Thomas de Quincey | Autograph manuscript essay, "The Rhapsodoi", 4 pages, undated

Thomas de Quincey

Autograph manuscript of his essay "The Rhapsodoi"

working manuscript with extensive revisions, in blue ink, 4 pages, 4to, on a single bifolium, splitting at fold, some staining

This brief essay on ancient Greek rhapsodists casts a satirical eye over contemporary Germanic scholarship before summarising de Quincey's view of the relationship between the rhapsodists, declaimers of poetry, and the poets Homer and Hesiod. As such it touches on the origins of Homeric poetry in oral performance. This piece builds on his earlier essay 'Homer and the Homeridae', which had been published in Blackwood's in 1841. The current essay was first published in Posthumous Works (1891), ed. A.H. Japp, vol. 1, pp. 306-9. 

PROVENANCE:

Sotheby's, London, 4 December 1973, lot 122