Homer

Homer is the traditionally named author of the ancient Greek epics the Iliad and the Odyssey. His identity and the poems’ composition remain subjects of scholarly debate.

Iliad: An ancient Greek epic poem about the Trojan War, traditionally attributed to Homer. Its story of Achilles and the war is one of the two epics attributed to Homer.
Homeric Question: The debate over the authorship, composition, and transmission of the Iliad and the Odyssey. It gathers the central disputes about Homer and the making of the poems.
Herodotus: A fifth-century BCE Greek historian who wrote an account of the Greco-Persian Wars and earlier traditions. He discussed Homer’s chronology and the origins of Greek religious traditions.
Greek education: The practices through which children and youths in ancient Greece learned language, literature, and civic norms. Homeric poetry served as a major source of language and cultural instruction.
Milman Parry: An American classicist whose research on South Slavic oral poetry transformed the study of Homeric composition. His fieldwork supplied evidence for understanding the epics as products of oral-formulaic technique.
Odyssey: An ancient Greek epic poem about Odysseus’s journey home after the Trojan War, traditionally attributed to Homer. Its account of Odysseus’s return is the other epic attributed to Homer.
Chios: A Greek island in the eastern Aegean Sea, associated in ancient tradition with Homer. Ancient accounts linked Homer or his poetic descendants to this island.
Aristarchus of Samothrace: A second-century BCE Greek scholar and chief librarian at Alexandria, known for editing Homer. His textual criticism became a foundation for later editions of the epics.
Virgil: A Roman poet of the first century BCE, best known for the epic Aeneid. The Aeneid adapts Homeric epic conventions and links Roman origins to the Trojan story.
Albert Lord: An American scholar of oral literature who developed the study of traditional singers and composition. His work extended Parry’s insights into how oral epics are composed and transmitted.

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