Homer and His Influence (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Homer and His Influence

There is also a group of thirty-four hymns, the so - called Homeric Hymns, written in the dialect and meter of Homer. These hymns appear to have been used to introduce the recitation of other longer poems and to have been composed in honor of the divinity or hero at whose festival the bard was singing. Some of these hymns might have been the only song then sung, but the shortest could have been nothing more than an introduction to a longer poem. Thucydides quotes one Of these hymns as if it were composed by Homer, but the language is clearly much later than that Of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and although we for convenience, as well as Thucydides, Speak Of these hymns as Homeric, we cannot regard them as the work of Homer.

A few minor epigrams, riddles, and the like have found a place in the complete works Of Homer, but they are universally regarded as late and spurious.

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