Difference between revisions of "Homer" - New World Encyclopedia

From New World Encyclopedia
(Homer article established)
 
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[[Image:Homer_British_Museum.jpg|thumb|right|Bust of Homer in the [[British Museum]]]]
 
[[Image:Homer_British_Museum.jpg|thumb|right|Bust of Homer in the [[British Museum]]]]
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:''For the fictional character in The Simpsons, see [[Homer Simpson]]. For other uses, see [[Homer (disambiguation)]].''
 
  
 
'''Homer''' ([[Greek language|Greek]] {{polytonic|Ὅ}}&#x03B.C.E.;ηρος ''Hómēros'') was a legendary early [[Greek literature|Greek]] [[poet]] and [[rhapsode]] traditionally credited with the composition of the ''[[Iliad]]'' ({{polytonic|Ἰλιάς}}) and the ''[[Odyssey]]'' ({{polytonic|Ὀδύσσεια}}). Homer was even at one time credited with the entire [[Epic Cycle]], which included further poems on the [[Trojan War]] as well as the [[Thebes, Greece|Theban]] poems about [[Oedipus]] and his sons. Other works, such as the corpus of [[Homeric Hymns]], the comic mini-epic ''[[Batrachomyomachia]]'' ("The Frog-Mouse War," Βατραχομυομαχία), and the [[Margites]] were also attributed to him, but this is now believed to be unlikely.  
 
'''Homer''' ([[Greek language|Greek]] {{polytonic|Ὅ}}&#x03B.C.E.;ηρος ''Hómēros'') was a legendary early [[Greek literature|Greek]] [[poet]] and [[rhapsode]] traditionally credited with the composition of the ''[[Iliad]]'' ({{polytonic|Ἰλιάς}}) and the ''[[Odyssey]]'' ({{polytonic|Ὀδύσσεια}}). Homer was even at one time credited with the entire [[Epic Cycle]], which included further poems on the [[Trojan War]] as well as the [[Thebes, Greece|Theban]] poems about [[Oedipus]] and his sons. Other works, such as the corpus of [[Homeric Hymns]], the comic mini-epic ''[[Batrachomyomachia]]'' ("The Frog-Mouse War," Βατραχομυομαχία), and the [[Margites]] were also attributed to him, but this is now believed to be unlikely.  
  
 
Tradition held that Homer was [[blindness|blind]], and various [[Ionia]]n cities are claimed to be his birthplace, but otherwise his biography is a blank slate. There is considerable scholarly debate about whether Homer was actually a real person, or the name given to one or more oral poets who sang traditional epic material.
 
Tradition held that Homer was [[blindness|blind]], and various [[Ionia]]n cities are claimed to be his birthplace, but otherwise his biography is a blank slate. There is considerable scholarly debate about whether Homer was actually a real person, or the name given to one or more oral poets who sang traditional epic material.
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It has repeatedly been questioned whether the same poet was responsible for both the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey''. While many find it unlikely that the Odyssey was written by one man or woman, others find that the epic is generally in the same writing style, and is too brilliantly set up to have been written by more than one person. The ''Batrachomyomachia'', Homeric hymns, and cyclic epics are generally agreed to be later than the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey''.
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[[Image:William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) - Homer and his Guide (1874).jpg|thumb|right|Homer and His Guide, by [[William-Adolphe Bouguereau]] (1825-1905)]]
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Regardless, Homer's epics are, without a doubt, the two most influential poems in all of Western literature. Simply put, Homer was the first major poet whose works were written down, and as a result, he takes precedence over all the [[poetry]] that has succeeded him. Succeeding poets have made reference to Homer for thousands of years, and any poet writing in the tradition must at some point come to terms with Homer. No other poet has been imitated more, referenced more, or read more than Homer.
  
 
==The Homeric Question==  
 
==The Homeric Question==  
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{{main|Homeric Question}}
 
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[[Image:Homere.jpg|right|200px|thumb|This marble bust of Homer is in the [[Louvre]].]]
 
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Scholars generally agree that the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'' underwent a process of standardization and refinement out of older material beginning in the [[8th century B.C.E.]]. An important role in this standardization appears to have been played by the [[Athens|Athenian]] [[tyrant]] [[Hipparchus (son of Pisistratus)|Hipparchus]], who reformed the recitation of Homeric poetry at the [[Panathenaea|Panathenaic festival]]. Many [[classicist]]s hold that this reform must have involved the production of a [[canon (fiction)|canon]]ical written text.
 
  
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Other scholars, however, maintain their belief in the reality of an actual Homer. So little is known or even guessed of his actual life, that a common [[joke]] has it that the poems "were not written by Homer, but by another man of the same name," and the classical scholar [[Richmond Lattimore]], author of well regarded poetic translations to [[English language|English]] of both epics, once wrote a paper entitled "Homer: Who Was he?" [[Samuel Butler (1835-1902)|Samuel Butler]] was more specific, theorizing a young Sicilian woman as author of the ''Odyssey'' (but not the ''Iliad''), an idea further speculated on by [[Robert Graves]] in his novel ''[[Homer's Daughter]]''.
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In modern times, the status of Homer's biography has often come down to the "Homeric Question": That is, did Homer really exist?
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Scholars generally agree that the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'' underwent a process of standardization and refinement out of older material beginning in the [[8th century B.C.E.]]. An important role in this standardization appears to have been played by the [[Athens|Athenian]] [[tyrant]] [[Hipparchus (son of Pisistratus)|Hipparchus]], who reformed the recitation of Homeric poetry at the [[Panathenaea|Panathenaic festival]]. Many [[classicist]]s hold that this reform must have involved the production of a [[canon (fiction)|canon]]ical written text, and that the name "Homer" was later somehow attached to this amalgamation of texts.
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Other scholars, however, maintain their belief in the reality of an actual Homer. So little is known or even guessed of his actual life, that a common [[joke]] has it that the poems "were not written by Homer, but by another man of the same name," and the classical scholar [[Richmond Lattimore]], author of well regarded poetic translations to [[English language|English]] of both epics, once wrote a paper entitled "Homer: Who Was She?" [[Samuel Butler (1835-1902)|Samuel Butler]] was more specific, theorizing a young Sicilian woman as author of the ''Odyssey'' (but not the ''Iliad''), an idea further speculated on by [[Robert Graves]] in his novel ''[[Homer's Daughter]]''.
  
 
In Greek his name is ''Homēros'', which is Greek for "hostage". There is a theory that his name was back-extracted from the name of a society of poets called the [[Homeridae]], which literally means "sons of hostages", i.e., descendants of prisoners of war. As these men were not sent to war because their loyalty on the battlefield was suspect, they would not get killed in battles. Thus they were entrusted with remembering the area's stock of epic poetry, to remember past events, in the times before literacy came to the area.
 
In Greek his name is ''Homēros'', which is Greek for "hostage". There is a theory that his name was back-extracted from the name of a society of poets called the [[Homeridae]], which literally means "sons of hostages", i.e., descendants of prisoners of war. As these men were not sent to war because their loyalty on the battlefield was suspect, they would not get killed in battles. Thus they were entrusted with remembering the area's stock of epic poetry, to remember past events, in the times before literacy came to the area.
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Most Classicists would agree that, whether there was ever such a composer as "Homer" or not, the Homeric poems are the product of an oral tradition, a generations-old technique that was the collective inheritance of many singer-poets (''aoidoi''). An analysis of the structure and vocabulary of the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'' shows that the poems consist of regular, repeating phrases; even entire verses repeat. Could the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'' have been '''oral-formulaic''' poems, composed on the spot by the poet using a collection of memorized traditional verses and phases? [[Milman Parry]] and [[Albert Lord]] pointed out that such elaborate oral tradition, foreign to today's literate cultures, is typical of [[epic poetry]] in an exclusively oral culture. The crucial words are "oral" and "traditional." Parry started with "traditional." The repetitive chunks of language, he said, were inherited by the singer-poet from his predecessors, and they were useful to the poet in composition. He called these chunks of repetitive language "formulas."   
 
Most Classicists would agree that, whether there was ever such a composer as "Homer" or not, the Homeric poems are the product of an oral tradition, a generations-old technique that was the collective inheritance of many singer-poets (''aoidoi''). An analysis of the structure and vocabulary of the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'' shows that the poems consist of regular, repeating phrases; even entire verses repeat. Could the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'' have been '''oral-formulaic''' poems, composed on the spot by the poet using a collection of memorized traditional verses and phases? [[Milman Parry]] and [[Albert Lord]] pointed out that such elaborate oral tradition, foreign to today's literate cultures, is typical of [[epic poetry]] in an exclusively oral culture. The crucial words are "oral" and "traditional." Parry started with "traditional." The repetitive chunks of language, he said, were inherited by the singer-poet from his predecessors, and they were useful to the poet in composition. He called these chunks of repetitive language "formulas."   
  
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Exactly when these poems would have taken on a fixed written form is subject to debate. The traditional solution is the "transcription hypothesis", wherein a non-literate "Homer" dictates his poem to a literate scribe in the [[6th century B.C.E.]] or earlier. More radical Homerists, such as [[Gregory Nagy]], contend that a canonical text of the Homeric poems as "scripture" did not exist until the [[Hellenistic]] period ([[3rd century B.C.E.|3rd]] to [[1st century B.C.E.]]).
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==Ancient Accounts of Homer==
  
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==Ancient Accounts of Homer==
 
 
Of the date of Homer probably no record, real or pretended, ever existed. [[Herodotus]] (2.53) maintains that [[Hesiod]] and Homer lived not more than 400 years before his own time, consequently not much before [[850 B.C.E.]]. From the controversial tone in which he expresses himself it is evident that others had made Homer more ancient; and accordingly the dates given by later authorities, though very various, generally fall within the 10th and 11th centuries B.C.E., but none of these statements has any claim to the character of external evidence.
 
Of the date of Homer probably no record, real or pretended, ever existed. [[Herodotus]] (2.53) maintains that [[Hesiod]] and Homer lived not more than 400 years before his own time, consequently not much before [[850 B.C.E.]]. From the controversial tone in which he expresses himself it is evident that others had made Homer more ancient; and accordingly the dates given by later authorities, though very various, generally fall within the 10th and 11th centuries B.C.E., but none of these statements has any claim to the character of external evidence.
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The extant lives of Homer (edited in Westermann's ''Vitarum Scriptores Graeci minores'') are eight in number, including the piece called the ''[[Contest of Hesiod and Homer]]''. The longest is written in the [[Ionic]] dialect, and bears the name of Herodotus, but is certainly spurious. In all probability it belongs to the time which was fruitful beyond all others in literary forgeries, viz, the [[2nd century]] of our era. The other lives are certainly not more ancient. Their chief value consists in the curious short poems or fragments of verse which they have preserved, the so-called ''Epigrams'', which used to be printed at the end of editions of Homer. These are easily recognized as Popular Rhymes, a form of folklore to be met with in most countries, treasured by the people as a kind of proverbs. In the Homeric epigrams the interest turns sometimes on the characteristics of particular localities [[Smyrna]] and [[Cyme]] (Epigr. 4), [[Erythrae]] (Epigr. 6, 7), [[Mt Ida]] (Epigr. 10), [[Neon Teichos]] (Epigr. 1); others relate to certain trades or occupations: potters (Epigr. 14), sailors, fishermen, goat herds, etc. Some may be fragments of longer poems, but evidently they are not the work of any one poet. The fact that they were all ascribed to Homer merely means that they belong to a period in the history of the Ionian and Aeolian colonies when Homer was a name which drew to itself all ancient and popular verse.
 
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Again, comparing the epigrams with the legends and anecdotes told in the Lives of Homer, we can hardly doubt that they were the chief source from which these Lives were derived. Thus in Epigr. 4 we find a blind poet, a native of Aeolian [[Smyrna]], through which flows the water of the sacred [[Meles]]. Here is doubtless the source of the chief incident of the Herodotean Life, the birth of Homer Son of the Meles. The epithet ''Aeolian'' implies high antiquity, inasmuch as according to Herodotus Smyrna became Ionian about [[688 B.C.E.]]. Naturally the Ionians had their own version of the story, a version which made Homer come out with the first Athenian colonists.
 
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The same line of argument may be extended to the [[Homeric Hymns|Hymns]], and even to some of the lost works of the post-Homeric or so-called [[Epic Cycle|Cyclic poets]]. Thus:
 
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1. The hymn to the Delian [[Apollo]] ends with an address of the poet to his audience. When any stranger comes and asks who is the sweetest singer, they are to answer with one voice, "the blind man that dwells in rocky [[Chios]]; his songs deserve the prize for all time to come." [[Thucydides]], who quotes this passage to show the ancient character of the Delian festival, seems to have no doubt of the Homeric authorship of the hymn. Hence we may most naturally account for the belief that Homer was a Chian.
 
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2. The ''Margites'', a humorous poem which kept its ground as the reputed work of Homer down to the time of [[Aristotle]] began with the words, "There came to Colophon an old man, a divine singer, servant of the Muses and Apollo." Hence doubtless the claim of [[Colophon]] to be the native city of Homer, a claim supported in the early times of Homeric learning by the Colophonian poet and grammarian [[Antimachus]].
 
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3. The poem called the ''[[Cypria]]'' was said to have been given by Homer to [[Stasinus of Cyprus]] as a daughter's dowry. The connexion with [[Cyprus]] appears further in the predominance given in the poem to [[Aphrodite]].
 
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4. The ''[[Little Iliad]]'' and the ''[[Phocais]]'', according to the Herodotean life, were composed by Homer when he lived at [[Phocaea]] with a certain Thestorides, who carried them off to Chios and there gained fame by reciting them as his own. The name Thestorides occurs in Epigr. 5.
 
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5. A similar story was told about the poem called the ''Taking of Oechalia'', the subject of which was one of the exploits of [[Heracles]]. It passed under the name of [[Creophylus]], a friend or (as some said) a son-in-law of Homer; but it was generally believed to have been in fact the work of the poet himself.
 
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6. Finally, the ''[[Thebaid]]'' is always counted as the work of Homer. As to the ''[[Epigoni]]'', which carried on the Theban story, some doubt seems to have been felt.
 
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These indications render it probable that the stories connecting Homer with different cities and islands grew up after his poems had become known and famous, especially in the new and flourishing colonies of Aeolis and Ionia. The contention for Homer, in short, began at a time when his real history was lost, and he had become a sort of mythical figure, an eponymous hero, or personification of a great school of poetry.
 
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An interesting confirmation of this view from the negative side is furnished by the city which ranked as chief among the Asiatic colonies of Greece, viz. [[Miletus]]. No legend claims for Miletus even a visit from Homer, or a share in the authorship of any Homeric poem. Yet [[Arctinus of Miletus]] was said to have been a disciple of Homer, and was certainly one of the earliest and most considerable of the Cyclic poets. His ''Aethiopis'' was composed as a sequel to the Iliad; and the structure and general character of his poems show that he took the Iliad as his model. Yet in his case we find no trace of the disputed authorship which is so common with other Cyclic poems. How has this come about? Why have the works of Arctinus escaped the attraction which drew to the name of Homer such epics as the Cypria, the Little Iliad, the Thebaid, the Epigoni, the Taking of Oechalia and the Phocais. The most obvious account of the matter is that Arctinus was never so far forgotten that his poems became the subject of dispute. We seem through him to obtain a glimpse of an early post-Homeric age in Ionia, when the immediate disciples and successors of Homer were distinct figures in a trustworthy tradition when they had not yet merged their individuality in the legendary Homer of the Epic Cycle.
 
  
 
==Homeric studies==
 
==Homeric studies==
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{{main|Homeric scholarship}}
 
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The study of Homer is one of the very oldest topics in all scholarship or science, and goes back to antiquity. Purely in terms of quantity it is one of the largest of all literary sub-disciplines: the annual publication output rivals that on [[Shakespeare]]. The aims and achievements of Homeric studies have changed over the course of the millennia; in the last few centuries they have revolved around the process by which the Homeric poems came into existence and were transmitted down to us, first orally, and later in writing.
 
  
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Some of the main trends in modern Homeric scholarship have been, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, ''Analysis'' and ''Unitarianism'' (see [[Homeric question]]), which were schools of thought that emphasised on the one hand the inconsistencies, on the other the artistic unity, in Homer; and in the 20th century and later ''Oral Theory'', which is the study of the mechanisms and effects of oral transmission, and ''Neoanalysis'', which is the study of the relationship between Homer and other early epic material.
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The study of Homer is one of the very oldest topics in all scholarship or science, and goes back to antiquity. Purely in terms of quantity it is one of the largest of all literary sub-disciplines: the annual publication output rivals that on [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]]. The aims and achievements of Homeric studies have changed over the course of the millennia; in the last few centuries they have revolved around the process by which the Homeric poems came into existence and were transmitted down to us, first orally, and later in writing.
  
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==Homeric dialect==
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Some of the main trends in modern Homeric scholarship have been, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, ''Analysis'' and ''Unitarianism'', which were schools of thought that emphasised on the one hand the inconsistencies, on the other the artistic unity, in Homer; and in the 20th century and later ''Oral Theory'', which is the study of the mechanisms and effects of oral transmission, and ''Neoanalysis'', which is the study of the relationship between Homer and other early epic material.
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{{main|Homeric Greek}}
 
  
 
==Homeric style==
 
==Homeric style==
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The cardinal qualities of the style of Homer have been pointed out once for all by [[Matthew Arnold]]. The translator of Homer, he says, should above all be penetrated by a sense of four qualities of his author: that he is eminently rapid; that he is eminently plain and direct, both in the evolution of his thought and in the expression of it, that is, both in his syntax and in his words; that he is eminently plain and direct in the substance of his thought, that is, in his matter and ideas; and, finally, that he is eminently noble (''On Translating Homer'', p. 9).
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The cardinal qualities of the style of Homer were pointed out quite well by 19th Century poet [[Matthew Arnold]]. The translator of Homer, he says, should above all be penetrated by a sense of four qualities of his author: that he is eminently rapid; that he is eminently plain and direct, both in the evolution of his thought and in the expression of it, that is, both in his syntax and in his words; that he is eminently plain and direct in the substance of his thought, that is, in his matter and ideas; and, finally, that he is eminently noble (''On Translating Homer'', p. 9).
  
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The peculiar rapidity of Homer is due in great measure to his use of the [[hexameter]] verse. It is characteristic of early literature that the evolution of the thought, that is, the grammatical form of the sentence is guided by the structure of the verse; and the correspondence which consequently obtains between the rhythm and the grammar, the thought being given out in lengths, as it were, and these again divided by tolerably uniform pauses produces a swift flowing movement, such as is rarely found when the periods have been constructed without direct reference to the metre. That Homer possesses this rapidity without falling into the corresponding faults, that is, without becoming either jerky or monotonous, is perhaps the best proof of his unequalled poetical skill. The plainness and directness, both of thought and of expression, which characterize Homer were doubtless qualities of his age; But the author of the ''Iliad'' (like [[Voltaire]], to whom Arnold happily compares him) must have possessed this gift in a surpassing degree. The ''Odyssey'' is in this respect perceptibly below the level of the Iliad.
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The peculiar rapidity of Homer is due in great measure to his use of [[hexameter]] verse. It is characteristic of early literature that the evolution of the thought, that is, the grammatical form of the sentence is guided by the structure of the verse; and the correspondence which consequently obtains between the rhythm and the grammar, the thought being given out in lengths, as it were, and these again divided by tolerably uniform pauses produces a swift flowing movement, such as is rarely found when the periods have been constructed without direct reference to the metre. That Homer possesses this rapidity without falling into the corresponding faults, that is, without becoming either jerky or monotonous, is perhaps the best proof of his unequalled poetical skill. The plainness and directness, both of thought and of expression, which characterize Homer were doubtless qualities of his age; But the author of the ''Iliad'' (like [[Voltaire]], to whom Arnold happily compares him) must have possessed this gift in a surpassing degree.  
  
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Rapidity or ease of movement, plainness of expression and plainness of thought, these are not the distinguishing qualities of the great epic poets, [[Virgil]], [[Dante]], [[Milton]]. (Dante mentions Homer in ''[[Divine Comedy#Inferno|Inferno]]'' IV,88, ranking him as 'Poet sovereign'' just above [[Horace]], [[Ovid]] and [[Virgil]].)  On the contrary, they belong rather to the humbler epico-lyrical school for which Homer has been so often claimed. The proof that Homer does not belong to that school, that his poetry is not in any true sense ballad-poetry is furnished by the higher artistic structure of his poems, and as regards style by the fourth of the qualities distinguished by Arnold, the quality of nobleness. It is his noble and powerlul style, sustained through every change of idea and subject, that finally separates Homer from all forms of ballad-poetry and popular epic.
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Rapidity or ease of movement, plainness of expression and plainness of thought, these are not the distinguishing qualities of the great epic poets, [[Virgil]], [[Dante]], [[Milton]]. (Dante mentions Homer in ''[[Divine Comedy#Inferno|Inferno]]'' IV,88, ranking him as ''Poet sovereign'' just above [[Horace]], [[Ovid]] and [[Virgil]].)  On the contrary, they belong rather to the humbler epico-lyrical school for which Homer has been so often claimed. Homer does not have any use for the ornate complexity found in so many later epic poets; he is rough and plain-spoken in a way that is refreshingly contemporary. Moreover, as Arnold suggests, through this roughness there is a certain sense of nobility that shines through--though plain and unadorned and in some cases even redundant, one is still left in awe of Homer's verses, of the commanding, noble story they tell. It is this powerful style, sustained through every change of idea and subject, that finally separates Homer from all forms of poetry to which he has been compared.
  
 
But while we are on our guard against a once common error, we may recognize the historical connection between the Iliad and Odyssey and the ballad literature which undoubtedly preceded them in Greece. It may even be admitted that the swift-flowing movement, and the simplicity of thought and style, which we admire in the Iliad are an inheritance from the earlier lays, such as Achilles and Patroclus sang to the lyre in their tent. Even the hexameter verse may be assigned to them. But between these lays and Homer we must place the cultivation of [[epic poetry]] as an art. The pre-Homeric lays doubtless furnished the elements of such a poetry, but they must have been refined and transmuted before they formed poems like the Iliad and Odyssey.
 
But while we are on our guard against a once common error, we may recognize the historical connection between the Iliad and Odyssey and the ballad literature which undoubtedly preceded them in Greece. It may even be admitted that the swift-flowing movement, and the simplicity of thought and style, which we admire in the Iliad are an inheritance from the earlier lays, such as Achilles and Patroclus sang to the lyre in their tent. Even the hexameter verse may be assigned to them. But between these lays and Homer we must place the cultivation of [[epic poetry]] as an art. The pre-Homeric lays doubtless furnished the elements of such a poetry, but they must have been refined and transmuted before they formed poems like the Iliad and Odyssey.
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==Historicity of the Iliad==
 
==Historicity of the Iliad==
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''See main article [[Historicity of the Iliad]].''
 
  
 
Another significant question regards the poems' possible historical basis. The commentaries on the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' written in the [[Hellenistic]] period began exploring the textual inconsistencies of the poems. Modern classicists continue the tradition.
 
Another significant question regards the poems' possible historical basis. The commentaries on the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' written in the [[Hellenistic]] period began exploring the textual inconsistencies of the poems. Modern classicists continue the tradition.

Revision as of 18:09, 26 March 2006

Bust of Homer in the British Museum

Homer (Greek ὍB.C.E.;ηρος Hómēros) was a legendary early Greek poet and rhapsode traditionally credited with the composition of the Iliad (Ἰλιάς) and the Odyssey (Ὀδύσσεια). Homer was even at one time credited with the entire Epic Cycle, which included further poems on the Trojan War as well as the Theban poems about Oedipus and his sons. Other works, such as the corpus of Homeric Hymns, the comic mini-epic Batrachomyomachia ("The Frog-Mouse War," Βατραχομυομαχία), and the Margites were also attributed to him, but this is now believed to be unlikely.

Tradition held that Homer was blind, and various Ionian cities are claimed to be his birthplace, but otherwise his biography is a blank slate. There is considerable scholarly debate about whether Homer was actually a real person, or the name given to one or more oral poets who sang traditional epic material.

Regardless, Homer's epics are, without a doubt, the two most influential poems in all of Western literature. Simply put, Homer was the first major poet whose works were written down, and as a result, he takes precedence over all the poetry that has succeeded him. Succeeding poets have made reference to Homer for thousands of years, and any poet writing in the tradition must at some point come to terms with Homer. No other poet has been imitated more, referenced more, or read more than Homer.

The Homeric Question

In modern times, the status of Homer's biography has often come down to the "Homeric Question": That is, did Homer really exist?

Scholars generally agree that the Iliad and Odyssey underwent a process of standardization and refinement out of older material beginning in the 8th century B.C.E. An important role in this standardization appears to have been played by the Athenian tyrant Hipparchus, who reformed the recitation of Homeric poetry at the Panathenaic festival. Many classicists hold that this reform must have involved the production of a canonical written text, and that the name "Homer" was later somehow attached to this amalgamation of texts.

Other scholars, however, maintain their belief in the reality of an actual Homer. So little is known or even guessed of his actual life, that a common joke has it that the poems "were not written by Homer, but by another man of the same name," and the classical scholar Richmond Lattimore, author of well regarded poetic translations to English of both epics, once wrote a paper entitled "Homer: Who Was She?" Samuel Butler was more specific, theorizing a young Sicilian woman as author of the Odyssey (but not the Iliad), an idea further speculated on by Robert Graves in his novel Homer's Daughter.

In Greek his name is Homēros, which is Greek for "hostage". There is a theory that his name was back-extracted from the name of a society of poets called the Homeridae, which literally means "sons of hostages", i.e., descendants of prisoners of war. As these men were not sent to war because their loyalty on the battlefield was suspect, they would not get killed in battles. Thus they were entrusted with remembering the area's stock of epic poetry, to remember past events, in the times before literacy came to the area.

Most Classicists would agree that, whether there was ever such a composer as "Homer" or not, the Homeric poems are the product of an oral tradition, a generations-old technique that was the collective inheritance of many singer-poets (aoidoi). An analysis of the structure and vocabulary of the Iliad and Odyssey shows that the poems consist of regular, repeating phrases; even entire verses repeat. Could the Iliad and Odyssey have been oral-formulaic poems, composed on the spot by the poet using a collection of memorized traditional verses and phases? Milman Parry and Albert Lord pointed out that such elaborate oral tradition, foreign to today's literate cultures, is typical of epic poetry in an exclusively oral culture. The crucial words are "oral" and "traditional." Parry started with "traditional." The repetitive chunks of language, he said, were inherited by the singer-poet from his predecessors, and they were useful to the poet in composition. He called these chunks of repetitive language "formulas."

Ancient Accounts of Homer

Of the date of Homer probably no record, real or pretended, ever existed. Herodotus (2.53) maintains that Hesiod and Homer lived not more than 400 years before his own time, consequently not much before 850 B.C.E. From the controversial tone in which he expresses himself it is evident that others had made Homer more ancient; and accordingly the dates given by later authorities, though very various, generally fall within the 10th and 11th centuries B.C.E., but none of these statements has any claim to the character of external evidence.

Homeric studies

The study of Homer is one of the very oldest topics in all scholarship or science, and goes back to antiquity. Purely in terms of quantity it is one of the largest of all literary sub-disciplines: the annual publication output rivals that on Shakespeare. The aims and achievements of Homeric studies have changed over the course of the millennia; in the last few centuries they have revolved around the process by which the Homeric poems came into existence and were transmitted down to us, first orally, and later in writing.

Some of the main trends in modern Homeric scholarship have been, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Analysis and Unitarianism, which were schools of thought that emphasised on the one hand the inconsistencies, on the other the artistic unity, in Homer; and in the 20th century and later Oral Theory, which is the study of the mechanisms and effects of oral transmission, and Neoanalysis, which is the study of the relationship between Homer and other early epic material.

Homeric style

The cardinal qualities of the style of Homer were pointed out quite well by 19th Century poet Matthew Arnold. The translator of Homer, he says, should above all be penetrated by a sense of four qualities of his author: that he is eminently rapid; that he is eminently plain and direct, both in the evolution of his thought and in the expression of it, that is, both in his syntax and in his words; that he is eminently plain and direct in the substance of his thought, that is, in his matter and ideas; and, finally, that he is eminently noble (On Translating Homer, p. 9).

The peculiar rapidity of Homer is due in great measure to his use of hexameter verse. It is characteristic of early literature that the evolution of the thought, that is, the grammatical form of the sentence is guided by the structure of the verse; and the correspondence which consequently obtains between the rhythm and the grammar, the thought being given out in lengths, as it were, and these again divided by tolerably uniform pauses produces a swift flowing movement, such as is rarely found when the periods have been constructed without direct reference to the metre. That Homer possesses this rapidity without falling into the corresponding faults, that is, without becoming either jerky or monotonous, is perhaps the best proof of his unequalled poetical skill. The plainness and directness, both of thought and of expression, which characterize Homer were doubtless qualities of his age; But the author of the Iliad (like Voltaire, to whom Arnold happily compares him) must have possessed this gift in a surpassing degree.

Rapidity or ease of movement, plainness of expression and plainness of thought, these are not the distinguishing qualities of the great epic poets, Virgil, Dante, Milton. (Dante mentions Homer in Inferno IV,88, ranking him as Poet sovereign just above Horace, Ovid and Virgil.) On the contrary, they belong rather to the humbler epico-lyrical school for which Homer has been so often claimed. Homer does not have any use for the ornate complexity found in so many later epic poets; he is rough and plain-spoken in a way that is refreshingly contemporary. Moreover, as Arnold suggests, through this roughness there is a certain sense of nobility that shines through—though plain and unadorned and in some cases even redundant, one is still left in awe of Homer's verses, of the commanding, noble story they tell. It is this powerful style, sustained through every change of idea and subject, that finally separates Homer from all forms of poetry to which he has been compared.

But while we are on our guard against a once common error, we may recognize the historical connection between the Iliad and Odyssey and the ballad literature which undoubtedly preceded them in Greece. It may even be admitted that the swift-flowing movement, and the simplicity of thought and style, which we admire in the Iliad are an inheritance from the earlier lays, such as Achilles and Patroclus sang to the lyre in their tent. Even the hexameter verse may be assigned to them. But between these lays and Homer we must place the cultivation of epic poetry as an art. The pre-Homeric lays doubtless furnished the elements of such a poetry, but they must have been refined and transmuted before they formed poems like the Iliad and Odyssey.

Like the French epics, such as the Chanson de Roland, Homeric poetry is indigenous, and is distinguished by this fact, and by the ease of movement and the simplicity which result from it, from poets such as Virgil, Dante and Milton. It is also distinguished from them by the comparative absence of underlying motives or sentiment. In Virgil's poetry a sense of the greatness of Rome and Italy is the leading motive of a passionate rhetoric, partly veiled by the chosen delicacy of his language. Dante and Milton are still more faithful exponents of the religion and politics of their time. Even the French epics are pervaded by the sentiment of fear and hatred of the Saracens. But in Homer the interest is purely dramatic. There is no strong antipathy of race or religion; the war turns on no political event; the capture of Troy lies outside the range of the Iliad. Even the heroes are not the chief national heroes of Greece. The interest lies wholly (so far as we can see) in the picture of human action and feeling.

Historicity of the Iliad

Another significant question regards the poems' possible historical basis. The commentaries on the Iliad and the Odyssey written in the Hellenistic period began exploring the textual inconsistencies of the poems. Modern classicists continue the tradition.

The excavations of Heinrich Schliemann in the late 19th century began to convince scholars there was a historical basis for the Trojan War. Research (pioneered by the aforementioned Parry and Lord) into oral epics in Serbo-Croatian and Turkic languages began to convince scholars that long poems could be preserved with consistency by oral cultures until someone bothered to write them down. The decipherment of Linear B in the 1950s by Michael Ventris and others, convinced scholars of a linguistic continuity between 13th century B.C.E. Mycenaean writings and the poems attributed to Homer.

It is probable, therefore, that the story of the Trojan War as reflected in the Homeric poems derives from a tradition of epic poetry founded on a war which actually took place. However, it is crucial not to underestimate the creative and transforming power of subsequent tradition: for instance, Achilles, the most important character of the Iliad, associated with Thessaly, has probably been added to a story where the attackers of Troy were from the Peloponnese.

Selected bibliography

Editions

(texts in Homeric Greek)

  • Demetrius Chalcondylas editio princeps, Florence, 1488
  • the Aldine editions (1504 and 1517)
  • Wolf (Halle, 1794-1795; Leipzig, 1804 1807)
  • Spitzner (Gotha, 1832-1836)
  • Bekker (Berlin, 1843; Bonn, 1858)
  • La Roche (Odyssey, 1867-1868; Iliad, 1873-1876, both at Leipzig)
  • Ludwich (Odyssey, Leipzig, 1889-1891; Iliad, 2 vols., 1901 and 1907)
  • W. Leaf (Iliad, London, 1886-1888; 2nd ed. 1900-1902)
  • Merry and Ridciell (Odyssey i.-xii., 2nd ed., Oxford, 1886)
  • Monro (Odyssey xiii.-xxiv. with appendices, Oxford, 1901)
  • Monro and Allen (Iliad), and Allen (Odyssey, 1908, Oxford).
  • D.B. Monro and T.W. Allen 1917-1920, Homeri Opera (5 volumes: Iliad = 3rd edition, Odyssey = 2nd edition), Oxford. ISBN 0198145284, ISBN 0198145292, ISBN 0198145314, ISBN 0198145322, ISBN 0198145349
  • H. van Thiel 1991, Homeri Odyssea, Hildesheim. ISBN 3487094584 1996, Homeri Ilias, Hildesheim. ISBN 3487094592
  • M.L. West 1998-2000, Homeri Ilias (2 volumes), Munich/Leipzig. ISBN 3598714319, ISBN 3598714351
  • P. von der Mühll 1993, Homeri Odyssea, Munich/Leipzig. ISBN 3598714327
  • Ilias in Wikisource
  • Odyssee in Wikisource

English translations

General works on Homer

  • I. Morris and B. Powell 1997, A New Companion to Homer, Leiden. ISBN 9004099891
  • Robert Fowler (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Homer, CUP, Cambridge 2004. ISBN 0521012465
  • A.J.B. Wace and F.H. Stubbings 1962, A Companion to Homer, London. ISBN 0333071131

Influential readings and interpretations

  • E. Auerbach 1953, Mimesis, Princeton (orig. publ. in German, 1946, Bern), chapter 1. ISBN 069111336X
  • M.W. Edwards 1987, Homer, Poet of the Iliad, Baltimore. ISBN 0801833299
  • B. Fenik 1974, Studies in the Odyssey, Wiesbaden ('Hermes' Einzelschriften 30).
  • I.J.F. de Jong 1987, Narrators and Focalizers, Amsterdam/Bristol. ISBN 1853996580
  • G. Nagy 1979, The Best of the Achaeans, Baltimore. ISBN 0801860156

Commentaries

Trends in Homeric scholarship

"Classical" analysis

  • A. Heubeck 1974, Die homerische Frage, Darmstadt. ISBN 3534038649
  • R. Merkelbach 1969, Untersuchungen zur Odyssee (2nd edition), Munich. ISBN 3406032427
  • D. Page 1955, The Homeric Odyssey, Oxford.
  • U. von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff 1916, Die Ilias und Homer, Berlin.
  • F.A. Wolf 1795, Prolegomena ad Homerum, Halle. Published in English translation 1988, Princeton. ISBN 0691102473

Neoanalysis

  • M.E. Clark 1986, "Neoanalysis: a bibliographical review," Classical World 79.6: 379-94.
  • J. Griffin 1977, "The epic cycle and the uniqueness of Homer," Journal of Hellenic Studies 97: 39-53.
  • J.T. Kakridis 1949, Homeric Researches, London. ISBN 0824077571
  • W. Kullmann 1960, Die Quellen der Ilias (Troischer Sagenkreis), Wiesbaden. ISBN 3515002359

Homer and oral tradition

  • E. Bakker 1997, Poetry in Speech: Orality and Homeric Discourse, Ithaca NY. ISBN 0801432952
  • J.M. Foley 1999, Homer's Traditional Art, University Park PA. ISBN 0271018704
  • G.S. Kirk 1976, Homer and the Oral Tradition, Cambridge. ISBN 0521213096
  • A.B. Lord 1960, The Singer of Tales, Cambridge MA. ISBN 0674002830
  • M. Parry 1971, The Making of Homeric Verse, Oxford. ISBN 019520560X

Dating the Homeric poems

External links

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