Homer

traditionally c. 8th century BCE

Homer is the traditional name attached to the Iliad and the Odyssey, the two foundational epics of ancient Greek literature. No independently verifiable biography of a poet named Homer survives, and ancient accounts disagreed over his birthplace, date, travels and death. Modern scholarship generally treats the poems as the products of a long oral poetic tradition that reached monumental written form during the early archaic period, rather than as works that can be securely tied to a documented individual life.

The Homeric epics became central to Greek education, performance and ideas about heroism, warfare, hospitality, family and relations between mortals and gods. The Iliad concentrates on Achilles’ anger during the Trojan War, while the Odyssey follows Odysseus’ return to Ithaca. Later Greeks created biographies of Homer, often portraying him as a blind wandering singer and assigning him to places such as Chios, Smyrna or Ios, but those traditions cannot be treated as established historical fact.

The linked books appropriately centre on the poems and their reception. Two editions of The Iliad and the linked Odyssey transmit works traditionally attributed to Homer; Caroline Alexander’s The War That Killed Achilles interprets the Iliad as a poem about the human cost of war; and Robert Graves’ The Greek Myths places Homeric material within the wider body of Greek myth. None supplies a secure historical biography of Homer. Homer is represented directly by The Odyssey, the epic traditionally attributed to him, whose story of Odysseus’s return from Troy became one of the principal works on which his later literary reputation rests.

Periods

Periods linked to Homer

Trojan WarMythic Bronze Age tradition Trojan War Epic TraditionMythic Bronze Age tradition

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring Homer (1 series)

Penguin Classics: Ancient World in Order

by various authors 32 books 4.6(13,212)

Penguin Classics: Ancient World brings together foundational works of literature, history, philosophy, drama and poetry from the earliest civilisations through classical Greece and Rome. The wider Penguin Classics series began in 1946 with E. V. Rieu’s translation of Homer’s Odyssey, reflecting its original aim of making important texts…