Homer and His Age

In 'Homer and His Age', Andrew Lang examines the controversy surrounding the authorship of Homer's epic poems. Lang argues that the fallacy of the analytical reader, who expects a level of consistency beyond the intended audience of the poet, is at the root of many objections to the idea that only Homer and no other author wrote his poems. Lang explores the way of life described in the poems, demonstrating that it reflects a single brief age of culture. He urges readers not to be swayed by dogmatic assumptions about the most fashionable hypothesis, but to approach the study of Homer with the scientific spirit of comparison, logic, and economy of conjecture.