfor the last hundred years: whence it has now come about that the heapof ashes formerly pointed to as classical philology is now turned intofruitful and even rich soil. [2]

[2] Nietzsche perceived later on that this statement was, unfortunately, not justified. --TR. 

And there is a second fact which I should like to recall to the memoryof those friends of antiquity who turn their dissatisfied backs onclassical philology. You honour the immortal masterpieces of theHellenic mind in poetry and sculpture, and think yourselves so much morefortunate than preceding generations, which had to do without them; butyou must not forget that this whole fairyland once lay buried undermountains of prejudice, and that the blood and sweat and arduous labourof innumerable followers of our science were all necessary to lift upthat world from the chasm into which it had sunk. We grant thatphilology is not the creator of this world, not the composer of thatimmortal music; but is it not a merit, and a great merit, to be a merevirtuoso, and let the world for the first time hear that music which layso long in obscurity, despised and undecipherable? Who was Homerpreviously to Wolf's brilliant investigations? A good old man, known atbest as a "natural genius, " at all events the child of a barbaric age, replete with faults against good taste and good morals. Let us hear howa learned man of the first rank writes about Homer even so late as 1783:"Where does the good man live? Why did he remain so long incognito?Apropos, can't you get me a silhouette of him?"

We demand _thanks_--not in our own name, for we are but atoms--but inthe name of philology itself, which is indeed neither a Muse nor aGrace, but a messenger of the gods: and just as the Muses descended uponthe dull and tormented Boeotian peasants, so Philology comes into aworld full of gloomy colours and pictures, full of the deepest, mostincurable woes; and speaks to men comfortingly of the beautiful andgodlike figure of a distant, rosy, and happy fairyland. 

It is time to close; yet before I do so a few words of a personalcharacter must be added, justified, I hope, by the occasion of thislecture. 

It is but right that a philologist should describe his end and the meansto it in the short formula of a confession of faith; and let this bedone in the saying of Seneca which I thus reverse--

 "Philosophia facta est quæ philologia fuit. "

By this I wish to signify that all philological activities should beenclosed and surrounded by a philosophical view of things, in whicheverything individual and isolated is evaporated as somethingdetestable, and in which great homogeneous views alone remain. Now, therefore, that I have enunciated my philological creed, I trust youwill give me cause to hope that I shall no longer be a stranger amongyou: give me the assurance that in working with you towards this end Iam worthily fulfilling the confidence with which the highest authoritiesof this community have honoured me.