The Iliad and the Articles: Francis William Newman’s Reply to Matthew Arnold

Abstract

Francis William Newman’s The Iliad of Homer Faithfully Translated into Unrhymed English Metre (1856) was famously criticized by Matthew Arnold in On Translating Homer (1861) as “ignoble,” and the criticism stuck. The literary and theological debates of the 1860s, however, was informed by a growing uncertainty regarding the distinctions be-tween sacred and non-sacred ancient texts, as evidenced by the uproar over Essays and Reviews (1860). The disagreement between Arnold and Newman regarding the Iliad was in fact rooted in the broader theological disagreements that were then threatening the Anglican Church, especially attitudes toward the validity and role of the Thirty-nine Articles. By re-examining the Homeric debate in its original context, this essay illuminates important complexities of Anglicanism in the 1860s and demonstrates that readings of the Iliad were dependent on religiously-granted authority.