Of the same name

[undyingking]

You might have heard the joke that X's books were in fact not written by X, but by another man of the same name. I find it interesting because, while being entertainingly silly as a proposition, it also asks a fairly serious question about what we mean by authorship and how historical record works. But that's not what this post is about! - I'm

Comments

[undyingking]

eh? who's Stephen Norton?

[bateleur]

Actually you know who he is. You've confused him with another man of the same name whom you don't know.

[ninthcouncil]

Oh come on. They were written by Christopher Marlowe, everyone knows that. He was the Tupac Shakur of the Reformation.

[ninthcouncil]

He also went on to write the works of Goethe and Tolstoy, not to mention the Haynes manual for the 1974 Ford Cortina.

[thecesspit]

It's a heart breaking work of staggering genius

[undyingking]

Better than being the Kula Shaker of the Reformation.

[rufusfrog]

Charles Dikkens! (Ethel the Aardvark goes quantity surveying). Not exactly what you're talking about - but in a similar vein: http://www.inprint.co.uk/thebookguide/bookshop-skit.htm

[undyingking]

Ah, I've never seen the full text of that sketch. Excellent, thanks!

[rufusfrog]

I hadn't seen/heard it for years but your post triggered the memory. Indeed, I now see 'Rarnaby Budge' is the book by Charles Dikkens - it was ever Ethel the Aardvark in my head.

[undyingking]

Wonder if this is also the origin of the "with a silent Q" comic trope...

[onebyone]

Homer, and in that case I don't think it asks a fairly serious question about what we mean by authorship. It just highlights that the authorship of the Illiad and Odyssey is unknown (or, if you like, that "Homer" is a word defined to mean, "whatever person or persons authored or contributed to those works").

[bateleur]

I've heard this before but never quite understood why everyone is happy to assume Herodotus didn't know what he was talking about in assuming Homer was an actual person.

[onebyone]

You don't understand why they would doubt that the Iliad and Odyssey are entirely the work of a single person, or you don't understand how they dare, even in the absence of any evidence, to doubt the authority of the mighty Herodotus regarding a person who supposedly lived 400 years previously and about whom Herodotus had no information other than oral tradition?

I'm no sadder to assume he was wrong than to assume he was right, certainly.

[bateleur]

I don't understand why they assume the passage of more time has somehow given later commentators more authority to declare Homer not to have been the author of both works.

The phrase "entirely the work of" is your wording, not mine. Obviously that seems a little unlikely if we're speaking of the versions with which Herodotus was familiar.

[cardinalsin]

You've done a lot of polls recently that did not offer ABWAG as an option. I may start abstaining!

[undyingking]

I've been swaying towards the venta harsh-but-fair school of poll construction. But I dare say I'll sway back again ere long.

[killalla]

I second this comment.