Homer's poems were writ from a free fury, an absolute and full soul; Virgil's out of a courtly, laborious...

>Homer's poems were writ from a free fury, an absolute and full soul; Virgil's out of a courtly, laborious, and altogether imitatory spirit: not a simile he hath but is Homer's; not an invention, person, or disposition but is wholly or originally built upon Homerical foundations, and in many places hath the very words Homer useth; ... all Homer's books are such as have been precedents ever since of all sorts of poems; imitating none, nor ever worthily imitated of any.

Chapman

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>It is against nature that he made the most excellent creation that could ever be; for things are normally born imperfect, then grow and gather strength as they do so. He took poetry and several other sciences in their infancy and brought them to perfect, accomplished maturity. [Thus] one may call him the first and last of poets, in accordance with that fine tribute left to us by antiquity: that, having had no predecessor to imitate, he had no successor capable of imitating him.

Montaigne

>The poetry of that simple and ignorant age [Homeric times] was, accordingly, the sweetest and sanest that the world has known; the most faultless in taste, and the most even and lofty in inspiration. Without lacking variety and homeliness, it bathed all things human in the golden light of morning; it clothed sorrow in a kind of majesty, instinct with both self-control and heroic frankness. Nowhere else can we find so noble a rendering of human nature, so spontaneous a delight in life, so uncompromising a dedication to beauty, and such a gift of seeing beauty in everything. Homer, the first of poets, was also the best and the most poetical.

Santayana

>Our author's work is a wild paradise, where, if we cannot see all the beauties so distinctly as in an ordered garden, it is only because the number of them is infinitely greater. It is like a copious nursery, which contains the seeds and first productions of every kind, out of which those who followed him have but selected some particular plants, each according to his fancy, to cultivate and beautify. If some things are too luxuriant it is owing to the richness of the soil; and if others are not arrived to perfection or maturity, it is only because they are overrun and oppressed by those of a stronger nature.

Pope

>But that earlier period did not pass till it had given to the world gifts so great that the world has ever since been striving in vain to repay them, if only by plagiarism. Somewhere along the Ionian coast opposite Crete and the islands was a town of some sort, probably of the sort that we should call a village or hamlet with a wall. It was called Ilion but it came to be called Troy, and the name will never perish from the earth. A poet who may have been a beggar and a ballad-monger, who may have been unable to read and write, and was described by tradition as a blind, composed a poem about the Greeks going to war with this town to recover the most beautiful woman in the world. That the most beautiful woman in the world lived in that one little town sounds like a legend; that the most beautiful poem in the world was written by somebody who knew of nothing larger than such little towns is a historical fact.

Chesterton

>...as we advance in life these things fall off one by one, and I suspect we are left with only Homer and Virgil, perhaps with only Homer alone.

Thomas Jefferson

>Homer is a world; Virgil, a style.

van Doren

>Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
>And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
>Round many western islands have I been
>Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
>Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
>That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
>Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
>Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
>Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
>When a new planet swims into his ken;
>Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
>He star'd at the Pacific — and all his men
>Look'd at each other with a wild surmise —
>Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

Keats

People are too hard on Virgil. The Aeneid and the Georgics are incredible.

>“The gods weave misfortunes for men, so that the generations to come will have something to sing about.” Mallarmé repeats, less beautifully, what Homer said; “tout aboutit en un livre,” everything ends up in a book. The Greeks speak of generations that will sing; Mallarmé speaks of an object, of a thing among things, a book. But the idea is the same; the idea that we are made for art, we are made for memory, we are made for poetry, or perhaps we are made for oblivion. But something remains, and that something is history or poetry, which are not essentially different.

Borges

not sure about the "free fury" but iliad and odyssey are much better than aeneid and personally i like virgil's bucolics more than aeneid too

>I have found by trial Homer a more pleasing task than Virgil... For the Grecian is more according to my genius than the Latin poet. [...] Virgil was of a quiet, sedate temper; Homer was violent, impetuous, and full of fire. The chief talent of Virgil was propriety of thoughts, and ornament of words; Homer was rapid in his thoughts, and took all the liberties, both of numbers and of expressions, which his language and the age in which he lived allowed him.

Dryden

Inherent in many of these statements is that the "fury" and "violence" of Homer is superior to the quietude and stillness of Virgil. I think they are both good and offer pleasing counterpoints. Perhaps Homer is better than Virgil—but Virgil, as well as Horace, offer a sophisticated and matured style that is far superior to most poets.

And who's to say Homer did not imitate some unknown predecessor? Imitation was so commonplace in Antiquity. Besides, Homer was probably more than one person.

What are some good translations of the Aeneid?

My Latin is shit

It's worth it to get better at Latin. Then you can use aeneid.co to help you read it

John Dryden or Theodore Chickering Williams. I'd read the Georgics or the Bucolics before the Aeneid, though.

I hate this superfluous criticisms.
Goodness, do they ever reduce to anything but, "AH! The Greeks! Yes... Homer... rage and fury!... but what about Virgil?... Ah...! The Romans!"

>tfw literature peaked 3000 years ago and all we have now is shit

>Besides, Homer was probably more than one person

this meme needs to die, they go into detail about that in the fagle's intro. he pretty guaranteed not to be

Was Homer the most important human so far

>mfw burgers and anglos think Homer actually existed

i think aristotle wins actually

>Homer
>One person

Anglo education, everyone

That's probably why Virgil wanted the Aeneid burned while he was in his deathbed. He was living in another person's shadow.

And the kicker is that the seated, cultivated epic poetry that Virgil excelled at is something Dante ultimately surpassed him at. Virgil gets double-cucked. He can't match Homer in his earlier brilliance, and Dante surpasses him in what he does do well.

>anyone who thinks Homer didn't exist is a German jackass
t. Joyce

Sure. Have you read the introduction to Lattimore?

virgilmurder.org/index.php

>he wanted to work on it for three fucking years non stop
>we will never ever get the revised director's cut grandmaster edition of the Aeneid

I blame FUCKING Augustus