Homer
By
Chad Ewing
&
Jon Gillum
Bibliography

Burt, Daniel S. "Homer." The Literary 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential
Novelists, Playwrights, and Poets of All Time, Revised Edition. New York:
Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File,
Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin=
LITONE003&SingleRecord=True (accessed May 1, 2009).
 "Homer (c. 8th century B.C.-?)." DISCovering Authors. Online ed. Detroit:
Gale, 2003. Student Resource Center - Silver. Gale. Meadville Media
Center. 4 May. 2009
<http://find.galegroup.com/srcx/infomark.do?&contentSet=GSRC&type=retri
eve&tabID=T001&prodId=SRC2&docId=EJ2101101216&source=gale&srcprod=SRCC&userGroupName=
meadville_mc&version=1.0>.
 Bloom, Harold. "Bloom on Homer." The Epic, Bloom's 20th Anniversary
Collection. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2005. Bloom's Literary
Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.
http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin=
BLCE004&SingleRecord=True (accessed May 13, 2009).
All We Know
 Born
in eighth century B.C. Greece
 He was most likely an Ionian Greek,
probably around the coast of Asia Minor.
According to legend, he was blind and
made a living as an itinerant bard. It has
been suggested that his purported
blindness may have been used to conceal
his illiteracy, or that he may have lost his
sight only late in life.
Famous Works
Iliad-Epic
Odyssey-Epic
Iliad

Approximately 15,000 lines long and divided into twentyfour books, the Iliad is composed in dactylic, or "heroic,"
hexameter. The action takes place near the Hellespont,
in northwest Asia Minor, during the tenth year of the
Trojan War, which took place in the second half of the
twelfth century B.C.
 In simplest terms, the plot recounts an episode near the
end of the war between King Priam of Troy and the kings
of Greece, led by King Agamemnon of Mycenae and his
brother Menelaus of Sparta.
 Paris, one of Priam's sons has abducted Helen, the
fabled beauty and wife of Menelaus. The Greek armies,
notably the troop commanded by Achilles, Prince of the
Myrmidons and the bravest and most headstrong of
Agamemnon's supporters, have already managed to
capture and loot a portion of Trojan territory.
Iliad

Achilles and Agamemnon become involved in a personal
feud: when Agamemnon is forced to give up Chryseis, a
captured Trojan girl and the daughter of a priest of
Apollo, in order to avoid the god's revenge, he comforts
himself by taking Briseis, another Trojan woman who is
Achilles's lover. Tragedy for all sides and many more
twists of events follow.

The Trojan forces are eventually repelled, and the poem
closes with a description of the funeral of Hector, the
slain son of King Priam.
Iliad Mythology





The Goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite were
sent to Paris by Zeus since he succeeded in
acquiring a golden apple.
Hera offered power, Athena offered wisdom, and
Aphrodite offered the most beautiful woman in the
world.
Paris chose the most beautiful woman in the world.
He found her on a visit to Sparta. Her name was
Helen, the Queen of Sparta.
They fell in love almost immediately, so he
kidnapped her and took her to Troy which sparked
the Trojan War.
Odyssey

Like the Iliad, the Odyssey is written in dactylic hexameter
verse and records events that happened much earlier in
history. It takes its name from the hero of the epic, Odysseus,
King of the Island of Ithaca, who participated in the Trojan War
and is sailing eastward toward home.
 His wanderings take place over the span of ten years, but the
Odyssey covers only the last six weeks of his journey.
 Odysseus recounts his fantastic adventures, conveyed in
flashbacks, involving such hardships as an encounter with the
witch Circe, a trip to the underworld, and temptation by the
singing Sirens, famous for luring sailors to their death. He
reveals that his trials are the result of having angered the god
Poseidon, father of the one-eyed giant Cyclops, whom
Odysseus blinded in one of his earlier adventures.
Odyssey


In the meantime, Odysseus's patient and faithful wife
Penelope tries to delay the advances of numerous
suitors who are camping in the palace in Ithaca,
assuming that Odysseus must not have survived the war
and eager to take his place. Her son, Telemachus, sets
out to search for his father, and his travels form a
counterpoint to those of Odysseus.
Eventually, Odysseus returns home, becomes reunited
with Penelope and Telemachus, and resumes his rightful
place as King.
Praises

As the progenitor of epic poetry, Homer in the Iliad and
the Odyssey defined the monumental work of literary art
that captures an entire culture, synthesizing beliefs,
customs, and tradition into a serious and popular form
that has been the aspiration of writers ever since.

His only rivals to have a comparable impact on Western
culture are the Bible, Shakespeare, and Dante, and no
single author has carried such uninterrupted influence for
so long.
Criticisms

Homer writes both scripture and a book of general
knowledge, and these are necessarily still the prime
educational texts, with only Shakespeare making a
third, a third who evidences most deeply the split
between Greek cognition and religious spirituality. To
read the Iliad in particular without distorting it is now
perhaps impossible, and for reasons that transcend
the differences between Homer's language and
social environment, and our own. The true
difference, whether we are Gentile or Jew, believer
or skeptic, Hegelian or Freudian, is between
Yahweh, and the tangled company of Zeus and the
Olympians, fate and the daemonic world. Homer is
perhaps most powerful when he represents the strife
of men and gods.