The aim of this book is to prove that the Homeric Epics, as wholes, and apart from passages gravely suspected in antiquity, present a perfectly harmonious picture of the entire life and civilisation of one single age. The faint variations in the design are not greater than such as mark every moment of culture, for in all there is some movement; in all, cases are modified by circumstances. If our contention be true, it will follow that the poems themselves, as wholes, are the product of a single age, not a mosaic of the work of several changeful centuries.

This book is annotated with a rare extensive biographical sketch of the author, Andrew Lang, written by Sir Edmund Gosse, CB, a contemporary poet and writer.

Contents:

Preface

Chapter I - The Homeric Age

Chapter Ii - Hypotheses As To The Growth Of The Epics

Chapter Iii - Hypotheses Of Epic Composition

Chapter Iv - Loose Feudalism: The Over-Lord In "Iliad," Books I. And Ii.

Chapter V - Agamemnon In The Later "Iliad"

Chapter Vi - Archaeology Of The "Iliad". Burial And Cremation

Chapter Vii - Homeric Armour

Chapter Viii - The Breastplate

Chapter Ix - Bronze And Iron

Chapter X - The Homeric House

Chapter Xi - Notes Of Change In The "Odyssey"

Chapter Xii - Linguistic Proofs Of Various Dates

Chapter Xiii - The "Doloneia"

Chapter Xiv- The Interpolations Of Nestor

Chapter Xv - The Comparative Study Of Early Epics

Chapter Xvi - Homer And The French Mediaeval Epics

Chapter Xvii - Conclusion