1.1.2.1. Homer
At the very beginning of the Iliad we find an invocation to the Muse. This has been interpreted as a proof that Homer adheres to the theory that he, as a poet, is being driven by some supernatural force in the composition of his poem, that is, that he is being inspired in the original and proper sense of the word. Similar invocations can be found in the poems of Hesiod and Pindar. There is certainly a belief in inspiration at play here, but it is difficult to determine to what extent it is alive, which would imply strong religious connotations and a very definite theory of poetry, and to what extent it is already a well-worn rhetorical device which in itself bears little compromise to one theory of poetry or another. This is certainly the case in the Roman imitators of Homer. In the Homeric poems, aiodé , the gift of song, comes from the gods themselves: they can bestow it on mortals or snatch it away from them at their will.
At other points in the poems, Homer adds two other necessary qualities that the good bard must possess. The first, we have said, is inspiration, which seems to be concerned mainly with a knowledge of the facts of the story. The second is finding the right words, and the third is a pleasant voice. These requirements are more or less implicit here and there in the Homeric poems, so it is perhaps too rash to trace back to Homer the dichotomy form / content , or the classical rhetorical distinction between inventio , elocutio and actio . Roman critics like Cicero or Quintilian attributed to Homer the origins of the science of rhetoric. Odysseus, Nestor and Menelaus were supposed by them to be living examples of the three styles of rhetoric: high, medium, and plain. According to our own principles, however, Cicero and Quintilian were trying here to provide an illustrious origin to their own theories on rhetoric. Homer did distinguish the styles in which each of his character speaks, but it is a practical (or literary) and not a theoretical distinction.
At one point, however, Homer makes an specific aesthetic judgement: he praises Achilles' shield for its realism, and goes on to describe all the scenes depicted in that shield (Iliad XVIII). Homer seems to share the general reverence for pictorial accuracy that we find in other Greek tales about artists--a stress, then, on the mimetic or referential function of art.
In sum, we can say that classical poetics is not born in the Homeric poems themselves, which illustrate contemporary, pre-theoretical views on poetry. However, we must acknowledge their significance they had for the Greeks as an encyclopaedic works on all aspects of life. And it was from the endless praise and commentary devoted to the Homeric canon that theoretical thought first appears in Greece. Theagenes (6th century BC) is the first Homeric scholar whose name is known to us. Apparently, his approach to Homer was a biographical one. The Iliad and the Odyssey are also among the favourite texts used by the great Greek critics, Plato, Aristotle and Longinus, in their theoretical works. Still later, philosophers of the Stoic school such as Zeno and Crates of Malos interpret the poems in an allegorical way, as illustrations of their own Stoic doctrines. They already speak of the "divine" Homer, and insist on their educational value. There are reactions to their views: Aristarchus of Samothrace develops a "realistic" interpretation of the poems opposed to any allegorical reading, and finds they are valuable mostly because of the pleasure they provide, and not because of what we what we would call their truth value or practical value. But all this is much later than Plato, and there are other poets beside Homer who have something to say on their craft.