What is it about?
Homer was not always considered the greatest poet of antiquity. During the Renaissance, when the Iliad and the Odyssey were rediscovered, he faced fierce criticism: his style was rough and poor, his heroes childish, his comparisons absurd. Nothing like what the great Virgil was capable of. However, the interest of the kings of France, and that of Renaissance poets such as Ronsard, turned the translation of Homer into a place of poetic experimentation that contributes to the enrichment of the French language until the early 18th century.
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Why is it important?
Using Homer as an example, this article highlights three points: first, the importance of linguistic and political context in the reception of ancient authors during the 16th and 17th centuries. Second, the tension between veneration for antiquity and a certain idea of progress in literature. Third, the idea that translation not only enables the development of the target language, but also compensates for the supposed shortcomings of the source language.
Perspectives
This article is part of a collective volume devoted to the reception of Homer. I hope it will encourage people to reread Homer and Virgil with fresh eyes and perceive, not the borrowings that the Latin author made from the Greek author, but the fundamental difference in their styles.
Christiane Deloince-Louette
Universite Grenoble Alpes
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Scaliger versus Homer (1561–1714), November 2025, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004750791_010.
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