The Odyssey Group

Question:

darkfire
darkfire
Student
High School - 9th Grade

When is it believed the Iliad and Odyssey were actually composed?

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Posted by darkfire on Thursday October 15, 2009 at 11:20 AM and tagged with composition date, homer, iliad, odyssey.

Answers:


  1. pohnpei397 Teacher
    Community / Jr. College

    eNotes Editor

    The Odyssey and the Iliad, both credited to Homer (though no one really knows much about him) are seen as the foundations of Western literature.  Both works remain influential down to the present day.

    The dates when these epics were composed is not clearly known.  Scholars believe that the Iliad is older than the Odyssey and they believe that both works were compsed sometime in the 8th century BC (meaning the 700s BC).

    Because there is no way of knowing for sure when the epics were composed, scholars have had to do such things as analyzing the fighting techniques portrayed in the story and trying to figure out from them when the poems were composed.

    See the link for more about how they figured this out.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/odyssey/author-biography

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    Posted by pohnpei397 on Thursday October 15, 2009 at 11:32 AM