Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age [Paperback]

Analysing in detail ancient Greek culture and society, Gladstone achieves his aim 'to promote and extend' the study of Homer.Gladstones three-volume work represents an enthusiastic and exhaustive account of the history, culture, and literature of Homer and his age. Volume 1 establishes Homers modern-day significance and creates an ethnography of his time, which Gladstone situates in relationship to the Iliad and the Odyssey.Gladstones three-volume work represents an enthusiastic and exhaustive account of the history, culture, and literature of Homer and his age. Volume 1 establishes Homers modern-day significance and creates an ethnography of his time, which Gladstone situates in relationship to the Iliad and the Odyssey.Four-time prime minister William Ewart Gladstone (18091898) was also a prolific author and enthusiastic scholar of the classics. Gladstone had spent almost two decades in politics prior to his writing the three-volume Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age. This work and the preceding 'On the place of Homer in classical education and in historical inquiry' (1857), reflect Gladstone's interest in the Iliad and the Odyssey, which he read with increasing frequency from the 1830s onward and which he viewed as particularly relevant to modern society. As he relates, he has two objects in the Studies: 'to promote and extend' the study of Homer's 'immortal poems' and 'to vindicate for them & their just degree both of absolute and, more especially, of relative critical value'. Volume 1 establishes Homer's contemporary relevance and provides an extensive 'ethnography of Greek races' related to Homer's works.Part I. Prolegomena: 1. On the state of the Homeric question; 2. The place of Homer in classical education; 3. On the historic aims of Homer; 4. On the probable date of Homer; 5. The probable trustworthiness of the text of Homer; 6. Place and authority of Homer in historical inquiry; Part II. Achaeis. Ethnology of the Greek Races: 1. Scope of the inquirlS;