Passage
First of all, the notion that more than one author was responsible for the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey may fail to account adequately for the artistic unity and linguistic cohesion that mark these two works. The idea of dual authorship instead privileges the inconsistencies between the texts stressed by late 19 th - and early 20 th -century scholars who suggested that the two epics are not, in fact, the work of a single poetic genius. The promulgation of this theory served to undermine an earlier fundamentalist faith in a consensus from antiquity: one and only one poet called Homer authored both poems.Second of all, even if more than one author existed under the guise of Homer, there is no denying that these epics represent the culmination of a long tradition of oral poetry-specifically, oral verse concerning the Trojan War. The existence of this oral tradition has sometimes been used to speculate that the texts we have of the Iliad and the Odyssey were merely strung together from shorter poems about warrior-heroes sung by itinerant bards to regale the aristocratic courts of ancient Greece. In this context, the name "Homer" has been explained as a generic designation signifying either a group of ancient singer-poets or an imaginary author to whom a collective body of oral poetry was attributed.That epic poems of more than 12,000 lines could have been recited from memory has been well documented. Research undertaken at the beginning of the 20 th century identified singers in the Balkans who could perform monumental epic poems from memory. These performers seemed to have memorized discrete episodes or sections of poetry, arranging these as they recited. Since then, it has been almost universally recognized that any theory about Homeric authorship must accommodate the oral tradition.Today many scholars find it unlikely that the same individual composed both Homeric epics. Compellingly, even the ancient consensus that there was just one author cannot be traced further back than about 520 BCE when the two poems-which had been committed to writing in their recognizable form sometime after the introduction of the alphabet to Greece in the 8 th century BCE-were recited by bards at the festival of Athena. Prior to this, there had already been some controversy regarding the authorship of the poems. In particular, an alternative tradition claimed that the Odyssey had been written by the poet Melesigenes, who then appropriated the name Homer.Likewise, leading Homericists now conjecture more specifically that one poet wrote the Iliad and that the Odyssey was composed sometime later by a second. This theory rests on two basic premises: (1) Each poem has its own well-defined and unified design that discredits the possibility it is merely a pastiche of shorter poems passed down orally and finally stabilized in written form; and (2) differences between the poems seem to point to separate authors. Scholars cite not only linguistic inconsistencies, including differences in vocabulary, but also discrepancies in background, underlying beliefs, ethics, and even geographical orientation. Intriguingly, researchers have also found evidence in the Odyssey of imitation of passages from the Iliad.A few skeptics, however, continue to insist that the stylistic similarities between the two epics ascribed to Homer are too striking to support a theory of multiple authorship. Far from clinging to idealistic notions of artistry or outdated modes of manuscript study, these single-author theorists have combined information technology and analysis of linguistic style to produce a legitimate body of evidence they can marshal against the prevailing trend.
West, Martin. "The Homeric Question Today," in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol 155. No. 4, December 2011.
-Based on the passage, the possible existence of Melesigenes is LEAST likely to support the claim that:

Question

Passage
First of all, the notion that more than one author was responsible for the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey may fail to account adequately for the artistic unity and linguistic cohesion that mark these two works.  The idea of dual authorship instead privileges the inconsistencies between the texts stressed by late 19 th - and early 20 th -century scholars who suggested that the two epics are not, in fact, the work of a single poetic genius.  The promulgation of this theory served to undermine an earlier fundamentalist faith in a consensus from antiquity: one and only one poet called Homer authored both poems.Second of all, even if more than one author existed under the guise of Homer, there is no denying that these epics represent the culmination of a long tradition of oral poetry-specifically, oral verse concerning the Trojan War.  The existence of this oral tradition has sometimes been used to speculate that the texts we have of the Iliad and the Odyssey were merely strung together from shorter poems about warrior-heroes sung by itinerant bards to regale the aristocratic courts of ancient Greece.  In this context, the name "Homer" has been explained as a generic designation signifying either a group of ancient singer-poets or an imaginary author to whom a collective body of oral poetry was attributed.That epic poems of more than 12,000 lines could have been recited from memory has been well documented.  Research undertaken at the beginning of the 20 th century identified singers in the Balkans who could perform monumental epic poems from memory.  These performers seemed to have memorized discrete episodes or sections of poetry, arranging these as they recited.  Since then, it has been almost universally recognized that any theory about Homeric authorship must accommodate the oral tradition.Today many scholars find it unlikely that the same individual composed both Homeric epics.  Compellingly, even the ancient consensus that there was just one author cannot be traced further back than about 520 BCE when the two poems-which had been committed to writing in their recognizable form sometime after the introduction of the alphabet to Greece in the 8 th century BCE-were recited by bards at the festival of Athena.  Prior to this, there had already been some controversy regarding the authorship of the poems.  In particular, an alternative tradition claimed that the Odyssey had been written by the poet Melesigenes, who then appropriated the name Homer.Likewise, leading Homericists now conjecture more specifically that one poet wrote the Iliad and that the Odyssey was composed sometime later by a second.  This theory rests on two basic premises:  (1) Each poem has its own well-defined and unified design that discredits the possibility it is merely a pastiche of shorter poems passed down orally and finally stabilized in written form; and (2) differences between the poems seem to point to separate authors.  Scholars cite not only linguistic inconsistencies, including differences in vocabulary, but also discrepancies in background, underlying beliefs, ethics, and even geographical orientation.  Intriguingly, researchers have also found evidence in the Odyssey of imitation of passages from the Iliad.A few skeptics, however, continue to insist that the stylistic similarities between the two epics ascribed to Homer are too striking to support a theory of multiple authorship.  Far from clinging to idealistic notions of artistry or outdated modes of manuscript study, these single-author theorists have combined information technology and analysis of linguistic style to produce a legitimate body of evidence they can marshal against the prevailing trend.
West, Martin. "The Homeric Question Today," in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol 155. No. 4, December 2011.
-Based on the passage, the possible existence of Melesigenes is LEAST likely to support the claim that:

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Paragraph 4 presents an "alternative tradition" from ancient times that "the Odyssey had been written by the poet, Melesigenes, who then appropriated (took over) the name Homer." This tradition, which was later obscured by the single-author theory, is not presented as definitive evidence that the Iliad and the Odyssey had different authors. It merely represents evidence that, at a certain point in antiquity, some people may have thought there had been two authors and that, therefore, even early on there had been some controversy (debate) about Homeric authorship. By contrast, the possible existence of Melesigenes does support the other answer choice assertions: There were questions about Homer's identity even in antiquity. The very existence of this alternative tradition of Melesigenes as author of the Odyssey indicates that even in antiquity there were questions or doubts about the identity of Homer and the authorship of the epics (Choice A). Different stories about the authorship of the epics circulated in antiquity. The story of Melesigenes represents an alternative tradition of authorship of the epics. Even though it was obscured by a later "consensus from antiquity" that there was just one author, this different or alternative story of authorship (and perhaps other stories as well) must have circulated, as we have evidence for it (Choice B). The concept of authorship was already important in antiquity. The very existence of this alternative tradition of authorship shows that even in antiquity the question of who wrote the Homeric poems was controversial (debatable) and, therefore, of some importance. Moreover, as the practice of oral recitation began to give way to written texts, authorship would naturally have evolved into a concept of greater importance (Choice D).

Passage First of All, the Notion That More Than One Author