Homer as known of today

It is unfortunate for us, that, of some of the greatest men, we know least, and talk most. Homer, Socrates, and Shakespere1 have, perhaps, contributed more to the intellectual enlightenment of mankind than any other three writers who could be named, and yet the history of all three has given rise to a boundless ocean of discussion, which has left us little save the option of choosing which theory or theories we will follow.
!! Inasmuch as I can mention other great authors and historical figures, and barring that Socrates is not usually considered a writer though he did write, these listed authors like others, have greatly contributed to the world of practice and theory.


The personality of Shakespere is, perhaps, the only thing in which critics will allow us to believe without controversy; but upon everything else, even down to the authorship of plays, there is more or less of doubt and uncertainty. Of Socrates we know as little as the contradictions of Plato and Xenophon will allow us to know. He was one of the dramatis personae in two dramas as unlike in principles as in style. He appears as the enunciator of opinions as different in their tone as those of the writers who have handed them down. When we have read Plato or Xenophon, we think we know something of Socrates; when we have fairly read and examined both, we feel convinced that we are something worse than ignorant.

!!The uncertainty of Shakespear as with the certainty of Monroe brings being to bare as we understand it and can comprehend it through the biases of opinion and gauging the shared world through agreement, paradigms and the idea of that shared reality capable of being known in that way.  As much as we can know of Sacrates we cannot know him as he knows himself or the divine does.;  He does not know himself as well as he might know himself and the more he searches to know such things, as he would say, he realises how much he does not know of same.  Thus do not be surprised if everyone’s notion of Socrates , from Plato to Xenophon differs though the shared reality we know of Socrates, like that of Shakespeare, Plato and Xenophon, is understood based on the shared world we judge his works and the writings concerning that same world.  It is the paradigms and the sameness if reality that allows for what was once said to make sense to us moderns.  If it helps illuminate the world, builds and paradigm and even educates for interest or academic reasons than that writing will influence people through time as Homer’s works have...