278 / 298
Horst Steinke
278
ence both to the form and to the operation of the poetic character […]» (Id.,
Time and Idea
, cit., p. 176).
563
Vico’s interpretation, however, cannot be claimed as taking sides in the
question or controversy, whether “old” or “new”, over the historicality of the
main data points of the Homeric stories. The “new controversy” (
der neue
Streit
) ensued with J. Latacz,
Troia und Homer: Der Weg zur Lösung eines alten
Rätsels
, Munich, Koehler & Amelang, 2001; published in English as
Troy and
Homer: Towards a Solution of an Old Mystery
, trans. by K. Windle and R. Ireland,
Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004, arguing for an accurate and reliable
portrayal of a Late Bronze Age setting, to which
Der neue Streit um Troia
, is an
(overwhelmingly countervailing) response by specialists (archaeologists as well
as historians).
For a balanced reference to arguments, it should be mentioned that histor-
ic elements of periods and culture(s) pre-dating the 8
th
century have been
highlighted by researchers. M. Meier-Brügger, for example, cites the view:
«Der troianische Sagenkreis ankert im 2. Jahrtausend v. Chr. und muß spätes-
tens kurz nach 1200 v. Chr. Bestandteil der Heldenepik geworden sein. […]
Der sich um Troja rankende troianische Sagenkreis ist vermutlich erst nach-
mykenisch fester Bestandteil der griechischen Heldenepik geworden. Das
Sagengut muß die Zuhörer immer wieder gefesselt haben (The Trojan cycle of
legends is anchored in the 2
nd
millennium BC and must have become part of
heroic epic shortly after 1200 BC at the latest. […] The Trojan cycle of leg-
ends revolving around Troy likely became a fixed part of Greek heroic epic
only in post-Mycenaean times. The material of the legends must have fasci-
nated listeners each time anew)» (Id.,
Die homerische Kunstsprache
, in
Der neue
Streit um Troia
, cit., pp. 232-244, pp. 236, 240). This appears to negate the
“three-generations” model of oral transmission referred to above.
M. West has tried to make a case for the great age of the Greek hexame-
ter: «Evidently the hexameter that we find in Homer was no recent creation. It
had been established for seven centuries or more. […] For at least seven cen-
turies down to the time of the
Iliad
and
Odyssey
it seems to have remained es-
sentially unchanged, despite the considerable renovation which that lapse of
time effected upon the Greek language and perhaps upon the nature of the
epic tradition itself» (Id.,
Homer’s Meter
, in
A New Companion to Homer
, cit., pp.
218-237, pp. 234, 237). See also J. Bennet,
Homer and the Bronze Age
,
ibid.
, pp.
511-533, p. 523: «The most convincing evidence of the existence of epic in
the Bronze Age is linguistic, because such elements are subconsciously incor-
porated in the very fabric of the poems».
Other classicists who have come out in favor of considering Greek-
Anatolian, and, more generally Indo-European culture, going back to the sec-