hypercritic

Wolf, the great German classicist (1759-1852) who proposed that the Iliad and the Odyssey were a collection of ballads composed by a Homeric group on the island of Chios which were edited later on into a so-called unity, gets chastised in "Wolf and the Casket, or the Unity of the Iliad" (CLVI) for "hypercritic zeal." A "plural Homer cannot be!," just as the Book of Genesis cannot be a collection of textual bits cobbled together by editors.

But I believe this writer stands alone in denying to this paper every essential quality of style which should be regarded in drawing up the solemn judgment of a court of justice: and I cannot avoid observing that this hypercritic censures the tediousness of an opinion of eleven columns, whilst he fills more than twenty-six in discussing the same question; that he arraigns the offence of tautology in a series of numbers containing more repetitions than I can readily enumerate; and that this lucid order leaves the reader perplexed and puzzled to arrange in his own mind the points which have been discussed.