Introduction and Background
Homer was truly a mysterious poet of
epic proportions. There is a myriad of mysteries, incongruities, and
discrepancies concerning the history of this perhaps most famous
poet. A man responsible for the first written literature is the main
claim to fame for Homer, with an extreme amount of people believing
him to be the first recorder of former oral, epic poems that served
to entertain the ancient Greeks. Homer is most famous for two
writings that he composed. These two poems, which coincide with each
other to form a pre-quel and sequel duo, are thought by some to have
been the backbone of an ancient Greek youth's education. They are the
Iliad and Odyssey. The Iliad begins like its counterpart, the Odyssey , in the fact that it begins in a style known as
"in media
res". This Latin phrase
literally translates to, in the middle of things, and this phrase
therefore defines the manner in which Homer begins his two epic
poems, starting in the middle of a story that he along the way
proceeds to fill-in details for. The main discrepancies over Homer's
history include his place of birth, the time that he lived, and the
all-encompassing and lacking any solid theories, Homeric Question. This question deals with the much
broader-based inquiry into whether there was actually a Homer that
existed and who the person or persons were that eventually were
grouped by this name. This is by far the largest single mystery of
all for any historian, literary critic, or reader of Homer.
[Slide
1] [Slide 2] [Slide 3]
[Slide
4] [Slide 5] [Slide 6] [Slide 7]
[Main Page]