hypotheses of expansion are not self-consistent, or in accordance
with what is known of the evolution of early national poetry. The
strongest part, perhaps, of our argument is to rest on our
interpretation of archaeological evidence, though we shall not
neglect the more disputable or less convincing contentions of
literary criticism.




CHAPTER II


HYPOTHESES AS TO THE GROWTH OF THE EPICS

A theorist who believes that the Homeric poems are the growth of
four changeful centuries, must present a definite working
hypothesis as to how they escaped from certain influences of the
late age in which much of them is said to have been composed. We
must first ask to what manner of audiences did the poets sing, in
the alleged four centuries of the evolution of the Epics. Mr.
Leaf, as a champion of the theory of ages of "expansion," answers
that "the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ are essentially, and
above all, Court poems. They were composed to be sung in the
palaces of a ruling aristocracy ... the poems are aristocratic and
courtly, not popular." [Footnote: Companion to the _Iliad_,
pp. 2,8. 1892.] They are not _Volkspoesie_; they are not
ballads. "It is now generally recognised that this conception is
radically false."