The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1898-02-16
Did a Woman Write Ii?

| Ignatius Donnelly has spent the best
| years Of his life in an attempt TO de-
| throne Shakespeare and now an English
| scholar named Samuel Butler startles the
/ world with the bold announcement that
| Homer is not half as great a genius as
successive generations have supposed him
70 be, for the reason that, though he may
| possibly have written the "Iliad, he GER
| tainly never wrote the Odyssey.
| Nay. Mr. Butler goes even further, and
insists that the Odyssey was written
| by woman. The same man, he argues.
| could not have written both the "Iliad''
and the odyssey The structure and
| the style of both books shows this clear
| ly. The ..Iliad" is a virile and majestic
| poem. or series of poems, whereas vein
of tenderness and dOmesticity runs
| through the Odyssey" Now, admitting
that Homer wrote the ''Illiad." and as
Stunning that he did not write the 'Odys-
sey," the question is, Who did write the
latter work?
Mr.. Butler has a ready reply. Accord
| ing to him, all the evidence, internal and
external, goes TO show that the "Odys-
| sey" was written by woman. He does
not tell US very clearly how he arrives
at this conclusion, but he says pretty pos
itively that the woman referred to was
young, very we'll educated. unmarried and
exceedingly seIf-willed and authoritative.
He does not give us a pen picture of her
| physical charms, but he expresses his con-
viction that she was a native of Drepa-
mum, in Sicily.
1t appears that some time ago, while
studying the Odyssey" Mr.. Butler was
struck by the fact that there is ''femi-
nine perfume" about the verses, which
| is entirely absent from the sonorous hex
ameters OF the 'Iliad." He pondered
! deeply over the matter, until finally he
was satisfied that he had discovered a
new poetess. A little further investiga-
! ton satisfied him that she was native
of Sicily and altogether charming maid
| en-.
Now, Mr.. Butler may be right or he may
! not. That he can ever prove himself to
be right or that any one can ever prove
him to be wrong is extremely improbable.
Homer is one of those personages about
whom one can safely say almost anything.
AS a matter of fact, no one knows when
he lived or when he died. Some eminent
| scholars, indeed, maintain that he is a
myth, and that the works attributed to
him were handed down orally in a family
whose hereditary occupation it was to
recite them. Herodotus is the first who
| speaks of the 'Iliad' and the odyssey"
and the earliest mention of the name of
Homer is found in a fragment of the
philosopher Xenophanes, who f1ourished
in the sixth century before Christ, In
which he complains of the false notions
implanted through Homer's teachings.
The Odyssey" as we all know, tells US
about the long wanderings of Ulysses,
whereas the "Iliad" recounts the stirring
scenes of the Trojan war. Now these
only natural that scholars in all ages
should ask themselves the question, Are
| these two poems the works of the same
poet? Keno and Hellanicus, two ancient
grammarians, set the ball rolling, and
their views have been adopted by some
of the best known scholars, including
Grimm. Here are some of the reasons
why these critics insist that the Eomeric
poems cannot be the work of one person.
The messenger of Zeus is Iris in the
''Iliad," but Aphrodite in the odyssey"
the heroes in the ''Iliad' do not eat fish
Crete has a hundred cities, according to
| the odyssey" and only ninety according
to the odyssey" and the word pho
bos," which in Homer means flight in
battle occurs thirty-nine times in the
''Iliad' and only once in odyssey"
Moreover, say the critics, the "Iliad" is
much more historical IN tone and char
acter than the Odyssey" The scene of
the poem is a real place, and the poet
sings as though he had been present him
self or had heard from some one who
had been. The supernatural element is
confined to the interference Of the gods
which to the common eye hardly dsturbs
tn natural current of affairs. The "Ody-
sey' on the contrary is full of the mag
ical and marvellous.
1t will be seen that Mr.. Samuel Butler
is not the first to insist that Homer could
not have written both the 'Iliad' and the
odyssey" If his name is handed down
to posterity in some book containing an
account of this nterminable Homeric con-
troversy, it will be because he alone
among mortals has had the hardwood
to maintain that one of the worlds most
marvellous epics was written by a young
Sicilian poetess.