Excerpt from A History of Classical Greek Literature, Vol. 1 of 2: The Poets; With an Appendix on Homer But throughout the various shorter episodes of which the Iliad may be composed, there is such a harmony in the drawing of the various heroes who appear on the scene, that (i) even if one great master did not sketch them all, they must have been recognised types, which had long since assumed a definite and fixed shape for a school or series of poets, each of whom was able to express this type with adequate consistency. Either theory implies long and gradual preparation, many lesser attempts which have failed, and many faulty pictures which have disappeared, because they departed from the once fixed and re cognised features of known characters. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.