Snider, A Commentary on the Odyssey of Homer - I

From, Homer's Odyssey: A commentary
[Please note that the Table of Contents here published, is created by Elpenor and is not to be found in the print version]

Though the Homeric poems as wholes are not allegories, yet they have allegory playing into them. Indeed the mythus has an inherent tendency to pitch over into allegory through culture. Then there is a reaction, the mythical spirit must assert itself even among civilized peoples, since allegorized Gods are felt to be hollow abstractions, having nothing divine about them.

There can hardly be a doubt that a proper conception of the relation of the deities to men is the most important matter for the student of Homer. But it requires an incessant alertness of mind to see the Homeric Gods when they appear to the mortal, and to observe that they are not always the same, that they too are in the process of evolution. For instance, in the present Book as well as elsewhere, Pallas must be noted as having two characters, a mythical and allegorical, as above unfolded. Nitzsch, whose commentary on the Odyssey, though getting a little antiquated, is still the best probably, because it grapples with so many real problems of the poem, says: "It is wholly in Homer's manner to represent, in the form of a conversation with Pallas, what the wise man turns over in his own mind and resolves all to himself" (Anmerkungen zu Homer's Odyssee, Band II, S. 137). Very true, yet on the next page Nitzsch says that it is "entirely wrong to suppose that Pallas represents the wisdom of Ulysses allegorically." But what else is allegory but this embodiment of subjective wisdom? Now Nitzsch truly feels that Pallas is something altogether more than an allegory, but he has failed to grasp distinctly her mythical character, the objective side of the Goddess, and so gets confused and self-contradictory.

One of the best books ever written on Homer is Nägelsbach's Homerische Theologie, which also wrestles with the most vital questions of the poem. But Nägelsbach's stress is almost wholly on the side of the Gods, he seems to have the smallest vision for beholding the free, self-acting man in Homer. In his first chapter (die Gottheit, the Godhead) he recognizes the Gods as the upholders and directors of the Supreme Order (sec. 28); also they determine, or rather create (schaffen) man's thought and will (sec. 42). What, then, is left for the poor mortal? Of course, such a view is at variance with Homer in hundreds of passages (see especially the speech of Zeus with which the action of the Odyssey starts, and in which the highest God asserts the free-will and hence the responsibility of the man). Nägelsbach himself suspects at times that something is wrong with his view and hedges here and there by means of some limiting clauses; note in particular what he says about Ulysses (sec. 31), who is an exception, being "thrown upon his own resources in cases of extreme need," without the customary intervention of the Gods. But the man in his freedom, who co-operates with the God in the providential order, is often brought before the reader in the Iliad as well as in the Odyssey (see author's Com. on the Iliad, pp. 129, 157, 216, etc.).

D. Snider
A Commentary on the Odyssey of Homer - Part I

Learned Freeware

D. Snider A Commentary on the Odyssey of Homer - Part I

Learned Freeware

D. Snider
A Commentary on the Odyssey of Homer - Part I