View source for Homer

{{Short description|Traditional author of the Iliad and Odyssey}}
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{{Infobox writer
| name             = Homer
| image            = Homer British Museum.jpg
| caption          = Marble terminal bust of Homer. Roman copy of a lost 2nd-century BC Hellenistic original
| native_name      = Ὅμηρος
| native_name_lang = grc
| birth_date       = {{circa|8th century BC}}
| birth_place      = possibly [[Ionia]]<ref name="Britannica">{{Cite encyclopedia |last=Kirk |first=Geoffrey S. |author-link=Geoffrey Kirk |title=Homer |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Homer-Greek-poet |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |year=2025 |orig-year=1998}}</ref>
| death_place      = [[Ios]]<ref name= Lefkowitz2013 />
| language         = {{Unbulleted list|[[Homeric Greek]] (literary)|[[Ionic Greek]]}}
| genre            = [[Epic poetry|Epic]]
| subject          = [[Epic Cycle]]
| notable_works    = {{Unbulleted list|''[[Iliad]]''|''[[Odyssey]]''}}
}}

'''Homer''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|h|oʊ|m|ər}}; {{langx|grc|Ὅμηρος}} {{IPA|grc|hómɛːros|}}, {{Transliteration|grc|Hómēros}}; possibly born {{circa|the 8th century BC}}) was an [[Ancient Greece|ancient Greek]] poet who is credited as the author of the ''[[Iliad]]'' and the ''[[Odyssey]]'', two [[epic poem]]s that are foundational works of [[ancient Greek literature]]. Despite uncertainties about his authorship, Homer is considered one of the most influential authors in history.<ref name="Britannica" />

The ''[[Iliad]]'' centers on a quarrel between King [[Agamemnon]] and the warrior [[Achilles]] during the last year of the [[Trojan War]]. The ''Odyssey'' chronicles the ten-year journey of [[Odysseus]], king of [[Homer's Ithaca|Ithaca]], back to his home after the fall of Troy. The epics depict man's struggle, the ''Odyssey'' especially so, as Odysseus perseveres through the punishment of the gods.<ref>{{Cite web |date=16 April 2021 |title=Odysseus: the First Western Man |url=https://merionwest.com/2021/04/16/odysseus-the-first-western-man/ |access-date=13 October 2024}}</ref> The poems are in [[Homeric Greek]], also known as Epic Greek, a [[literary language]] that shows a mixture of features of the [[Ionic Greek|Ionic]] and [[Aeolic Greek|Aeolic]] dialects from different centuries; the predominant influence is Eastern Ionic.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hose |first1=Martin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DgBSCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA445 |title=A Companion to Greek Literature |last2=Schenker |first2=David |publisher=[[Wiley (publisher)|John Wiley & Sons]] |date=2015 |isbn=978-1-118-88595-6 |page=445}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Miller |first1=D. Gary |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5vPnBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA351 |title=Ancient Greek Dialects and Early Authors: Introduction to the Dialect Mixture in Homer, with Notes on Lyric and Herodotus |publisher=[[De Gruyter|Walter de Gruyter]] |date=2013 |isbn=978-1-61451-295-0 |page=351 |access-date=23 November 2016}}</ref> Most researchers believe that the poems were originally [[Oral tradition|transmitted orally]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ahl |first1=Frederick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dB27oJJb_NYC&pg=PA7 |title=The Odyssey Re-formed |last2=Roisman |first2=Hanna |publisher=[[Cornell University Press]] |date=1996 |isbn=978-0-8014-8335-6 |access-date=23 November 2016}}</ref> Despite being predominantly known for their tragic and serious themes, the Homeric poems also contain [[wiktionary:Homeric laughter|instances of comedy and laughter]].<ref name="Bell">Bell, Robert H.; "Homer's humor: laughter in the Iliad", hand 1 (2007), 596.</ref>

The Homeric poems shaped aspects of ancient Greek culture and education, fostering ideals of heroism, glory, and honor.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rutherford |first=R. B. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oB1zMDoDhGsC&pg=PP1 |title=Homer: Oxford Bibliographies Online Research Guide |date=2010 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-980510-5 |page=31}}</ref> To [[Plato]], Homer was simply the one who "has taught Greece" ({{lang|grc|τὴν Ἑλλάδα πεπαίδευκεν}}, {{Transliteration|grc|tēn Helláda pepaídeuken}}).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Too |first1=Yun Lee |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fGsVDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA86 |title=The Idea of the Library in the Ancient World |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |date=2010 |isbn=978-0-19-957780-4 |page=86 |access-date=22 November 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=MacDonald |first1=Dennis R. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=17xEDe6_Jt4C&pg=PA17 |title=Christianizing Homer: The Odyssey, Plato, and the Acts of Andrew |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |date=1994 |isbn=978-0-19-535862-9 |page=17 |author-link=Dennis R. MacDonald |access-date=22 November 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170630083720/https://books.google.com/books?id=17xEDe6_Jt4C&pg=PA17 |archive-date=30 June 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref> In [[Dante Alighieri]]'s ''[[Divine Comedy]]'', [[Virgil]] refers to Homer as "Poet sovereign", king of all poets;<ref>[[wikisource:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867)/Volume 1/Canto 5|Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto IV, 86–88 (Longfellow's translation)]]:<poem>Him with that falchion in his hand behold,
⁠Who comes before the three, even as their lord.
That one is Homer, Poet sovereign;</poem></ref> in the preface to his translation of the ''Iliad'', [[Alexander Pope]] acknowledges that Homer has always been considered the "greatest of poets".<ref>[[wikisource:The Iliad of Homer (Pope)/Preface|Alexander Pope's Preface to his translation of the Iliad]]:<br />"Homer is universally allowed to have had the greatest invention of any writer whatever. The praise of judgment Virgil has justly contested with him, and others may have their pretensions as to particular excellencies; but his invention remains yet unrivalled. Nor is it a wonder if he has ever been acknowledged the greatest of poets, who most excelled in that which is the very foundation of poetry."</ref> From antiquity to the present day, Homeric epics have inspired many famous works of literature, music, art, and film.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Latacz |first1=Joachim |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JzRhA7q7ZuMC&pg=PA2 |title=Homer, His Art and His World |publisher=[[University of Michigan Press]] |date=1996 |isbn=978-0-472-08353-4 |access-date=22 November 2016}}</ref>

[[Homeric Question|The question]] of by whom, when, where, and under what circumstances the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'' were composed continues to be debated. Scholars generally regard the two poems as the works of separate authors. It is thought that the poems were composed at some point around the late eighth or early seventh century BC.<ref name=":0">{{cite book |last1=Croally |first1=Neil |last2=Hyde |first2=Roy |title=Classical Literature: An Introduction |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1-136-73662-9 |page=26 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g-arAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA26 |language=en |date=2011 |access-date=23 November 2016}}</ref> Many [[ancient accounts of Homer|accounts of Homer's life]] circulated in [[classical antiquity]], the most widespread that he was a blind [[bard]] from [[Ionia]], a region of central coastal [[Anatolia]] in present-day Turkey.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/who-was-homer |access-date=7 March 2024 |title=Who was Homer? |author=[[Daisy Dunn]] |date=22 January 2020 |publisher=[[British Museum]]}}</ref> Modern scholars consider these accounts [[legend]]ary.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wilson |first1=Nigel |title=Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1-136-78800-0 |page=366 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8pXhAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA366 |language=en |date=2013 |access-date=22 November 2016}}<br />{{cite book |last1=Romilly |first1=Jacqueline de |title=A Short History of Greek Literature |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |isbn=978-0-226-14312-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y_DTllltXBQC&pg=PA1 |page=1 |date=1985 |access-date=22 November 2016}}<br />{{harvnb|Graziosi|2002|p=15}}</ref>

==Works attributed to Homer==
[[File:William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) - Homer and his Guide (1874).jpg|thumb|upright=1.0|''Homer and His Guide'' (1874) by [[William-Adolphe Bouguereau]]]]

Today, only the ''Iliad'' and ''the'' ''Odyssey'' are associated with the name "Homer". In antiquity, a large number of other works were sometimes attributed to him, including the ''[[Homeric Hymns]]'', the ''[[Contest of Homer and Hesiod]]'', several [[epigrams (Homer)|epigrams]], the ''[[Little Iliad]]'', the ''[[Nostoi]]'', the ''[[Thebaid (Greek poem)|Thebaid]]'', the ''[[Cypria]]'', the ''[[Epigoni (epic)|Epigoni]]'', the comic mini-epic ''[[Batrachomyomachia]]'' ("The Frog–Mouse War"), the ''[[Margites]]'', the ''[[Capture of Oechalia]]'', and the ''[[Phocais]]''. These claims are not considered authentic today and were not universally accepted in the ancient world. As with the multitude of legends surrounding Homer's life, they indicate little more than the centrality of Homer to ancient Greek culture.<ref>{{harvc|last=Kelly|first=Adrian D.|in=Finkelberg|year=2012|chapter=Homerica}} {{DOI|10.1002/9781444350302.wbhe0606}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Graziosi|first1=Barbara|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LiDUAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA24|title=Homer: The Resonance of Epic|last2=Haubold|first2=Johannes|year=2005|publisher=[[A & C Black]]|isbn=978-0-7156-3282-6|pages=24–26}}</ref>{{sfn|Graziosi|2002|pages=165–168}}

==Ancient biographical traditions==
{{Main|Ancient accounts of Homer}}

Some ancient accounts about Homer were established early and repeated often. They include that Homer was blind (taking as self-referential a passage describing the blind [[bard]] [[Demodocus (Odyssey character)|Demodocus]]),<ref name="Graziosi">{{harvnb|Graziosi|2002|page=138}}.</ref><ref>''Odyssey'', 8:64ff.{{full citation needed|date=March 2024|reason=Edition?}}</ref> that he resided at [[Chios]], that he was the son of the [[river Meles]] and the nymph [[Critheïs]], that he was a wandering bard, that he composed a varying list of other works (the "Homerica"), that he died either in [[Ios (island)|Ios]] or after failing to solve a riddle set by fishermen,<ref>The riddle was: "We left whatever we caught and carry whatever we didn't". (The solution: lice.) {{cite web|title=A Riddle, and How Homer Went Blind|url=https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2017/02/11/a-riddle-and-how-homer-went-blind/|website=sententiaeantiquae.com|date=11 February 2017|access-date=8 November 2024}}</ref> and various explanations for the name "Homer" ({{lang|grc|Ὅμηρος}}, {{Transliteration|grc|Hómēros}}).<ref name="Graziosi"/> Another tradition from the time of the Roman emperor [[Hadrian]] says [[Epicaste]] (daughter of [[Nestor (mythology)|Nestor]]) and [[Telemachus]] (son of [[Odysseus]]) were the parents of Homer.<ref>[http://mcllibrary.org/Hesiod/homrhes.html "Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica"] (''[[Contest of Homer and Hesiod]]'')</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Greek Oracles|last=Parke|first=Herbert William|year=1967|pages=136–137}}</ref>

The two best-known ancient biographies of Homer are the ''[[Life of Homer (Pseudo-Herodotus)|Life of Homer]]'' by the Pseudo-Herodotus and the ''[[Contest of Homer and Hesiod]]''.<ref name="Lefkowitz2013">{{cite book|last1=Lefkowitz|first1=Mary R. |title=The Lives of the Greek Poets |date=2013 |publisher=[[A & C Black]]|isbn=978-1-4725-0307-7|pages=14–30|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W1H9xrMAkrcC&pg=PA14}}</ref><ref>{{harvc|last=Kelly|first=Adrian D.|chapter=Biographies of Homer|in=Finkelberg|year=2012}} {{DOI|10.1002/9781444350302.wbhe0243}}.</ref>

In the early fourth century BC [[Alcidamas]] composed a fictional account of a poetry contest at Chalcis with both Homer and [[Hesiod]]. Homer was expected to win and answered all of Hesiod's questions and puzzles with ease. Then, each of the poets was invited to recite the best passage from their work. Hesiod selected the beginning of ''[[Works and Days]]'': "When the [[Pleiades (Greek mythology)|Pleiades]] born of [[Atlas (mythology)|Atlas]] [...] all in due season". Homer chose a description of Greek warriors in formation, facing the foe, taken from the ''[[Iliad]]''. Though the crowd acclaimed Homer victor, the judge awarded Hesiod the prize; the poet who praised [[husbandry]], he said, was greater than the one who told tales of battles and slaughter.<ref>{{cite book|last=West|first=Martin Litchfield|title=Theogony & Works and Days|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|page=xx|isbn=019953831X}}</ref>

== History of Homeric scholarship ==
{{Main|Homeric scholarship|Homeric Question}}

=== Ancient ===
[[File:Townley Homer.jpg|thumb|Part of an eleventh-century manuscript, "the Townley Homer". The writings on the top and right side are [[scholia]].]]

The study of Homer is one of the oldest topics in scholarship, dating back to antiquity.<ref name="Dickey2012">{{harvc|last=Dickey|first=Eleanor|chapter=Scholarship, Ancient|in=Finkelberg|year=2012}} {{doi|10.1002/9781444350302.wbhe1307}}</ref><ref name="West2011" /><ref name="Lamberton2010">{{cite book |last=Lamberton |first=Robert |author-link=Robert D. Lamberton |date=2010 |chapter=Homer |title=The Classical Tradition |editor1-last=Grafton |editor1-first=Anthony |editor1-link=Anthony Grafton |editor2-last=Most |editor2-first=Glenn W. |editor2-link=Glenn W. Most |editor3-last=Settis |editor3-first=Salvatore |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England |publisher=[[Harvard University Press|Belknap Press]] |isbn=978-0-674-03572-0 |pages=449–452}}</ref> Nonetheless, the aims of Homeric studies have changed throughout the millennia.<ref name="Dickey2012" /> The earliest preserved comments on Homer concern his treatment of the gods, which hostile critics such as the poet [[Xenophanes of Colophon]] denounced as immoral.<ref name="Lamberton2010" /> The allegorist [[Theagenes of Rhegium]] is said to have defended Homer by arguing that the Homeric poems are [[Allegory|allegories]].<ref name="Lamberton2010" /> The ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' were widely used as school texts in ancient Greek and Hellenistic cultures.<ref name="Dickey2012" /><ref name="Lamberton2010" /><ref name="Hunter2018">{{cite book |last=Hunter |first=Richard L. |author-link=Richard L. Hunter |date=2018 |title=The Measure of Homer: The Ancient Reception of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OxNSDwAAQBAJ |location=Cambridge, England |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-1-108-42831-6 |pages=4–7}}</ref> They were the first literary works taught to all students.<ref name="Hunter2018" /> The ''Iliad'', particularly its first few books, was far more intently studied than the ''Odyssey'' during the Hellenistic and Roman periods.<ref name="Hunter2018" />

As a result of the poems' prominence in [[classical Greek]] education, extensive commentaries on them developed to explain parts that were culturally or linguistically difficult.<ref name="Dickey2012" /><ref name="Lamberton2010" /> During the [[Hellenistic period|Hellenistic]] and Roman periods, many interpreters, especially the [[Stoicism|Stoics]], who believed that Homeric poems conveyed Stoic doctrines, regarded them as allegories, containing hidden wisdom.<ref name="Lamberton2010" /> Perhaps partially because of the Homeric poems' extensive use in education, many authors believed that Homer's original purpose had been to educate.<ref name="Lamberton2010" /> Homer's wisdom became so widely praised that he began to acquire the image of almost a prototypical philosopher.<ref name="Lamberton2010" /> [[Byzantine Greeks|Byzantine]] scholars such as [[Eustathius of Thessalonica]] and [[John Tzetzes]] produced commentaries, extensions and [[scholia]] to Homer, especially in the twelfth century.<ref>{{harvc|last=Kaldellis|first=Anthony|chapter=Scholarship, Byzantine|in=Finkelberg|year=2012}} {{doi|10.1002/9781444350302.wbhe1308}}</ref><ref name="Lamberton2010" /> Eustathius's commentary on the ''Iliad'' alone is massive, sprawling over nearly 4,000 oversized pages in a 21st-century printed version and his commentary on the ''Odyssey'' an additional nearly 2,000.<ref name="Lamberton2010" />

=== Modern ===
[[File:Page from the first printed edition (editio princeps) of collected works by Homer.jpg|thumb|Page from the first printed edition ([[editio princeps]]) of collected works by Homer edited by [[Demetrios Chalkokondyles]], Florence, 1489, {{lang|fr|[[Bibliothèque Nationale de France]]|italic=no}}]]

In 1488, the Greek scholar [[Demetrios Chalkokondyles]] published in [[Florence]] the ''[[editio princeps]]'' of the Homeric poems.<ref name="Lamberton2010" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Homer Editio Princeps |url=https://library.chethams.com/collections/101-treasures-of-chethams/homer-editio-princeps/ |access-date=7 January 2021 |website=library.chethams.com}}</ref> The earliest modern Homeric scholars started with the same basic approaches towards the Homeric poems as scholars in antiquity.<ref name="Lamberton2010" /><ref name="West2011" /><ref name="Dickey2012" /> The allegorical interpretation of the Homeric poems that had been so prevalent in antiquity returned to become the prevailing view of the [[Renaissance]].<ref name="Lamberton2010" /> Renaissance humanists praised Homer as the archetypically wise poet, whose writings contain hidden wisdom, disguised through allegory.<ref name="Lamberton2010" /> In Western Europe during the [[Renaissance]], [[Virgil]] was more widely read than Homer and Homer was often seen through a Virgilian lens.<ref>{{harvc|last=Heiden|first=Bruce|chapter=Scholarship, Renaissance through 17th Century|in=Finkelberg|year=2012}} {{doi|10.1002/9781444350302.wbhe1310}}</ref>

In 1664, contradicting the widespread praise of Homer as the epitome of wisdom, [[François Hédelin, abbé d'Aubignac]] wrote a scathing attack on the Homeric poems, declaring that they were incoherent, immoral, tasteless, and without style, that Homer never existed, and that the poems were hastily cobbled together by incompetent editors from unrelated oral songs.<ref name="West2011" /> Fifty years later, the English scholar [[Richard Bentley]] concluded that Homer did exist but that he was an obscure, prehistoric oral poet whose compositions bear little relation to the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' as they have been passed down.<ref name="West2011" /> According to Bentley, Homer "wrote a Sequel of Songs and Rhapsodies, to be sung by himself for small Earnings and good Cheer at Festivals and other Days of Merriment; the ''Ilias'' he wrote for men, and the ''Odysseis'' for the other Sex. These loose songs were not collected together in the form of an epic Poem till [[Pisistratus]]' time, about 500 Years after".<ref name="West2011" />

[[Giambattista Vico]] analysed Homer and other ancient writings in his philological treatise [[The New Science]] (1744) and concluded that Homer was not one man, but many, or an amalgam of other writers. Vico writes "he was a purely ideal poet who never existed as a particular man" and that "Homer was an idea or a heroic character of Grecian men insofar as they told their histories in song".<ref>Vico, Giambattista, ''The New Science'', Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1986, orig. 1744, page 323, §873</ref>

[[Friedrich August Wolf]]'s ''Prolegomena ad Homerum'', published in 1795, argued that much of the material later incorporated into the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' was originally composed in the tenth century BC in the form of short, separate oral songs,<ref name="Heiden18thcenturyscholarship">{{harvc|last=Heiden|first=Bruce|chapter=Scholarship, 18th Century|in=Finkelberg|year=2012}} {{doi|10.1002/9781444350302.wbhe1311}}</ref><ref name="Heidennineteenth century scholarship">{{harvc|last=Heiden|first=Bruce|chapter=Scholarship, 19th Century|in=Finkelberg|year=2012}} {{doi|10.1002/9781444350302.wbhe1312}}</ref><ref name="West2011" /> which passed through oral tradition for roughly four hundred years before being assembled into prototypical versions of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' in the sixth century BC by literate authors.<ref name="Heiden18thcenturyscholarship" /><ref name="Heidennineteenth century scholarship" /><ref name="West2011" /> After being written down, Wolf maintained that the two poems were extensively edited, modernized, and eventually shaped into their present state as artistic unities.<ref name="Heiden18thcenturyscholarship" /><ref name="Heidennineteenth century scholarship" /><ref name="West2011" /> Wolf and the "Analyst" school, which led the field in the nineteenth century, sought to recover the original, authentic poems that were thought to be concealed by later excrescences.<ref name="Heiden18thcenturyscholarship" /><ref name="Heidennineteenth century scholarship" /><ref name="West2011" /><ref name="Taplin1986">{{cite book |last=Taplin |first=Oliver |author-link=Oliver Taplin |date=1986 |chapter=2: Homer |title=The Oxford History of the Classical World |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7EloAAAAMAAJ&q=Homer |editor1-last=Boardman |editor1-first=John |editor2-last=Griffin |editor2-first=Jasper |editor3-last=Murray |editor3-first=Oswyn |location=Oxford, England |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-872112-3 |pages=50–77 |url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordhistoryofc00john/page/50}}</ref>

Within the Analyst school were two camps: proponents of the "lay theory", which held that the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' were put together from a large number of short, independent songs,<ref name="West2011" /> and proponents of the "nucleus theory", which held that Homer had originally composed shorter versions of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', which later poets expanded and revised.<ref name="West2011" /> A small group of scholars opposed to the Analysts, dubbed "Unitarians", saw the later additions as superior, the work of a single inspired poet.<ref name="Heiden18thcenturyscholarship" /><ref name="Heidennineteenth century scholarship" /><ref name="West2011" /> By around 1830, the central preoccupations of Homeric scholars, dealing with whether or not "Homer" actually existed, when and how the Homeric poems originated, how they were transmitted, when and how they were finally written down, and their overall unity, had been dubbed "the Homeric Question".<ref name="West2011" />

Following [[World War I]], the Analyst school began to fall out of favor among Homeric scholars.<ref name="West2011" /> It did not die out entirely, but it came to be increasingly seen as a discredited dead end.<ref name="West2011" /> Starting in around 1928, [[Milman Parry]] and [[Albert Lord]], after they studied folk bards in the Balkans, developed the "Oral-Formulaic Theory" that the Homeric poems were originally composed through improvised oral performances, which relied on traditional epithets and poetic formulas.<ref name="Foley1988">{{cite book |last1=Foley |first1=John Miles |title=The Theory of Oral Composition: History and Methodology |date=1988 |publisher=[[Indiana University Press]] |isbn=978-0-253-34260-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zo-665SEuqsC |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Taplin1986" /><ref name="West2011" /> This theory found very wide scholarly acceptance<ref name="Foley1988" /><ref name="Taplin1986" /><ref name="West2011" /> and explained many previously puzzling features of the Homeric poems, including their unusually archaic language, their extensive use of stock epithets, and their other "repetitive" features.<ref name="Taplin1986" /> Many scholars concluded that the "Homeric Question" had finally been answered.<ref name="West2011" />

Meanwhile, the "Neoanalysts" sought to bridge the gap between the "Analysts" and "Unitarians".<ref>{{harvc|last=Heiden|first=Bruce|chapter=Scholarship, 20th Century|in=Finkelberg|year=2012}} {{doi|10.1002/9781444350302.wbhe1313}}</ref><ref>{{harvc|last=Edwards|first=Mark W.|chapter=Neoanalysis|in=Finkelberg|year=2012}} {{doi|10.1002/9781444350302.wbhe0968}}</ref> The Neoanalysts sought to trace the relationships between the Homeric poems and other epic poems, which have now been lost, but of which modern scholars do possess some patchy knowledge.<ref name="West2011" /> Neoanalysts hold that knowledge of earlier versions of the epics can be derived from anomalies of structure and detail in the surviving versions of the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey''. These anomalies point to earlier versions of the ''Iliad'' in which Ajax played a more prominent role, in which the Achaean embassy to Achilles comprised different characters, and in which Patroclus was mistaken for Achilles by the Trojans. They point to earlier versions of the ''Odyssey'' in which Telemachus went in search of news of his father not to Menelaus in Sparta but to Idomeneus in Crete, in which Telemachus met up with his father in Crete and conspired with him to return to Ithaca disguised as the soothsayer Theoclymenus, and in which Penelope recognized Odysseus much earlier in the narrative and conspired with him in the destruction of the suitors.<ref>Reece, Steve; "The Cretan Odyssey: A Lie Truer than Truth", ''American Journal of Philology'', 115, 1994, 157–173. [https://www.academia.edu/30641542/The_Cretan_Odyssey_A_Lie_Truer_Than_Truth The_Cretan_Odyssey]</ref> Neoanalysts have traditionally reconstructed specific lost poems as sources for the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'', but more recent scholarship has sought to reframe such neoanalytical arguments within the oral context of early Greek epic, exploring how the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'' draw on established mythological traditions in general (such as the story of Achilles' death).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Burgess |first=Jonathan S. |title=The Death and Afterlife of Achilles |date=2009 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |isbn=978-0-8018-9029-1 |publication-place=Baltimore, MD}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Nelson |first=Thomas J. |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/markers-of-allusion-in-archaic-greek-poetry/6C032BE2051D87AF407007D5352CE31A |title=Markers of Allusion in Archaic Greek Poetry |date=2023 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-316-51437-5 |series=Cambridge Classical Studies |location=Cambridge |doi=10.1017/9781009086882}}</ref>

===Contemporary===
Although most contemporary scholars disagree on other questions about the genesis of the poems, they agree that the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' were not produced by the same author, based on "the many differences of narrative manner, theology, ethics, vocabulary, and geographical perspective, and by the imitative character of certain passages of the ''Odyssey'' about the ''Iliad''".<ref>{{cite journal|last=West|first=Martin Litchfield|author-link=Martin Litchfield West|year=1999|title=The Invention of Homer|jstor=639863|journal=[[Classical Quarterly]]|volume=49|issue=2|pages=364–382|doi=10.1093/cq/49.2.364|issn=0009-8388}}</ref><ref>{{harvc|last=West|first=Martin Litchfield|chapter=Homeric Question|in=Finkelberg|year=2012}} {{DOI|10.1002/9781444350302.wbhe0605}}.</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Latacz|first1=Joachim|last2=Bierl|first2=Anton|last3=Olson|first3=S. Douglas|title="New Trends in Homeric Scholarship" in Homer's Iliad: The Basel Commentary|year=2015|publisher=[[De Gruyter]]|isbn=978-1-61451-737-5}}</ref><ref name="West2011">{{cite journal|last=West|first=Martin Litchfield|date=December 2011|title=The Homeric Question Today|journal=[[Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society]]|volume=155|issue=4|pages=383–393|jstor=23208780}}</ref> Nearly all scholars agree that the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' are unified poems, in that each poem shows a clear overall design and that they are not merely strung together from unrelated songs.<ref name="West2011"/> It is also generally agreed that each poem was composed mostly by a single author, who probably relied heavily on older oral traditions.<ref name="West2011"/> Nearly all scholars agree that the ''Doloneia'' in Book X of the ''Iliad'' is not part of the original poem, but rather a later insertion by a different poet.<ref name="West2011"/>

Some ancient scholars believed Homer to have been an eyewitness to the [[Trojan War]]; others thought he had lived up to 500 years afterwards.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Saïd|first1=Suzanne|title=Homer and the Odyssey|year=2011|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|isbn=978-0-19-954284-0|pages=14–17|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=78--kADZigAC&pg=PA14}}</ref> Contemporary scholars continue to debate the date of the poems.<ref name="Graziosi2002"/><ref name="Fowler2004"/><ref name="West2011"/> A long history of oral transmission lies behind the composition of the poems, complicating the search for a precise date.<ref>{{cite book|last=Burgess|first=Jonathan S.|title=The Tradition of the Trojan War in Homer and the Epic Cycle|year=2003|publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University Press]]|isbn=978-0-8018-7481-9|pages=49–53|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bEYXqRmYkx0C&pg=PA49}}</ref> At one extreme, [[Richard Janko]] has proposed a date for both poems to the eighth century BC based on linguistic analysis and statistics.<ref name="Graziosi2002">{{harvnb|Graziosi|2002|pages=90–92}}.</ref><ref name="Fowler2004">{{harvnb|Fowler|2004|pages=220–232}}</ref> [[Barry B. Powell]] dates the composition of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' to sometime between 800 and 750 BC, based on the statement from [[Herodotus]], who lived in the late fifth century BC, that Homer lived four hundred years before his own time "and not more" ({{lang|grc|καὶ οὐ πλέοσι}}) and on the fact that the poems do not mention [[hoplite]] battle tactics, [[Burial|inhumation]], or literacy.<ref>{{cite book|last=Powell|first=Barry B.|year=1996|title=Homer and the Origins of the Greek Alphabet|location=Cambridge, England|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|isbn=978-0-521-58907-9|pages=217–222}}</ref>

[[Martin Litchfield West]] has argued that the ''Iliad'' echoes the poetry of [[Hesiod]] and that it must have been composed around 660–650 BC at the earliest, with the ''Odyssey'' up to a generation later.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hall|first=Jonathan M.|title=Hellenicity: Between Ethnicity and Culture|year=2002|publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]]|isbn=978-0-226-31329-0|pages=235–236|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jJBh7BjUlAMC&pg=PA235}}</ref><ref>{{harvc|last=West|first=Martin L.|author-link=Martin Litchfield West|chapter=Date of Homer|in=Finkelberg|year=2012}} {{DOI|10.1002/9781444350302.wbhe0330}}.</ref><ref name="West2011"/> He also interprets passages in the ''Iliad'' as showing knowledge of historical events that occurred in the ancient Near East during the middle of the seventh century BC, including the destruction of [[Babylon]] by [[Sennacherib]] in 689 BC and the [[Sack of Thebes]] by [[Ashurbanipal]] in 664/663 BC.<ref name="West2011"/> At the other extreme, a few American scholars such as [[Gregory Nagy]] see "Homer" as a continually evolving tradition, which grew much more stable as the tradition progressed, but which did not fully cease to continue changing and evolving until as late as the middle of the second century BC.<ref name="Graziosi2002"/><ref name="Fowler2004"/><ref name="West2011"/>

"'Homer" is a name of unknown etymological origin, around which many theories were erected in antiquity. One such linkage was to the Greek {{lang|grc|ὅμηρος}} ({{Transliteration|grc|hómēros}} {{gloss|hostage}} or {{gloss|surety}}). The explanations suggested by modern scholars tend to mirror their position on the overall Homeric Question. Nagy interprets it as "he who fits (the song) together". West has advanced both possible Greek and Phoenician etymologies.{{sfn|Graziosi|2002|pages=51–89}}<ref name="east_face_622">{{cite book|first=Martin Litchfield|last=West|title=The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth|publisher=[[Oxford University Press|Clarendon Press]]|location=Oxford|orig-year=1997|year=1999|page=622|url=https://archive.org/details/eastfaceofhelico0000west|isbn=0198152213}}</ref>

==Historicity of the Homeric epics and Homeric society==
{{Main|Historicity of the Iliad}}
[[File:Homeric Greece.svg|thumb|left|upright=1.4|Greece according to the ''Iliad'']]

Scholars continue to debate questions such as whether the Trojan War took place – and if so when and where – and to what extent the society depicted by Homer is based on his own or one which was, even at the time of the poems' composition, known only as legends. The Homeric epics are largely set in the east and center of the [[Mediterranean]], with some scattered references to Egypt, Ethiopia and other distant lands, in a warlike society that resembles that of the Greek world slightly before the hypothesized date of the poems' composition.<ref>{{harvc|last=Raaflaub|first1=Kurt A.|chapter=Historicity of Homer|in=Finkelberg|year=2012}} {{DOI|10.1002/9781444350302.wbhe0601}}.</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Finley|first1=Moses I.|title=The World of Odysseus|year=1991|publisher=[[Penguin Books]]|isbn=978-0-14-013686-9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yaeBPwAACAAJn}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Wees|first1=Hans van|title=War and Violence in Ancient Greece|year=2009|publisher=ISD LLC|isbn=978-1-910589-29-8|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0PtODgAAQBAJ}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Morris|first=Ian|title=The Use and Abuse of Homer|journal=[[Classical Antiquity (journal)|Classical Antiquity]]|year=1986|volume=5|issue=1|pages=81–138|doi=10.2307/25010840|jstor=25010840}}</ref>

In ancient Greek chronology, the sack of Troy was dated to 1184 BC. By the nineteenth century, there was widespread scholarly skepticism that the Trojan War had ever happened and that Troy had even existed, but in 1873 [[Heinrich Schliemann]] announced to the world that he had discovered the ruins of Homer's Troy at [[Hisarlik]] in modern Turkey. Some contemporary scholars think the destruction of [[Troy VIIa]] {{circa}} 1220 BC was the origin of the myth of the Trojan War, others that the poem was inspired by multiple similar sieges that took place over the centuries.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Dowden|first1=Ken|last2=Livingstone|first2=Niall|title=A Companion to Greek Mythology|year=2011|page=440|publisher=[[Wiley (publisher)|John Wiley & Sons]]|isbn=978-1-4443-9693-5|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_XsN0O_BQ0cC&pg=PA440}}</ref>

Most scholars now agree that the Homeric poems depict customs and elements of the material world that are derived from different periods of Greek history.<ref name="Taplin1986" /><ref name="SacksMurrayBrody2014">{{cite book|last1=Sacks|first1=David|last2=Murray|first2=Oswyn|last3=Brody|first3=Lisa R.|title=Encyclopedia of the Ancient Greek World|year=2014|publisher=[[Infobase]]|isbn=978-1-4381-1020-2|page=356|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yyrao0dadqAC&pg=PA356}}</ref><ref name="MorrisPowell1997">{{harvnb|Morris|Powell|1997|pages=434–435}}.</ref> For instance, the heroes in the poems use bronze weapons, characteristic of the [[Bronze Age]] in which the poems are set, rather than the later [[Iron Age]] during which they were composed;<ref name="Taplin1986"/><ref name="SacksMurrayBrody2014"/><ref name="MorrisPowell1997"/> yet the same heroes are cremated (an Iron Age practice) rather than buried (as they were in the Bronze Age).<ref name="Taplin1986"/><ref name="SacksMurrayBrody2014"/><ref name="MorrisPowell1997"/> In some parts of the Homeric poems, heroes are described as carrying large shields like those used by warriors during the [[Mycenaean period]],<ref name="Taplin1986"/> but, in other places, they are instead described carrying the smaller shields that were commonly used when the poems were written in the early Iron Age.<ref name="Taplin1986"/>

In the ''Iliad'' 10.260–265, Odysseus is described as wearing a [[Boar's tusk helmet|helmet made of boar's tusks]]. Such helmets were not worn in Homer's time but were commonly worn by aristocratic warriors between 1600 and 1150 BC.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Wood|first1=Michael|title=In Search of the Trojan War|year=1996|publisher=[[University of California Press]]|location=Berkeley, California|isbn=978-0-520-21599-3|page=130|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N5HDjtGwYjsC&q=boar's%20tusk%20helmet&pg=PA130}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Schofield|first1=Louise|title=The Mycenaeans|year=2007|publisher=[[J. Paul Getty Museum]]|location=Los Angeles, California|isbn=978-0-89236-867-9|page=119|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QXwzT1048Z4C&q=boar's%20tusk%20helmet&pg=PA119}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Everson|first1=Tim|title=Warfare in Ancient Greece: Arms and Armour from the Heroes of Homer to Alexander the Great |year=2004|publisher=[[The History Press]]|location=Brimscombe Port|isbn=978-0-7524-9506-4|pages=9–10|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ztoTDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT11}}</ref>

The decipherment of [[Linear B]] in the 1950s by [[Michael Ventris]] and continued archaeological investigation has increased modern scholars' understanding of the Bronze Age [[Aegean civilisation]], which in many ways resembles the ancient Near East more than the society described by Homer.{{sfn|Morris|Powell|1997|page=625}} Some aspects of the Homeric world are simply made up;<ref name="Taplin1986"/> for instance, the ''Iliad'' 22.145–56 describes two springs run near the city of Troy, one that runs steaming hot and the other that runs icy cold.<ref name="Taplin1986" /> It is here that [[Hector]] takes his final stand against Achilles.<ref name="Taplin1986"/> Archaeologists, however, have uncovered no evidence that springs of this description ever actually existed.<ref name="Taplin1986"/>

==Style and language==
{{Main|Homeric Greek}}
[[File:Cropped image of Homer from Raphael's Parnassus.jpg|thumb|Detail of ''[[The Parnassus]]'' (painted 1509–1510) by [[Raphael]], depicting Homer wearing a crown of laurels atop [[Mount Parnassus]], with [[Dante Alighieri]] on his left, in red, and [[Virgil]] on his right, in green.]]

The Homeric epics are written in an artificial [[literary language]] or "Kunstsprache" only used in epic [[hexameter]] poetry. Homeric Greek shows features of multiple regional Greek dialects and periods but is fundamentally based on [[Ionic Greek]], in keeping with the tradition that Homer was from Ionia. Linguistic analysis suggests that the ''Iliad'' was composed slightly before the ''Odyssey'' and that Homeric formulae preserve features older than other parts of the poems.<ref>{{harvc|last=Willi|first=Andreas|chapter=Language, Homeric|in=Finkelberg|year=2012}} {{DOI|10.1002/9781444350302.wbhe0792}}.</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Bakker|first=Egbert J.|title=A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language|year=2010|publisher=[[Wiley (publisher)|John Wiley & Sons]]|isbn=978-1-4443-1740-4|page=401|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oa42E3DP3icC&pg=PA401}}</ref>

The poems were composed in unrhymed [[dactylic hexameter]]s; the ancient Greek [[metre (poetry)|metre]] was quantity-based rather than stress-based.<ref>{{harvc|last=Edwards|first=Mark W.|chapter=Meter|in=Finkelberg|year=2012}} {{DOI|10.1002/9781444350302.wbhe0913}}.</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Nussbaum|first=Gerry B.|title=Homer's Metre: A Practical Guide for Reading Greek Hexameter Poetry|year=1986|publisher=[[Bloomsbury Publishing|Bristol Classical Press]]|isbn=978-0-86292-172-9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aUMlAAAAMAAJ}}</ref> Homer frequently uses set phrases such as [[Epithets in Homer|epithets]] ("crafty [[Odysseus]]", "rosy-fingered [[Eos|Dawn]]", "owl-eyed [[Athena]]", etc.), Homeric formulae ("and then answered [him/her], Agamemnon, king of men", "when the early-born rose-fingered Dawn came to light", "thus he/she spoke"), [[Homeric simile|simile]], type scenes, ring composition and repetition. These habits aid the extemporizing bard and are characteristic of oral poetry. For instance, the main words of a Homeric sentence are generally placed towards the beginning, whereas literate poets like [[Virgil]] or [[John Milton|Milton]] use longer and more complicated syntactical structures. Homer then expands on these ideas in subsequent clauses; this technique is called [[parataxis]].<ref>{{harvc|last=Edwards|first=Mark W.|chapter=Style|in=Finkelberg|year=2012}} {{DOI|10.1002/9781444350302.wbhe1377}}.</ref>

The so-called "[[type scene]]s" ({{lang|de|typische Szenen}}), were named by Walter Arend in 1933. He noted that Homer often, when describing frequently recurring activities such as eating, [[Homeric prayer|praying]], fighting and dressing, used blocks of set phrases in sequence that were then elaborated by the poet. The "Analyst" school had considered these repetitions as un-Homeric, whereas Arend interpreted them philosophically. Parry and Lord noted that these conventions are found in many other cultures.<ref>{{harvc|last=Reece|first=Steve T.|chapter=Type-Scenes|in=Finkelberg|year=2012}} {{DOI|10.1002/9781444350302.wbhe1488}}.</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Edwards|first=Mark W.|title=Homer and Oral Tradition: The Type-Scene|journal=[[Oral Tradition (journal)|Oral Tradition]]|year=1992|volume=7|pages=284–330|url=http://www.citeulike.org/group/5373/article/4187736}}</ref>

"Ring composition" or [[chiastic structure]] (when a phrase or idea is repeated at both the beginning and end of a story, or a series of such ideas first appears in the order A, B, C ... before being reversed as ... C, B, A) has been observed in the Homeric epics. Opinion differs as to whether these occurrences are a conscious artistic device, a mnemonic aid or a spontaneous feature of human storytelling.<ref>{{cite book|last=Stanley|first=Keith|title=The Shield of Homer: Narrative Structure in the Illiad|year=2014|publisher=[[Princeton University Press]]|isbn=978-1-4008-6337-2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jz8ABAAAQBAJ}}</ref><ref>{{harvc|last=Minchin|first=Elizabeth|chapter=Ring Composition|in=Finkelberg|year=2012}} {{DOI|10.1002/9781444350302.wbhe1287}}.</ref>

Both of the Homeric poems begin with an invocation to the [[Muse]].<ref name="Adler2003">{{cite book|last1=Adler|first1=Eve|title=Vergil's Empire: Political Thought in the Aeneid|year=2003|publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]]|location=Lanham, Maryland|isbn=978-0-7425-2167-4|page=4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gbUaAAAAQBAJ&q=Homer's%20Muse&pg=PA4}}</ref> In the ''Iliad'', the poet beseeches her to sing of "the anger of Achilles",<ref name="Adler2003"/> and in the ''Odyssey'', he asks her to tell of "the man of many ways".<ref name="Adler2003"/> A similar opening was later employed by Virgil in his ''[[Aeneid]]''.<ref name="Adler2003"/>

== Textual transmission ==
[[File:Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, English (born Netherlands) - A Reading from Homer - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4 |''[[A Reading from Homer]]'' (1885) by [[Lawrence Alma-Tadema]]]]

The orally transmitted Homeric poems were put into written form at some point between the eighth and sixth centuries BC. Some scholars believe that they were dictated to a [[scribe]] by the poet and that the current versions of the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'' were in origin orally dictated texts.<ref>Steve Reece, "Homer's Iliad and Odyssey: From Oral Performance to Written Text", in Mark Amodio (ed.), ''New Directions in Oral Theory'' (Tempe: Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2005) 43–89.</ref> [[Albert Lord]] noted that the Balkan bards that he was studying revised and expanded their songs in their process of dictating.<ref>[[Albert Lord|Albert B. Lord]], ''The Singer of Tales'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts, [[Harvard University Press]], 1960).</ref> Some scholars hypothesise that a similar process of revision and expansion occurred when the Homeric poems were first written down.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kirk |first=G. S. |author-link=Geoffrey Kirk |title=Homer and the Oral Tradition |date=1976 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-0-521-21309-7 |page=117 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IgHVXQfEzA4C&pg=PA117}}</ref><ref>{{harvc|last=Foley|first=John Miles|chapter=Oral Dictated Texts|in=Finkelberg|year=2012}} {{doi|10.1002/9781444350302.wbhe1029}}</ref>

Other scholars hold that, after the poems were created in the eighth century, they continued to be orally transmitted with considerable revision until they were written down in the sixth century.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Nagy |first1=Gregory |title=Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond |date=1996 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-0-521-55848-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6GCHXNMeHMoC |language=en}}</ref> After textualisation, the poems were each divided into 24 rhapsodes, today referred to as books, and labelled by the letters of the [[Greek alphabet]]. Most scholars attribute the book divisions to the Hellenistic scholars of [[Alexandria]], in Egypt.<ref>U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, ''Homerische Untersuchungen'', (Berlin, 1884), 369; R. Pfeiffer, ''History of Classical Scholarship'', (Oxford, 1968), 116–117.</ref> Some trace the divisions back further to the Classical period.<ref>{{harvc|last=West|first=Martin L.|author-link=Martin Litchfield West|chapter=Book Division|in=Finkelberg|year=2012}} {{doi|10.1002/9781444350302.wbhe0253}}; S. West, ''The Ptolemaic Papyri of Homer'', (Cologne, 1967), 18–25.</ref> Very few credit Homer himself with the divisions.<ref>{{multiref |1=P. Mazon, ''Introduction à l'Iliade'', (Paris, 1912), 137–140 |2=C. H. Whitman, ''Homer and the Heroic Tradition'' (Cambridge [Massachusetts], 1958), 282–283 |3={{cite journal |author=G. P. Goold |title=Homer and the Alphabet |journal=[[Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association]] |volume=91 |date=1960 |pages=272–291 |jstor=283857 |doi=10.2307/283857 |ref=none}} |4=K. Stanley, ''The Shield of Homer'' (Princeton, 1993) 37, 249ff.}}</ref>

In antiquity, it was widely held that the Homeric poems were collected and organised in Athens in the late sixth century BC by [[Pisistratus]] (died 528/527 BC), in what subsequent scholars have dubbed the "Peisistratean recension".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Jensen |first1=Minna Skafte |title=The Homeric Question and the Oral-formulaic Theory |date=1980 |publisher=[[Museum Tusculanum Press]] |isbn=978-8772890968 |page=128 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xgyJoouOkyAC&pg=PA128 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Lamberton2010" /> The idea that the Homeric poems were originally transmitted orally and first written down during the reign of Pisistratus is referenced by the first-century BC Roman orator [[Cicero]] and is also referenced in several other surviving sources, including two ancient ''Lives of Homer''.<ref name="Lamberton2010" /> From around 150 BC, the texts of the Homeric poems found in papyrus fragments exhibit much less variation, and the text seems to have become relatively stable. After the establishment of the [[Library of Alexandria]], Homeric scholars such as [[Zenodotus]] of Ephesus, [[Aristophanes of Byzantium]] and in particular [[Aristarchus of Samothrace]] helped establish a canonical text.<ref name=Haslam2012>{{harvc|last=Haslam|first=Michael|chapter=Text and Transmission|in=Finkelberg|year=2012}} {{doi|10.1002/9781444350302.wbhe1413}}</ref>

The first printed edition of Homer was produced in 1488 in Milan, Italy by [[Demetrios Chalkokondyles]]. Today scholars use medieval manuscripts, [[papyri]] and other sources; some argue for a "multi-text" view, rather than seeking a single definitive text. The nineteenth-century edition of [[Arthur Ludwich]] mainly follows Aristarchus's work, whereas van Thiel's (1991, 1996) follows the medieval vulgate.{{clarify|date=November 2023|Not the [[Vulgate]]? But what?}} Others, such as [[Martin Litchfield West|Martin West]] (1998–2000) or [[Thomas William Allen|T. W. Allen]], fall somewhere between these two extremes.<ref name="Haslam2012" />

== See also ==
{{Portal|Ancient Greece|Poetry|Literature}}
* [[Achaeans (Homer)]]
* [[Bibliomancy]]
* [[Catalogue of Ships]]
* [[Creophylus of Samos]]
* [[Cyclic Poets]]
* [[Deception of Zeus]]
* [[Early Greek cosmology]]
* [[Geography of the Odyssey|Geography of the ''Odyssey'']]
* [[Greek mythology]]
* [[Homeric psychology]]
* [[Homer's Ithaca]]
* [[List of Homeric characters]]
* ''[[Sortes Homericae]]''
* ''[[Tabulae Iliacae]]''
* ''[[Telemachy]]''
* [[The Golden Bough (mythology)|The Golden Bough]]
* [[Trojan Battle Order]]
* [[Trojan War in literature and the arts]]
* [[Venetus A]] manuscript

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

=== Bibliography ===
* {{cite book |editor-last=Finkelberg |editor-first=Margalit |editor-link=Margalit Finkelberg |title=The Homer Encyclopedia |date=2012 |publisher=[[Wiley (publisher)|Wiley]] |isbn=978-1-4051-7768-9 |doi=10.1002/9781444350302}}
* {{cite book |editor-last=Fowler |editor-first=Robert |editor-link=Robert Fowler (academic) |title=The Cambridge Companion to Homer |location=Cambridge |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |date=2004 |isbn=978-0-521-01246-1 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/cambridgecompani0000unse_i1h6 |via=[[Internet Archive]]}}
* {{cite book |last=Graziosi |first=Barbara |author-link=Barbara Graziosi |title=Inventing Homer: The Early Perception of Epic |location=Cambridge |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |series=Cambridge Classical Studies |date=2002 |isbn=978-0-521-80966-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vCHsh9QWzLYC}}
* {{cite book |editor1-last=Morris |editor1-first=Ian |editor1-link=Ian Morris (historian) |editor2-last=Powell |editor2-first=Barry B. |editor2-link=Barry B. Powell |date=1997 |title=A New Companion to Homer |location=Leiden |publisher=[[Brill Publishers]] |isbn=978-90-04-09989-0}}

=== Editions ===
;Texts in Homeric Greek
* [[Demetrius Chalcondyles]] ''editio princeps'', Florence, 1488
* the [[Aldine editions]] (1504 and 1517)
* 1st ed. with comments, [[Jacob Micyllus|Micyllus]] and [[Joachim Camerarius|Camerarius]], Basel, 1535, 1541 (improved text), 1551 (incl. the [[Batrachomyomachia]])
* Th. Ridel, Strasbourg, c. 1572, 1588 and 1592.
* 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)
* [[William Walter Merry]] and [[James Riddell (scholar)|James Riddell]] (''Odyssey'' i–xii, 2nd ed., Oxford, 1886)
* [[David Monro (scholar)|Monro, D. B.]] (''Odyssey'' xiii–xxiv with appendices, Oxford, 1901)
* Monro, D. B. and [[Thomas William Allen|Allen, T. W.]] (''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|0-19-814528-4|0-19-814529-2|0-19-814531-4|0-19-814532-2|0-19-814534-9}}
* H. van Thiel 1991, ''Homeri Odyssea'', Hildesheim, {{ISBN|3-487-09458-4}}, 1996, ''Homeri Ilias'', Hildesheim, {{ISBN|3-487-09459-2}}
* P. von der Mühll 1993, ''Homeri Odyssea'', Munich/Leipzig, {{ISBN|3-598-71432-7}}
* [[Martin Litchfield West|M. L. West]] 1998–2000, ''Homeri Ilias'' (2 volumes), Munich/Leipzig, {{ISBN|3-598-71431-9|3-598-71435-1}}
* M. L. West 2017, ''Homerus Odyssea'', Berlin/Boston, {{ISBN|3-11-042539-4}}

=== Interlinear translations ===
* ''The Iliad of Homer a Parsed Interlinear'', Handheldclassics.com (2008) Text, {{ISBN|978-1-60725-298-6}}

=== English translations ===
{{Main|English translations of Homer}}
This is a partial list of translations into English of Homer's ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'':
* [[Robert Fitzgerald]] (1910–1985)
** ''The Iliad'', Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2004) {{ISBN|0-374-52905-1}}
** ''The Odyssey'', Farrar, Straus and Giroux (1998) {{ISBN|0-374-52574-9}}
* [[Robert Fagles]] (1933–2008)
** ''The Iliad'', Penguin Classics (1998) {{ISBN|0-14-027536-3}}
** ''The Odyssey'', Penguin Classics (1999) {{ISBN|0-14-026886-3}}
* [[Stanley Lombardo]] (b. 1943)
** ''Iliad'', [[Hackett Publishing Company]] (1997) {{ISBN|0-87220-352-2}}
** ''Odyssey'', [[Hackett Publishing Company]] (2000) {{ISBN|0-87220-484-7}}
** ''Iliad'', (Audiobook) Parmenides (2006) {{ISBN|1-930972-08-3}}
** ''Odyssey'', (Audiobook) Parmenides (2006) {{ISBN|1-930972-06-7}}
** ''The Essential Homer'', (Audiobook) Parmenides (2006) {{ISBN|1-930972-12-1}}
** ''The Essential Iliad'', (Audiobook) Parmenides (2006) {{ISBN|1-930972-10-5}}
* [[Barry B. Powell]] (b. 1942)
** ''Iliad'', Oxford University Press (2013) {{ISBN|978-0-19-932610-5}}
** ''Odyssey'', Oxford University PressI (2014) {{ISBN|978-0-19-936031-4}}
** ''Homer's Iliad and Odyssey: The Essential Books'', Oxford University Press (2014) {{ISBN|978-0-19-939407-4}}
* [[Samuel Butler (novelist)|Samuel Butler]] (1835–1902)
** ''The Iliad'', Red and Black Publishers (2008) {{ISBN|978-1-934941-04-1}}
** ''The Odyssey'', Red and Black Publishers (2008) {{ISBN|978-1-934941-05-8}}
* [[Emily Wilson (classicist)|Emily Wilson]] (b. 1971)
** ''The Odyssey'', W. W. Norton (2017) {{ISBN|978-0-393-08905-9}}
** ''The Iliad'', W. W. Norton (2023) {{ISBN|9781324001805}}

=== General works on Homer ===
* {{cite book |first=Pierre |last=Carlier |title=Homère |language=fr |publisher=[[Fayard|Les éditions Fayard]] |location=Paris |date=1999 |isbn=978-2-213-60381-0 | ref = none }}
* {{cite book |first=Jacqueline |last=de Romilly |author-link=Jacqueline de Romilly |title=Homère |location=Paris |publisher=[[Presses Universitaires de France]] |edition=5th |date=2005 |isbn=978-2-13-054830-0  | ref = none}}
* {{cite book |first1=J. |last1=Latacz |author-link=Joachim Latacz |translator1-first=Kevin |translator1-last=Windle |translator2-first=Rosh |translator2-last=Ireland |date=2004 |title=Troy and Homer: Towards a Solution of an Old Mystery |location=Oxford |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-926308-0 | ref = none}} In German, 5th updated and expanded edition, Leipzig, 2005. In Spanish, 2003 {{ISBN|84-233-3487-2}}. In modern Greek, 2005 {{ISBN|960-16-1557-1}}
* {{cite EB1911 |last=Monro |first=David Binning |author-link=David Monro (scholar) |wstitle=Homer |volume=12 |pages=626–639  | ref = none}}
* {{cite book |first=Barry B. |last=Powell |author-link=Barry B. Powell |date=2007 |title=Homer |edition=2nd |location=Malden, Massachusetts; Oxford, UK; Carlton, Victoria |publisher=[[Wiley-Blackwell]] |isbn=978-1-4051-5325-6 | ref = none}}
* {{cite book |first=Pierre |last=Vidal-Naquet |author-link=Pierre Vidal-Naquet |title=Le monde d'Homère |language=fr |location=Paris |publisher=[[Editis|Perrin]] |date=2000 |isbn=978-2-262-01181-9 | ref = none}}
* {{cite book |first1=Alan J. B. |last1=Wace |author1-link=Alan Wace |author2=F. H. Stubbings |date=1962 |title=A Companion to Homer |location=London |isbn=978-0-333-07113-7 |publisher=[[Macmillan Publishers]] | ref = none }}

=== Influential readings and interpretations ===
* {{cite book |first=Erich |last=Auerbach |author-link=Erich Auerbach |date=1953 |title=Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature |location=Princeton |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |chapter=Chapter 1 |isbn=978-0-691-11336-4 |title-link=Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature |ref=none}} (orig. publ. in German, 1946, Bern)
* {{cite book |first=Irene J. F. |last=de Jong |date=2004 |title=Narrators and Focalizers: the Presentation of the Story in the Iliad |edition=2nd |location=London |publisher=[[Bloomsbury Publishing|Bristol Classical Press]] |isbn=978-1-85399-658-0 | ref = none}}
* {{cite book |first=Mark W. |last=Edwards |date=1987 |title=Homer, Poet of the Iliad |location=Baltimore |publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University Press]] |isbn=978-0-8018-3329-8 | ref = none}}
* {{cite book |first=Bernard |last=Fenik |date=1974 |title=Studies in the Odyssey |location=Wiesbaden |publisher=Steiner |series=Hermes, Einzelschriften 30 | ref = none}}
* {{cite book |last=Finley |first=Moses |author-link=Moses Finley |title=The World of Odysseus |publisher=[[The New York Review of Books]] |location=New York |date=2002 |isbn=978-1-59017-017-5 | ref = none}}
* {{cite book |first=Gregory |last=Nagy |author-link=Gregory Nagy |title=The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry |publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University Press]] |location=Baltimore; London |date=1979 | ref = none}}
* {{cite book |last=Nagy |first=Gregory |title=Homer: the Preclassic |date=2010 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |isbn=978-0-520-95024-5 | ref = none }}
* {{cite book | last = Reece | first = Steve| title = The Stranger's Welcome: Oral Theory and the Aesthetics of the Homeric Hospitality Scene| location = Ann Arbor | publisher = University of Michigan Press | year = 1993 | ref = none}}

=== Commentaries ===
* ''Iliad'':
** P.V. Jones (ed.) 2003, ''Homer's Iliad. A Commentary on Three Translations'', London {{ISBN|1-85399-657-2}}
** [[Geoffrey Kirk|G. S. Kirk]] (gen. ed.) 1985–1993, ''The Iliad: A Commentary'' (6 volumes), Cambridge {{ISBN|0-521-28171-7|0-521-28172-5|0-521-28173-3|0-521-28174-1|0-521-31208-6|0-521-31209-4}}
** [[Joachim Latacz]] (gen. ed.) 2002, ''Homers Ilias. Gesamtkommentar. Auf der Grundlage der Ausgabe von Ameis-Hentze-Cauer (1868–1913)'' (6 volumes published so far, of an estimated 15), Munich/Leipzig {{ISBN|3-598-74307-6}}, {{ISBN|3-598-74304-1}}
** N. Postlethwaite (ed.) 2000, ''Homer's Iliad: A Commentary on the Translation of Richmond Lattimore'', Exeter {{ISBN|0-85989-684-6}}
** M. W. Willcock (ed.) 1976, ''A Companion to the Iliad'', Chicago {{ISBN|0-226-89855-5}}
* ''Odyssey'':
** A. Heubeck (gen. ed.) 1990–1993, ''A Commentary on Homer's Odyssey'' (3 volumes; orig. publ. 1981–1987 in Italian), Oxford {{ISBN|0-19-814747-3}}, {{ISBN|0-19-872144-7}}, {{ISBN|0-19-814953-0}}
** P. Jones (ed.) 1988, ''Homer's Odyssey: A Commentary based on the English Translation of Richmond Lattimore'', Bristol {{ISBN|1-85399-038-8}}
** I. J. F. de Jong (ed.) 2001, ''A Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey'', Cambridge {{ISBN|0-521-46844-2}}

=== Dating the Homeric poems ===
* {{cite book |first=Richard |last=Janko |date=1982 |title=Homer, Hesiod and the Hymns: Diachronic Development in Epic Diction |series=Cambridge Classical Studies |location=Cambridge |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-0-521-23869-4 | ref = none}}

== Further reading ==
* {{cite book |last=Buck |first=Carl Darling |title=The Greek Dialects |location=Chicago |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |date=1928}}
* {{cite book |translator-last=Evelyn-White |translator-first=Hugh Gerard |title=Hesiod, the Homeric hymns and Homerica |url=https://archive.org/details/hesiodhomerichym1914hesi |series=The Loeb Classical Library |location=London; New York |publisher=[[Heinemann (publisher)|Heinemann]]; [[Macmillan Publishers]] |date=1914}}
* {{cite book |last=Ford |first=Andrew |title=Homer: The Poetry of the Past |date=1992 |publisher=[[Cornell University Press]] |location=Ithaca, New York |isbn=978-0-8014-2700-8 |url=https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501740664/homer/}}
* {{cite book |last=Kirk |first=G. S. |author-link=Geoffrey Kirk |title=The Songs of Homer |date=1962 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |location=Cambridge}}
* {{cite book |last1=Liddell |first1=Henry George |author1-link=Henry Liddell |last2=Scott |first2=Robert |title=A Greek-English Lexicon |url=https://archive.org/details/b31364949_0001 |edition=revised |publisher=[[Oxford University Press|Clarendon Press]]; [[Perseus Digital Library]] |location=Oxford |date=1940}}
* {{cite book |last=Murray |first=Gilbert |author-link=Gilbert Murray |title=The Rise of the Greek Epic |location=New York |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |date=1960 |edition=Galaxy Books}}
* {{cite book |last=Schein |first=Seth L. |title=The Mortal Hero : An Introduction to Homer's Iliad |date=1984 |publisher=[[University of California Press]] |location=Berkeley |isbn=978-0-520-05128-7 |url=https://archive.org/details/mortalhero00seth}}
* {{cite book |last=Silk |first=Michael |date=1987 |title=Homer: The Iliad |url=https://archive.org/details/homeriliadlandma00mssi |url-access=registration |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |location=[[Cambridge]] |isbn=978-0-521-83233-5}}
* {{cite book |editor-last=Smith |editor-first=William |title=A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology |volume=I, II & III |location=London |date=1876 |publisher=[[John Murray (publishing house)|John Murray]]}}
* {{cite magazine |last=Thurman |first=Judith |author-link=Judith Thurman |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/09/18/emily-wilson-profile |title=Mother Tongue: How Emily Wilson makes Homer modern |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |date=18 September 2023 |pages=46–53 |type=Long-form article on [[Emily Wilson (classicist)|Emily Wilson]]'s Homer translations}}

== External links ==
{{Commons category}}
{{Wikiquote}}
{{Wikisource|works=or}}
{{Library resources box |by=yes |onlinebooks=yes |others=yes |about=yes |label=Homer}}
* [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/searchresults?q=Homer&redirect=true Works by Homer at Perseus Digital Library]
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/homer}}
* {{Gutenberg author | id=705}}
* {{Internet Archive author}}
* {{Librivox author |id=765}}
* {{cite book |author1=Homer |author2=Murray, Augustus Taber |title=The Iliad with an English Translation |location=London; New York |publisher=William Heinemann; G. P. Putnam's Sons |via=[[Internet Archive]] |volume=I, Books I–XII |url=https://archive.org/details/iliadmurray01homeuoft |language=grc, en |date=1925}}
* [http://digital.library.northwestern.edu/homer/ The Chicago Homer] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141004181122/http://digital.library.northwestern.edu/homer/ |date=4 October 2014}}
* {{ISFDB name}}
* {{cite web |last=Heath |first=Malcolm |title=CLAS3152 Further Greek Literature II: Aristotle's Poetics: Notes on Homer's ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'' |publisher=[[University of Leeds]] |url=http://www.leeds.ac.uk/classics/resources/poetics/poet-hom.htm |date=4 May 2001 |access-date=7 November 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080908005656/http://www.leeds.ac.uk/classics/resources/poetics/poet-hom.htm |archive-date=8 September 2008}}
* {{cite web |first=Paola |last=Bassino |title=Homer: A Guide to Selected Sources |website=livingpoets.dur.ac.uk |url=https://livingpoets.dur.ac.uk/w/Homer:_A_Guide_to_Selected_Sources |publisher=[[Durham University]] |date=2014 |access-date=18 November 2014}}

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