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nothing is known for certain about Homer

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there is a strong tradition that he was blind

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this may be based on the idea that his poetic genius compensated for his blindness

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19th century: two groups regarding historicity of Homer

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the Analysts

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dispute Homer's existence altogether

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the poems are a patchwork of works stitched by many hands

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the Unitarians

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believe the poems are a unity or unified composition

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their influence lives on today

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we call the study of the identity of Homer, "The Homeric Question"

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goes back to antiquity

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Hellenistic period (following the death of Alexander the Great)

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scholars were already asking who was Homer

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20th century

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we comprehend the Homeric poems as having their roots in the oral tradition

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we find whole passages copied in various works

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suggests that numerous bards were reciting and writing down these poems

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Martin West

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Iliad was composed over a long period of time (680-640 BC) by a single poet who he calls P

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then there is the question if the Odyssey was composed by the same author as the Iliad

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it is clear, however, that some version of the Iliad was being recited by bards traveling from house to house

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The Lost Poems

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the poems about the Trojan War which have not made it down to us

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no other poem has survived

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the Iliad and the Odyssey were for a period of at least 150 years were experienced primarily by listening rather than reading

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our earliest records of the Greek alphabet date to about 760 BCE

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Homer was probably literate but we don't know this

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The Recension

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it wasn't until the 6th century BC that the texts of the two poems became standardized

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took place under Peisistratus

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introduced recitals of Homer into the Pan-Hellenic games

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the division of the books into 24 books each was made a some time, we don't know exactly when

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Homer the person

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probably came from:

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1. Smyrna, a Greek city on the Turkish coast

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not far from Troy

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2. Chios

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island just off the coast

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almost certainly had visited Troy

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had first-hand knowledge of local topography

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in book 6 he paints a very vivid picture of Troy the city

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in book 12 he lists all the eight rivers which empty into the sea south of Troy

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we shouldn't automatically expect that Homer choose the Trojan War to write about

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there were other events

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the story of the Minotaur

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when singing of Troy, he is on home ground, it is local history

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there were certainly some ruins of Troy in his time, even if most of the site was grassed over

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it would be like for us to visit the battle field of Gettysburg or those of WWI, of the Normandy beaches from WWII

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it would have fired up his imagination

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would have certainly encountered non-Greek culture at first hand

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perhaps for this reason he might have been sympathetic to the Trojans

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one of the great characteristics of the Iliad is that it is at least as sympathetic to the enemy as it is to the home side, it's anything but a nationalistic rant

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he knows the battle field intimately

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he was the first to lay bare the questionable motives of warmongers, the suffering of noncombatants, the brutalizing affects of war on the soldiery, and the ambiguities of military heroism.

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he also understands the psychology of soldiers from the inside

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he knows they are given to grumbling and to questioning the justification of war

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he knows that they are compelled to fight even though they have no stomach for the encounter

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he also knows that things happen on the battlefield that cause rational men to go berserk and become killing machines

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he knows that morality and human decency are among the first casualties

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but he also does full justice to the courage of the combatants

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and he never forgets the plight of the innocent people caught up in war's struggle and are its victims

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book 6 of Iliad

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Trojan prince Hector and wife Andromache are in conversation

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talks about what she will be like after Hector is killed in war, namely, a slave

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Homer never lets us forget that our enemy is a human being fully deserving of the respect which we claim for ourselves

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not even Agamemnon for all his faults as a leader suggest in trying to whip up his men that the Trojans are mere vermin

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no Trojan or Greek ever speaks contemptuously of his opponent because of his ethnicity

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although there are plenty of insults thrown back and forth, none of them make reference to the identity of persons as a Greek or a Trojan

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and the last great scene of the poem is an acknowledgement of the common bond of humanity between Greeks and Trojans which override ethnic differences

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when King Priam begs the body of his dead son from Achilles, who has killed so many of his sons

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from poet's perspective, there is no difference between the Greeks and the Trojans

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in the poem, the Trojans, of course, speak perfect Greek

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the only major difference we see between the Trojans and the Greeks we see in Book 6 where we learn the King Priam has 50 sons and 12 daughters, which means that the Trojans, or at least the Trojan royal house is polygamous

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Simon Vile

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essay: The Iliad, or the Poem of Force

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the Iliad has had no imitators

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it's difficult to detect if the poet is Greek or Trojan

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this is central to his vision of the experience of war

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"This poem is a miraculous thing, it's bitterness rests on the only just cause for bitterness, the subjection of the human spirit to force. The subjection is the same for all mortals, their souls bear it differently according to their goodness. No one in the Iliad is spared just as no one on Earth is spared."

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no one who yields to force is regarded as contemptible for this reason

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all of those who participate are loved, but loved in grief under the threat of constantly impending destruction

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characters of Iliad

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Menelaus [Μενέλαος]

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king of Mycenaean (pre-Dorian) Sparta

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husband of Helen of Troy

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central figure in the Trojan War

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brother of Agamemnon

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leader of the Spartan contingent of the Greek army during the War

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prominent in both the Iliad and Odyssey

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Paris [Πάρις]

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son of Priam and Hecuba, king and queen of Troy

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best-known was his elopement with Helen, queen of Sparta, this being one of the immediate causes of the Trojan War

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fatally wounds Achilles in the heel with an arrow

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Diomedes [Διομήδης]

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became King of Argos

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alongside Ajax as one of the best warriors of all the Achaeans

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later he founded ten or more Italian cities

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Odysseus [Ὀδυσσεύς]

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legendary Greek king of Ithaca

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one of the most influential Greek champions during the Trojan War

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when Agamemnon, to test the morale of the Achaeans, announced his intentions to depart Troy, Odysseus restored order to the Greek camp

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hero of the Odyssey

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Nestor [Νέστωρ]

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King of Pylos

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too old to engage in combat himself

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often gives advice to the younger warriors and advises Agamemnon and Achilles to reconcile

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Achilles [Ἀχιλλεύς]

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central character and greatest warrior of the Iliad

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most notable feat during the Trojan War was the slaying of the Trojan hero Hector outside the gates of Troy

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death of Achilles is not presented in the Iliad

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other sources concur that he was killed near the end of the Trojan War by Paris, who shot him in the heel with an arrow

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Agamemnon [Ἀγαμέμνων]

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brother of Menelaus

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commanded the united Greek armed forces in the Trojan War

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upon return from Troy, he was murdered by Aegisthus, the lover of his wife, Clytemnestra