Homer and Classical Philology

Although he later rose to prominence as an innovative and controversial philosopher whose ideas influenced everyone from existentialist thinkers to the Nazi movement, Friedrich Nietzsche was trained in philology and published his earliest works on that topic.

These philological aims were pursued sometimes with greater ardour and sometimes with less, in accordance with the degree of culture and the development of the taste of a particular period; but, on the other hand, the followers of this science are in the habit of regarding the aims which correspond to their several abilities as the aims of philology; whence it comes about that the estimation of philology in public opinion depends upon the weight of the personalities of the philologists!