The Greek Poet Homer
Homer is recognized as the professor of Greece. The two historical poems, the Iliad, and the Odyssey were the beginning of Greek literature. Although the time frame is questionable, scholars have projected the time to be after the Trojan War. However, the Encyclopædia Britannica Online reports that Homer’s offspring’s called “Homeridae,” had taken over the safeguarding and spreading of Homer’s poetry. These Homeridae’s recited fragments of the Iliad and the Odysseys at events or public assemblies. Because of the different time frames and dialect, Homer’s two famous epic poems are being questioned by scholars if he had help writing them or if he wrote them at all. What I hope to achieve through my research is to answer the questions submitted about when and where Homer was born? What was he like and was he a man or a myth? In addition, to discovering the mystery about his writing.
The evidence and the style of writing that questions if Homer, the Greek Poet, had helped in writing the famous epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey are questionable. Much of the evidence about Homer aims at Homer being the writer due to his regular style of writing. This way of writing also suggests that both poems contrast greatly in style. Additionally, experts analyzing the two poems believe that the Iliad was written when Homer was younger, and the Odyssey was created when Homer was older (Biography 2). Theories about Homer and his connection to his work have had changed time and time again. Scholars, over the centuries, proposed that Homer was only a story teller, and the epics accredited to him were the unfinished work of generations of Poets (Biography 2). Moreover, if Homer is not believable in his writing, could Homer himself be real?
Was Homer a cultural expression? In a Washington Post titled, “Why the Greek Poet Homer May Never Have Existed,” they reported that decades’ ago a French painter painted a legendary portrayal of the Greek poet Homer. The portrait had Homer covered in a “muscle-bound specimens draped in robes” (1). However, The Washington Post reports that this was incorrect and did not portray the true Homer. The Washington Post further stated that Homer was a not a man of the real world. He was more “the frame of mind which made” the Greeks “who they were” (More Reasons Why the Greek Poet Homer May Never Have Existed 1). The article goes on to state that Homer’s existence has been in disbelief for years, and many scholars are baffled because there is not much trustworthy past information to study concerning Homer. However, there is one challenging assumption the article reports, if Homer had really existed during 8th century B.C., then how do one explain discovery of the poem dating back to 520 B.C.,” “which is a century or more after the poems came into existence” (More Reasons Why the Greek Poet Homer May Never Have Existed 1).
The articles further reports that there is a couple of theories that helps support information about Homer. The first theory talks about how Homer’s work is shared across “the European continent and into parts of India,” and this has nothing to do with “Greece or the Aegean region. Therefore, an origin is not established, and tales of stories continue “floating around,” which makes Homer seems he did not originate in one place (More Reasons Why the Greek Poet Homer May Never Have Existed 1). A second theory the article reports is how the Iliad describes Greece, which does not agree to conditions existing in the 8th century B.C., for instance the violence in the Iliad reveals a prior era. Therefore, if Homer’s poems originate from an earlier era than is reported, do this mean Homer himself never existed? How mystery is that?
There is a great mystery about the Greek Poet Homer. According to “Homer Biography” some scholars believe that Homer was one person while others believe him to be a group of people. The reason being is that storytelling was an oral tradition during that