Note 7 — JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE. [5]

"Hermann und Dorothea," which Schiller pronounced the acme not only of Goethean but of all modern art, was written professedly as an attempt in the Homeric[7] style, motived by Wolf's "Prolegomena" and Voss's "Luise." It is Homeric only in its circumstantiality, in the repetition of the same epithets applied to the same persons, and in the Greek realism of Goethe's nature. The theme is very un-Homeric; it is thoroughly modern and German,-- "Germans themselves I present, to the humbler dwelling I lead you, Where with Nature as guide man is natural still." [8] [7] "Doch Homeride zu sein, auch noch als letzter, ist schön." [8] From the Elegy entitled "Hermann und Dorothea."