ABSTRACT
Goethe wrote rather more about Nausikaa than he did of it; and the Achilleis, conceived as an epic to fit between the Iliad and the Odyssey, he advanced no further than line 651. Nausikaa was begun and abandoned in 1787, the Achilleis in 1798-99, the two works, unfinished, marking thus the beginning and almost the end of Goethe's so-called classical period. The young Goethe was helped towards a clearer enthusiasm for Homer as were many of his fellow countrymen, by an English work: the Essay on the Original Genius of Homer, by Robert Wood. Wood examines Homer's epics as primitive song, as oral poetry; in a most pragmatic and perceptive way he examines the nature and conditions of such poetry, drawing on his own observations in those countries where it still survives. Goethe never went to Greece, though he was offered a very favourable opportunity.
