Pre-Aristotelian Homeric Scholarship and Aristotle’s Poetics 25

Abstract

This chapter has two parts, each of which discusses an aspect of the context necessary for understanding the Homeric Problems. The first surveys the ancient Homeric scholarship that came before Aristotle: early critics of Homer on moral grounds, defenses of Homer through allegorical interpretation, the critiques of Plato and Zoilus. The second part discusses Aristotle’s recommendations for responding to objections to Homer, through a close study of Poetics 25, which specifically deals with providing solutions to Homeric problems.