Homer
Homer1. The ancient world attributed the two epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the earliest and greatest works of Greek literature, to the poet Homer. Against this general consensus a few scholars at Alexandria argued for different authorship of the two poems; and modern critics, in the 150 years after Wolf (1795), went further and questioned the unity of authorship of each poem. However, the difficulties on which these ‘analysts’ based their discussions have been resolved through a greater understanding of oral poetry, and now most scholars see each as the work of one author. Whether he was the same for both remains uncertain. They have a great deal of common phraseology, but the Odyssey is less archaic in language and more repetitive in content, it views the gods rather differently, and for a few common things it uses different words. Such changes might occur in the lifetime of one person. As nothing...
[The entire page is 2834 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Oxford University Press Titles
