If, at the distance where I am placed, I should dare, traversing the torrent of ages and opinions, draw near to Homer and read the soul of this immortal man, I would say, after having grasped in its entirety the allegorical genius which makes the essence of poetry, in seeking to give to his universal ideas a particular form, that his intention was to personify and paint the passions, and that it was from this that epopœia had birth. I have not sufficient documents to attest positively that the word by which one characterizes this kind of poetry after Homer, did not exist before him; but I have sufficient to repeat that no one had as yet recognized its real nature.[1] The poems of Corinna, of Dares, or of Dictys, were only simple extracts from the mythological cycles, rude copies from certain theosophical fragments denuded of life; Homer was the first who caused the Voice of Impulse, that is to say Epopœia, to be understood[2]: that kind of poetry which results from intellectual inspiration united to the enthusiasm of the passions.
In order to attain to the perfection of this kind of poetry, it is necessary to unite to the imaginative faculty which feeds the genius, the reason which regulates the impulse, and the enthusiasm which inflames the mind and supplies the talent. Homer united them in the most eminent degree. Thus he possessed the first inspiration and the complete science, as much in its essence as in its form; for the poetic form is always dependent upon talent.
This form was then highly favourable to genius. The Greek verse, measured by musical rhythm and filled with awhich designates alike a poet and an epic poem. It is derived from the Phœnician words [Phœn.: **] (apho) an impassioned transport, a vortex, an impulse, an enthusiasm; and [Phœn.: **] (phohe), a mouth, a discourse. One can observe that the Latin word versus, which is applied also to a thing which turns, which is borne along, and to a poetic verse, translates exactly the Greek word [Greek: epos], whose root [Phœn.: **] (aôph) expresses a vortex. The Hebrew [Hebrew: **] (aôphon) signifies properly a wheel.]
