Batrachomyomachia (Battle of the Frogs and Mice)

Overview

The Batrachomyomachia ("Battle of the Frogs and Mice") is a short comic epic in Greek hexameters that parodies the Iliad. Its date and authorship are uncertain: it was known to Plutarch and was long attributed to Homer, traditionally placed in the 5th century BC, though linguistic studies point to the 3rd or 2nd century BC (Wikipedia EN, "Batrachomyomachia"). The word has come to mean a trivial altercation.

Marie and this work

9 April 1875 (031.0144), in the dinner quarrel about Homer described under Homer's Odyssey: having shown her father and grandfather that Homer wrote more than the Iliad, she adds triumphantly that there is also "un poème héroï-comique la Batrachomyomachie" (the LAN note glosses "heroi-comique" as the literary term for the mock-heroic).

Identification note

This poem and the Odyssey are separate works, and Marie names both. The traditional attribution to Homer is what makes her argument work.

References in Diary

Sources