Article Outline
Homer, the name traditionally assigned to the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, the two major epics that have survived from Greek antiquity. Nothing is known of Homer as an individual, and in fact it is a matter of controversy whether a single person can be said to have created both the Iliad and the Odyssey. Linguistic and historical evidence, however, suggests that the poems were composed in the Greek settlements on the west coast of Asia Minor sometime in the 8th century bc.
Both of the epics attributed to Homer deal with legendary events that were believed to have occurred four centuries before their composition. The Iliad is set in the final year of the Trojan War, fought between the Greeks and the inhabitants of the city of Troy. The legendary conflict forms the background for the central plot of the story: the wrath of the Greek hero Achilles. Insulted by his commander in chief, Agamemnon, the young warrior Achilles withdraws from the war, leaving his fellow Greeks to suffer terrible defeats at the hands of the Trojans. These losses force Agamemnon to negotiate with Achilles, but Achilles refuses, claiming that his mother, the sea-goddess Thetis, has told him he has a choice: either a short life with great glory if he fights at Troy, or a long life in obscurity if he returns home. But after the greatest Trojan warrior, Hector, kills Achilles’ close friend Patroclus, Achilles, filled with fury, turns his wrath against the Trojans and kills Hector. The poem closes as Achilles surrenders the corpse of Hector to Priam, Hector’s father and the Trojan king, for burial. Achilles recognizes a certain kinship with Priam as they both face mortality and utter bereavement.
The Odyssey narrates the return of the Greek hero Odysseus from the Trojan War. The opening scenes depict the disorder that has arisen in Odysseus’s household during his long absence: A band of suitors is living off of his wealth as they woo his wife, Penelope. The epic then tells of Odysseus’s ten years of traveling, during which he has to face such dangers as a giant, man-eating Cyclops (Polyphemus) and such subtler threats as the goddess Calypso, who offers Odysseus the choice of immortality if he will abandon his quest for home and become her husband. The second half of the poem begins with Odysseus’s arrival at his home island of Ithaca (see Itháki). Here, exercising infinite patience and self-control, Odysseus tests the loyalty of his servants, plots and carries out a bloody revenge on Penelope’s suitors, and is reunited with his son, his wife, and his aged father.
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Other Works Attributed to Homer
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Besides the Iliad and the Odyssey, the so-called Homeric Hymns, a series of relatively short poems celebrating the various gods, have also been attributed traditionally to Homer because their style resembles that of the epics.
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