SOURCE: "Preface to Homer (1675)," in Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century, Vol. II: 1650-1685, edited by J.E. Spingarn, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1908, pp. 67-76.
Hobbes is best known for such philosophical writings as Human Nature (1650), Elements of Law (1650), Leviathan; or, the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil (1651), and Elements of Philosophy (1655). As a young man he knew Francis Bacon and assisted the great Lord Chancellor in translating several of his essays into Latin. Hobbes was greatly influenced by the works of Galileo and his contemporary, Descartes. In his 1675 preface to the Odyssey, Hobbes examines the seven virtues of a heroic poem.
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