Homer was an ancient Greek poet who is widely believed to have written the Iliad and the Odyssey, two important works of ancient Greek literature. Although details about his life and whether he wrote these poems are not fully known, Homer was highly respected in ancient Greek society and is considered one of the most important authors in history.

The Iliad tells the story of a disagreement between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles during the final year of the Trojan War. The Odyssey describes the ten-year journey of Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, as he returns home after the fall of Troy. These poems show the challenges people face, especially in the Odyssey, where Odysseus struggles against the actions of the gods. The poems are written in Homeric Greek, a special form of the Greek language that combines features from the Ionic and Aeolic dialects, with the most influence coming from Eastern Ionic. Most experts believe the poems were originally shared through spoken word. While the poems are known for their serious and sad themes, they also include moments of humor and laughter.

The Homeric poems influenced ancient Greek culture and education, promoting values such as bravery, honor, and glory. Plato, a famous ancient Greek thinker, said Homer "has educated Greece." In Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, the poet Virgil calls Homer "Poet sovereign," the greatest of all poets. Alexander Pope, who translated the Iliad, noted that Homer has always been seen as the "greatest of poets." From ancient times to today, the Homeric epics have inspired many famous works in literature, music, art, and film.

Scholars continue to debate who wrote the Iliad and Odyssey, when they were written, and where. Most believe the two poems were created by different authors. It is thought they were written around the late eighth or early seventh century BC. Many ancient stories claimed Homer was a blind poet from Ionia, a region in present-day Turkey that included parts of Anatolia and the Greek islands of Chios and Samos. However, modern experts believe these stories are more legend than fact.

Biography, identity, and biographical traditions

The identity of "Homer" remains unknown, and scholars usually believe the idea of a single person writing both the Iliad and the Odyssey is a made-up story. In ancient times, details about Homer’s life became more and more turned into myths because no one knew who he was. People during that time thought he lived after the Trojan War. Today, scholars study Homer’s life along with the Homeric Question, which is an ongoing debate about whether Homer wrote the poems, where they came from, and how they were passed down. The two most well-known ancient stories about Homer’s life are the Life of Homer by Pseudo-Herodotus and the Contest of Homer and Hesiod.

The earliest known mentions of Homer in the 7th century BC appear in works by Archilochus, Alcman, Tyrtaeus, and Callinus. In many ancient stories, Homer is described as blind. Other stories, like the one in the Byzantine encyclopedia Suda, say he was descended from a Muse, Apollo, Orpheus, Thamyris, Telemachus, or Musaeus. A tradition from the time of Roman emperor Hadrian claims Homer’s parents were Epicaste (daughter of Nestor) and Telemachus (son of Odysseus). The poet Pindar said Homer came from Chios and Smyrna, places also mentioned by other writers from the fifth century. Other stories describe Homer as a performer at religious festivals, a traveling singer, a writer of other works (called the "Homerica"), or a person who failed to solve a riddle from fishermen. The Greek historian Ephorus wrote that Homer studied poetry with a bard named Phemius and was born in Cyme. Another writer, Philochorus, thought Homer was born in Argos. Later writers suggested Pylos or Athens as his birthplace. No single story about Homer’s origin became widely accepted, but most accounts say he died on the island of Ios.

Works attributed to Homer

Today, only the Iliad and the Odyssey are connected to the name "Homer." In ancient times, many other works were sometimes credited to him, such as the Homeric Hymns, the Contest of Homer and Hesiod, several epigrams, the Little Iliad, the Nostoi, the Thebaid, the Cypria, the Epigoni, the comic mini-epic Batrachomyomachia ("The Frog–Mouse War"), the Margites, the Capture of Oechalia, and the Phocais. These claims are not considered true today and were not always accepted in the ancient world. Like the many stories about Homer's life, they show how important Homer was to ancient Greek culture.

History of Homeric scholarship

The study of Homer is one of the oldest subjects in learning, beginning in ancient times. Over many centuries, the goals of studying Homer have changed. The earliest known comments about Homer focused on how he described the gods. Some critics, like the poet Xenophanes of Colophon, criticized Homer for portraying the gods in ways they considered wrong. Another thinker, Theagenes of Rhegium, defended Homer by saying the poems were meant to be understood as symbolic stories. In ancient Greece and the Hellenistic period, the Iliad and Odyssey were used as schoolbooks for all students. The Iliad, especially its first few chapters, was studied more carefully than the Odyssey during the Hellenistic and Roman times.

Because the poems were so important in ancient education, many explanations were created to help students understand parts of the texts that were hard to grasp. During the Hellenistic and Roman periods, many scholars, including the Stoics, believed the poems contained hidden wisdom and were allegories. Many people thought Homer’s main goal was to teach. Over time, Homer was seen as a wise teacher, almost like a philosopher. In the 12th century, Byzantine scholars like Eustathius of Thessalonica and John Tzetzes wrote detailed notes, explanations, and additions about Homer. Eustathius’s commentary on the Iliad alone is extremely long, taking up nearly 4,000 pages in a modern printed version. His commentary on the Odyssey adds nearly 2,000 more pages.

In 1488, the Greek scholar Demetrios Chalkokondyles published the first printed version of the Homeric poems in Florence. Early modern scholars studied Homer in much the same way as ancient scholars did. During the Renaissance, the idea that the poems had hidden meanings became popular again. Renaissance humanists admired Homer as a wise poet whose works contained secret knowledge. In Western Europe during the Renaissance, Virgil was more widely read than Homer, and Homer was often compared to Virgil.

In 1664, François Hédelin, abbé d'Aubignac, criticized Homer, saying the poems were confusing, immoral, and poorly written. He claimed Homer never existed and that the poems were made up from unrelated songs. Fifty years later, Richard Bentley argued that Homer did exist but was a simple, ancient poet whose work was later changed by others. Bentley believed the Iliad was written for men and the Odyssey for women, and that the poems were not combined into their current form until about 500 years after Homer’s time.

Giambattista Vico studied Homer and other ancient texts in his book The New Science (1744). He argued that Homer was not one person but many, or a mix of different writers. He wrote that Homer was more of an idea than a real person.

In 1795, Friedrich August Wolf’s Prolegomena ad Homerum suggested that the Iliad and Odyssey were originally made up of short, separate songs passed down orally for about 400 years before being written down in the 6th century BC. Wolf believed the poems were later edited and shaped into their current forms. His ideas, along with those of the "Analyst" school, aimed to find the original versions of the poems that were thought to be hidden by later changes.

Within the Analyst school, two groups formed: one believed the poems were made from many short songs, and the other thought Homer first wrote shorter versions that were later expanded. A smaller group, the "Unitarians," believed the later changes were better and the work of one poet. By 1830, scholars were focused on questions about whether Homer existed, how the poems were created, and how they were passed down. These questions became known as "the Homeric Question."

After World War I, the Analyst school became less popular. However, in 1928, Milman Parry and Albert Lord studied folk singers in the Balkans and developed the "Oral-Formulaic Theory." This theory explained that the Homeric poems were created through oral performances using repeated phrases and traditional expressions. This idea became widely accepted and helped explain the poems’ unusual language and repetitive features. Many scholars believed the "Homeric Question" had finally been answered.

At the same time, the "Neoanalysts" tried to find a middle ground between the Analysts and Unitarians. They studied how the Homeric poems might relate to other lost epic poems. Neoanalysts argued that differences in the Iliad and Odyssey could show earlier versions of the stories. For example, they suggested earlier versions of the Iliad had Ajax playing a bigger role and different characters in the Achaean embassy to Achilles. In the Odyssey, earlier versions might have had Telemachus searching for news in Crete instead of Sparta and Penelope recognizing Odysseus earlier. Neoanalysts have tried to reconstruct lost poems that might have influenced the Iliad and Odyssey. More recent studies have focused on how the poems use established myths.

Most modern scholars agree that the Iliad and Odyssey were not written by the same person. They point to differences in style, beliefs, language, and geography, as well as parts of the Odyssey that seem to copy the Iliad. Nearly all scholars agree that the two poems were created by different authors.

Historicity of the Homeric epics and Homeric society

Scholars still discuss questions like whether the Trojan War actually happened—and if it did, when and where—and how much of the society described by Homer reflects his own time or one that was only known as legends when the poems were written. The Homeric epics mainly take place in the east and center of the Mediterranean, with some mentions of Egypt, Ethiopia, and other faraway places. These stories describe a warlike society similar to the Greek world just before the estimated time when the poems were written.

In ancient Greek history, the fall of Troy was thought to occur in 1184 BC. By the 1800s, many scholars doubted whether the Trojan War had ever happened or if Troy had even existed. However, in 1873, Heinrich Schliemann claimed to have found the ruins of Homer’s Troy at Hisarlik in modern-day Turkey. Some modern scholars believe the destruction of Troy VIIa around 1220 BC inspired the myth of the Trojan War, while others think the poem was influenced by several similar battles that occurred over many years.

Most scholars now agree that the Homeric poems include customs and details from different periods in Greek history. For example, the heroes in the poems use bronze weapons, which were common during the Bronze Age when the stories are set, not the later Iron Age when the poems were written. However, these heroes are cremated (a practice from the Iron Age) instead of buried (as was done in the Bronze Age). In some parts of the poems, heroes are described carrying large shields like those used by warriors during the Mycenaean period, but in other parts, they are shown with smaller shields that were common during the early Iron Age when the poems were written.

In the Iliad 10.260–265, Odysseus is described wearing a helmet made of boar’s tusks. These helmets were not used during Homer’s time but were common among aristocratic warriors between 1600 and 1150 BC.

The discovery of Linear B in the 1950s by Michael Ventris and ongoing archaeological research have helped modern scholars better understand the Bronze Age Aegean civilization. This civilization in many ways resembles the ancient Near East more than the society described by Homer. Some parts of the Homeric world are fictional. For example, in Iliad 22.145–56, two springs are described near the city of Troy—one steaming hot and the other icy cold. This is where Hector faces Achilles for the final time. However, archaeologists have found no evidence that springs like these ever existed.

Style and language

The Homeric epics are written in a special kind of language called "Kunstsprache," which is only used in epic poetry with a specific rhythm called hexameter. Homeric Greek includes features from several Greek dialects and time periods, but it is mainly based on Ionic Greek, as it is believed Homer came from the region of Ionia. Studies of language show that the Iliad was written a little earlier than the Odyssey, and certain repeated phrases in the poems, called Homeric formulae, include language that is older than other parts of the works.

The poems use unrhymed lines with a specific rhythm called dactylic hexameter. In ancient Greek, the rhythm was based on the length of syllables, not on how hard they are stressed. Homer often used repeated phrases, such as nicknames ("crafty Odysseus," "rosy-fingered Dawn," "owl-eyed Athena"), and set expressions like "and then answered [him/her], Agamemnon, king of men" or "when the early-born rose-fingered Dawn came to light." These techniques, along with similes, repeated scenes, ring composition, and repetition, helped bards who created poetry on the spot. Unlike written poets like Virgil or Milton, who used complex sentence structures, Homer usually placed the main words of a sentence at the beginning and added details later. This method is called parataxis.

The repeated scenes, called "type scenes" by Walter Arend in 1933, describe common activities like eating, fighting, or dressing. These scenes use blocks of repeated phrases that are then expanded by the poet. Some scholars once thought these repetitions were not from Homer, but Arend saw them as meaningful. Later researchers, like Parry and Lord, found similar patterns in poetry from many other cultures.

A structure called "ring composition" or chiastic structure appears in the Homeric epics. This means a phrase or idea is repeated at the beginning and end of a story, or a series of ideas appears in the order A, B, C… and then reverses as …C, B, A. Scholars disagree about whether this is a deliberate artistic choice, a memory aid, or a natural part of storytelling.

Both the Iliad and the Odyssey begin with a call to the Muse, a goddess who inspires the poet. In the Iliad, the poet asks the Muse to sing about "the anger of Achilles," and in the Odyssey, the poet requests her to tell the story of "the man of many ways." A similar opening was later used by Virgil in his poem Aeneid.

Textual transmission

The Homeric poems were originally passed down by spoken word. Later, they were written down between the 8th and 6th centuries BC. Some scholars think the poems were spoken aloud by a poet and then written by a scribe. Albert Lord studied Balkan bards and found that these singers changed and added to their songs as they dictated them. Some scholars believe a similar process happened when the Homeric poems were first written.

Other scholars suggest that after the poems were created in the 8th century BC, they continued to be spoken and revised for many years. When they were finally written down in the 6th century BC, each poem was divided into 24 parts, called "books," labeled with letters from the Greek alphabet. Most scholars say the division into books was done by scholars from the Hellenistic period in Alexandria, Egypt. Some think the division began earlier, during the Classical period. Very few believe Homer himself created the divisions.

In ancient times, many believed the Homeric poems were collected and organized in Athens around the late 6th century BC by Pisistratus, a leader who died in 528/527 BC. This event is called the "Peisistratean recension" by later scholars. This idea is mentioned by Cicero, a Roman orator from the first century BC, and in other ancient writings about Homer. By about 150 BC, copies of the Homeric poems found on papyrus showed less variation, and the text became more stable. After the Library of Alexandria was built, scholars like Zenodotus of Ephesus, Aristophanes of Byzantium, and Aristarchus of Samothrace helped create a standard version of the poems.

The first printed version of Homer’s works was made in 1488 in Milan, Italy, by Demetrios Chalkokondyles. Today, scholars study medieval manuscripts, papyrus, and other sources. Some believe there are many versions of the text, rather than one single correct version. The 19th-century edition by Arthur Ludwich mostly follows Aristarchus’s work. Another edition by van Thiel (1991, 1996) follows a medieval version called the "vulgate." Other scholars, like Martin West (1998–2000) or T. W. Allen, take a middle approach between these views.