Interesting facts about Homer's Odyssey. Homer message

Homer, whose biography interests many today, is the first poet of Ancient Greece whose works have survived to this day. He is still considered one of the best European poets today. However, there is no reliable information about Homer himself. Nevertheless, we will try to reconstruct his biography, at least in general terms, based on the available information.

What does Homer's name mean?

The name "Homer" first appears in the 7th century. BC e. It was then that Callinus of Ephesus gave this name to the creator of the Thebaid. They tried to explain the meaning of this name back in antiquity. The following options were offered: “blind” (Ephorus of Kim), “following” (Aristotle), “hostage” (Hesychius). However, modern researchers believe that all of them are as unconvincing as the proposals of some scientists to attribute to him the meaning of “accompanist” or “compiler”. Surely in its ionic form this word is a real personal name.

Where is Homer from?

The biography of this poet can only be reconstructed speculatively. This even applies to Homer's birthplace, which is still unknown. Seven cities fought for the right to be considered his homeland: Chios, Smyrna, Salamis, Colophon, Argos, Rhodes, Athens. It is likely that the Odyssey and the Iliad were created on the Asia Minor coast of Greece, which was inhabited at that time by Ionian tribes. Or perhaps these poems were composed on one of the adjacent islands. The Homeric dialect, however, does not provide any precise information about which tribe Homer belonged to, whose biography remains a mystery. It is a combination of the Aeolian and Ionian dialects of ancient Greek. Some researchers suggest that it is one of the forms of the poetic Koine that formed long before Homer.

Was Homer blind?

Homer is an ancient Greek poet, whose biography has been reconstructed by many, from ancient times to the present day. It is known that he is traditionally depicted as blind. However, it is most likely that this idea of him is a reconstruction, typical of the genre of ancient biography, and does not come from real facts about Homer. Since many legendary singers and soothsayers were blind (in particular, Tiresias), according to the logic of antiquity, which linked the poetic and prophetic gifts, the assumption that Homer was blind seemed plausible.

Years of Homer's life

Antique chronographs also differ in determining the time when Homer lived. The writer whose biography interests us could have created his works in different years. Some believe that he was a contemporary, that is, he lived at the beginning of the 12th century. BC e. However, Herodotus argued that Homer lived around the middle of the 9th century. BC e. Modern scholars tend to date his activities to the 8th or even 7th century BC. e. At the same time, Chios or another region of Ionia, located on the coast of Asia Minor, is indicated as the main place of life.

Homer's work

In ancient times, Homer, in addition to the Odyssey and the Iliad, was credited with the authorship of several other poems. Fragments of several of them have survived to this day. However, today it is believed that they were written by an author who lived later than Homer. This is the comic poem "Margit", "Homeric Hymns", etc.

It is clear that the Odyssey and Iliad were written much later than the events described in these works. However, their creation can be dated no earlier than the 6th century BC. e., when their existence was reliably recorded. Thus, Homer's life can be attributed to the period from the 12th to the 7th century BC. e. However, the latest date is the most likely.

Duel between Hesiod and Homer

What more can be said about such a great poet as Homer? Biography for children usually omits this point, but there is a legend about a poetic duel that took place between Hesiod and Homer. It was described in a work created no later than the 3rd century. BC e. (and some researchers believe that much earlier). It's called "The Contest between Homer and Hesiod." It tells that the poets allegedly met at games in honor of Amphidemus, held on about. Euboea. Here they read their best poems. The judge at the competition was King Paned. Victory was awarded to Hesiod because he called for peace and agriculture, and not for massacres and war. However, the audience's sympathies were precisely on Homer's side.

Historicity of the Odyssey and Iliad

In science in the mid-19th century, the prevailing opinion was that the Odyssey and the Iliad were unhistorical works. However, he was refuted by the excavations of Heinrich Schliemann, which he carried out in Mycenae and on the Hissarlik hill in the 1870-80s. The sensational discoveries of this archaeologist proved that Mycenae, Troy and the Achaean citadels existed in reality. The contemporaries of the German scientist were struck by the correspondence of his findings in the 4th hipped tomb, located in Mycenae, with the descriptions made by Homer. Egyptian and Hittite documents were later discovered that show parallels with the events of the Trojan War. A lot of information about the time of action of the poems was provided by the decipherment of the Mycenaean syllabary writing. However, the relationship between Homer's works and available documentary and archaeological sources is complex and cannot therefore be used uncritically. The fact is that in traditions of this kind there should be large distortions of historical information.

Homer and the education system, imitation of Homer

The ancient Greek education system, which emerged towards the end of the classical era, was based on the study of Homer's works. His poems were memorized in whole or in part, recitations were organized based on their themes, etc. Later, Rome borrowed this system. Here since the 1st century AD. e. Virgil took Homer's place. Large hexametric poems were created in the post-classical era in the dialect of the ancient Greek author, as well as in competition with or in imitation of the Odyssey and Iliad. As you can see, many were interested in the work and biography of Homer. A summary of his works formed the basis for many works by authors who lived in Ancient Rome. Among them we can note the “Argonautica” written by Apollonius of Rhodes, the work of Nonnus of Panopolitanus “The Adventures of Dionysus” and Quintus of Smyrna “Post-Homeric Events”. Recognizing the merits of Homer, other poets of ancient Greece refrained from creating a large epic form. They believed that flawless perfection could only be achieved in a small work.

Homer's influence on the literature of different countries

In ancient Roman literature, the first surviving work (albeit in fragments) was a translation of the Odyssey. It was made by the Greek Livius Andronicus. Let us note that the main work of Rome - in the first six books is an imitation of the Odyssey, and in the last six - of the Iliad. In almost all the works of antiquity one can discern the influence of the poems that Homer created.

His biography and work were also of interest to the Byzantines. In this country Homer was carefully studied. To date, dozens of Byzantine manuscripts of his poems have been discovered. This is unprecedented for works of antiquity. Moreover, Byzantine scholars created commentaries and scholia on Homer, compiled and rewrote his poems. Seven volumes are occupied by Archbishop Eustathius' commentary on them. Greek manuscripts came to the West in the last years of the Byzantine Empire, and then after its collapse. This is how Homer was rediscovered by the Renaissance.

The short biography of this poet, created by us, leaves many questions unresolved. All of them together constitute the Homeric question. How did different researchers solve it? Let's figure it out.

Homeric question

The Homeric question is still relevant today. This is a set of problems that relate to the authorship of the Odyssey and the Iliad, as well as to the personality of their creator. Many pluralist scholars believed that these poems were not truly the works of Homer, who many believed did not exist at all. Their creation is attributed to the 6th century BC. e. These scholars believe that the poems were most likely created in Athens, when songs of different authors, passed down from generation to generation, were collected together and recorded in writing. Unitarians, on the contrary, defended the compositional unity of Homer's creations, and therefore the uniqueness of their creator.

Homer's poems

This ancient Greek author is a brilliant, priceless work of art. Over the centuries, they have not lost their deep meaning and relevance. The plots of both poems are taken from a multifaceted and extensive cycle of legends dedicated to the Trojan War. The Odyssey and Iliad depict only small episodes from this cycle. Let us briefly characterize these works, completing our story about such a great man as Homer. The poet, whose brief biography we reviewed, created truly unique works.

"Iliad"

It talks about the events of the 10th year of the Trojan War. The poem ends with the death and burial of the main Trojan warrior Hector. The ancient Greek poet Homer, whose brief biography is presented above, does not talk about further events of the war.

War is the main thread of this poem, the main element of its characters. One of the features of the work is that the battle is depicted mainly not as bloody battles of the masses, but as a battle of individual heroes who demonstrate exceptional strength, courage, skill and perseverance. Among the battles, one can highlight the key duel between Achilles and Hector. The martial arts of Diomedes, Agamemnon and Menelaus are described with less heroism and expressiveness. The Iliad depicts very vividly the habits, traditions, moral aspects of life, morality and life of the ancient Greeks.

"Odyssey"

We can say that this work is more complex than the Iliad. In it we find many features that are still being studied from a literary point of view. This epic poem mainly deals with the return of Odysseus to Ithaca after the end of the Trojan War.

In conclusion, we note that the works of Homer are a treasury of wisdom of the people of Ancient Greece. What other facts might be interesting about a person like Homer? Brief biography for children and adults often contains information that he was an oral storyteller, that is, he did not speak writing. However, despite this, his poems are distinguished by high skill and poetic technique, they reveal unity. "The Odyssey" and "Iliad" have characteristic features, one of which is the epic style. The sustained tone of the narrative, unhurried thoroughness, complete objectivity of the image, unhurried development of the plot - these are the characteristic features of the works that Homer created. A short biography of this poet, we hope, has aroused your interest in his work.

HOMER(Latin Homer, Greek Omiros), ancient Greek poet. To date, there is no convincing evidence of the reality of the historical figure of Homer. According to ancient tradition, it was customary to imagine Homer as a blind wandering singer-aed; seven cities argued for the honor of being called his homeland. He was probably from Smyrna (Asia Minor), or from the island of Chios. It can be assumed that Homer lived around the 8th century BC.

Homer is credited with the authorship of two of the greatest works of ancient Greek literature - the poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey". In ancient times, Homer was recognized as the author of other works: the poem "Batrachomachia" and the collection of "Homeric hymns." Modern science assigns only the Iliad and the Odyssey to Homer, and there is an opinion that these poems were created by different poets and at different historical times. Even in ancient times, the “Homeric question” arose, which is now understood as a set of problems related to the origin and development of the ancient Greek epic, including the relationship between folklore and literary creativity itself.

The time of creation of poems. History of the text

Biographical information about Homer given by ancient authors is contradictory and implausible. “Seven cities, arguing, are called the homeland of Homer: Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Pylos, Argos, Ithaca, Athens,” says one Greek epigram (in fact, the list of these cities was more extensive). Regarding the life of Homer, ancient scholars gave various dates, starting from the 12th century. BC e. (after the Trojan War) and ending with the 7th century. BC e.; There was a widespread legend about a poetic competition between Homer and Hesiod. Most researchers believe that Homer's poems were created in Asia Minor, in Ionia in the 8th century. BC e. based on mythological tales of the Trojan War. There is late ancient evidence of the final edition of their texts under the Athenian tyrant Pisistratus in the mid-6th century. BC e., when their performance was included in the festivities of the Great Panathenaia.

In ancient times, Homer was credited with the comic poems "Margit" and "The War of Mice and Frogs", a cycle of works about the Trojan War and the return of heroes to Greece: "Cypria", "Ethiopida", "The Little Iliad", "The Capture of Ilion", "Returns" ( so-called "cyclic poems", only small fragments have survived). Under the name "Homeric Hymns" there was a collection of 33 hymns to the gods. During the Hellenistic era, philologists of the Library of Alexandria Aristarchus of Samothrace, Zenodotus of Ephesus, Aristophanes of Byzantium did a great deal of work collecting and clarifying the manuscripts of Homer’s poems (they also divided each poem into 24 cantos according to the number of letters of the Greek alphabet). The sophist Zoilus (4th century BC), nicknamed “the scourge of Homer” for his critical statements, became a household name. Xenon and Hellanicus, so-called. “dividing”, expressed the idea that Homer may have owned only one “Iliad”; they, however, did not doubt either the reality of Homer or the fact that each of the poems had its own author.

Homeric question

The question of the authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey was raised in 1795 by the German scientist F. A. Wolf in the preface to the publication of the Greek text of the poems. Wolf considered it impossible to create a large epic in an unwritten period, believing that the tales created by various aeds were written down in Athens under Peisistratus. Scientists were divided into “analysts”, followers of Wolf’s theory (German scientists K. Lachmann, A. Kirchhoff with his theory of “small epics”; G. Herman and the English historian J. Groth with their “theory of the main core”, in Russia it was shared by F . F. Zelinsky), and “Unitarians”, supporters of the strict unity of the epic (Homer translator I. G. Foss and philologist G. V. Nich, F. Schiller, I. V. Goethe, Hegel in Germany, N. I. Gnedich , V. A. Zhukovsky, A. S. Pushkin in Russia).

Homeric poems and epics

In the 19th century The Iliad and Odyssey were compared with the epics of the Slavs, skaldic poetry, Finnish and German epics. In the 1930s The American classical philologist Milman Parry, comparing Homer's poems with the living epic tradition that still existed at that time among the peoples of Yugoslavia, discovered in Homer's poems a reflection of the poetic technique of folk singers. The poetic formulas they created from stable combinations and epithets (the “swift-footed” Achilles, the “shepherd of nations” Agamemnon, the “many-minded” Odysseus, the “sweet-tongued” Nestor) enabled the narrator to “improvise” perform epic songs consisting of many thousands of verses.

The Iliad and Odyssey belong entirely to the centuries-old epic tradition, but this does not mean that oral creativity is anonymous. “Before Homer, we cannot name anyone’s poem of this kind, although, of course, there were many poets” (Aristotle). Aristotle saw the main difference between the Iliad and the Odyssey from all other epic works in the fact that Homer does not unfold his narrative gradually, but builds it around one event - the basis of the poems is the dramatic unity of action. Another feature that Aristotle also drew attention to: the character of the hero is revealed not by the author’s descriptions, but by the speeches uttered by the hero himself.

Language of poems

The language of Homer's poems - exclusively poetic, "supra-dialectal" - was never identical to living spoken language. It consisted of a combination of Aeolian (Boeotia, Thessaly, the island of Lesbos) and Ionian (Attica, island Greece, the coast of Asia Minor) dialect features with the preservation of the archaic system of earlier eras. The songs of the Iliad and Odyssey were metrically shaped by the hexameter, a poetic meter with roots in Indo-European epic, in which each verse consists of six feet with a regular alternation of long and short syllables. The unusual poetic language of the epic was emphasized by the timeless nature of events and the greatness of the images of the heroic past.

Homer and archeology

Sensational discoveries of G. Schliemann in the 1870-80s. proved that Troy, Mycenae and the Achaean citadels are not a myth, but a reality. Schliemann's contemporaries were struck by the literal correspondence of a number of his findings in the fourth shaft tomb in Mycenae with the descriptions of Homer. The impression was so strong that the era of Homer became associated for a long time with the heyday of Achaean Greece in the 14th-13th centuries. BC e. The poems, however, also contain numerous archaeologically attested features of the culture of the "heroic age", such as mention of iron tools and weapons or the custom of cremation of the dead.

A comparison of the evidence of the Homeric epic with archaeological data confirms the conclusions of many researchers that in its final edition it was formed in the 8th century. BC e., and many researchers consider the “Catalog of Ships” (Iliad, 2nd Canto) to be the oldest part of the epic. Obviously, the poems were not created at the same time: “The Iliad” reflects ideas about the person of the “heroic period”; “The Odyssey” stands, as it were, at the turn of another era - the time of the Great Greek colonization, when the boundaries of the world mastered by Greek culture expanded.

Homer in antiquity

For people of antiquity, Homer's poems were a symbol of Hellenic unity and heroism, a source of wisdom and knowledge of all aspects of life - from military art to practical morality. Homer, along with Hesiod, was considered the creator of a comprehensive and orderly mythological picture of the universe: the poets “compiled genealogies of the gods for the Hellenes, provided the names of the gods with epithets, divided virtues and occupations among them, and drew their images” (Herodotus). According to Strabo, Homer was the only poet of antiquity who knew almost everything about the ecumene, the peoples inhabiting it, their origin, way of life and culture. Thucydides, Pausanias, and Plutarch used Homer’s data as authentic and trustworthy. The father of tragedy, Aeschylus, called his dramas “crumbs from the great feasts of Homer.”

Greek children learned to read from the Iliad and the Odyssey. Homer was quoted, commented on, and explained allegorically. The Pythagorean philosophers called on the Pythagorean philosophers to correct souls by reading selected passages from Homer’s poems. Plutarch reports that Alexander the Great always carried a copy of the Iliad with him, which he kept under his pillow along with a dagger.

Translations of Homer

In the 3rd century. BC e. The Roman poet Livy Andronicus translated the Odyssey into Latin. In medieval Europe, Homer was known only through quotations and references from Latin writers and Aristotle; Homer's poetic glory was eclipsed by the glory of Virgil. Only at the end of the 15th century. The first translations of Homer into Italian appeared (A. Poliziano and others). An event in European culture of the 18th century. There were translations of Homer into English by A. Pop and into German by I. G. Voss. For the first time, fragments of the Iliad were translated into Russian into twenty-syllable syllabics - the so-called. Alexandrian - verse by M.V. Lomonosov. At the end of the 18th century. E. Kostrov translated the first six songs of the Iliad (1787) in iambic; Prose translations of the Iliad by P. Ekimov and the Odyssey by P. Sokolov were published. The titanic work of creating the Russian hexameter and adequately reproducing Homer’s figurative system was done by N. I. Gnedich, whose translation of the Iliad (1829) still remains unsurpassed in the accuracy of philological reading and historical interpretation. The translation of “The Odyssey” by V. A. Zhukovsky (1842-49) is distinguished by the highest artistic skill. In the 20th century "The Iliad" and "Odyssey" were translated by V.V. Veresaev.

Homer is the founder of European literature, a legendary ancient Greek poet, whose name and life are shrouded in a lot of secrets. Even in the era of antiquity, different authors compiled 9 of his biographies, but they cannot be considered reliable, since they contain many fictitious facts and fairy-tale elements. Due to the lack of truthful information about the famous Aed, even the “Homeric question” arose, to which there is no exact answer to this day.

The real date and place of Homer's birth are unknown. Most likely, he was born in 850 BC. If you believe the legend, then his mother gave him the name Melesigenes, and they began to call him Homer (i.e. “blind”) after he became blind.

Several Greek cities are vying for the honor of being considered the birthplace of this famous poet. According to the historian Herodotus, Homer spent his childhood in Smyrna. There he was educated at a school owned by Phemius. He was one of the best students. When he died, Femia bequeathed the school to him. However, after working as a mentor for some time, he closed the educational institution and went on a trip by ship to expand his knowledge of the world.

Melesigenes not only got acquainted with new countries and cities, but also thoroughly studied the history and customs of various peoples. On the way to Ithaca he fell ill, and when he recovered, he continued his travels on foot. He earned his living by telling people the stories he heard in squares and markets. Later he began to recite excerpts from his own works. I finally lost my sight in Colophon.

One of the legends speaks of a poetic duel between Homer and Hesiod, which took place on the island of Euboea. And although the king declared Hesiod the winner, the listeners sympathized with Homer.

The blind Aed was revered and respected, and his epic poems “Iliad” and “Odyssey” were generally recognized sources of wisdom. They were guided both in matters of universal morality and the art of war. The songs from the poems were passed down orally and were collected, structured and written down at the behest of Pisistratus.

Homer lived to old age and met death on the island of Ios. There is a version that he committed suicide for fear of losing his mental acuity.

Biography 2

The biography of Homer, the poet of ancient Greece, who is credited with the authorship of the legendary Iliad and Odyssey, is shrouded in riddles and secrets.

Historians have been unable to establish the exact time of his life. Eratosthenes, a Greek scholar and poet, claimed that Homer witnessed the end of the Trojan War in 1184 BC. Herodotus suggested that Homer lived in the ninth century BC. There are several other points of view and evidence on this matter.

However, it is known that the Iliad and the Odyssey were created by Homer long after the war between the Trojans and the Achaeans. Linguistic, geographical and historical evidence for the great poems places them at around 700 and 800 BC.

Scientists suggest that Homer was blind. From the dialect of the Aeolian tribes, his name is translated as “blind.” This fact fits into the general idea of ancient soothsayers and singers, who often compensated for physical disabilities with poetic or prophetic gifts. Homer's Odysseus is also depicted in the poem as a blind minstrel who sings about the fall of Troy, but it is not possible to truly assert that the author copied this image from himself.

Homer's birthplace is also not known for certain. Traditionally, seven cities are recognized as the possible homeland of the poet: Athens, Rhodes, Argos, Chios, the city of Salamis in Cyprus, the cities of Smyrna and Colophon in Asia Minor. No matter where exactly Homer was born, he came from the peoples of Eastern Greece or Asia Minor. This is evidenced by the dialect of Eastern Greeks that he uses when writing his creations.

Because the figure of the ancient Greek poet is surrounded by myths, he is often considered the son of gods, such as Orpheus or Apollo. Sometimes paternity is attributed to Telemachus, the son of Odysseus. A less romantic version claims that Homer's parents were wealthy Greeks from Asia Minor. Material wealth made it possible not to worry about food and to completely devote oneself to creativity and poetry. Researchers of Homer's biography are inclined to believe that he led a free, if not wandering, lifestyle, traveled along the coast, and participated in competitions of rapsovods - traveling singers who recited poetry with a staff in their hand.

There are points of view that the Iliad and Odyssey are the fruits of the collective work of ancient Greek authors, and such a person as Homer did not exist at all. This name simply characterized the poetic movement that originated on the western coast of Asia Minor.

According to one legend, Homer found his last refuge on the island of Ios, which was once predicted to him by an oracle. The inhabitants of the island wrote on his gravestone: “Here the earth hides the sacred head of the pious Homer, who sang of heroes.”

Biography by dates and interesting facts. The most important.

Homer by Antoine-Denis Chaudet, 1806.

Homer (ancient Greek Ὅμηρος, 8th century BC) is a legendary ancient Greek poet-storyteller, creator of the epic poems “Iliad” (the oldest monument of European literature and “Odyssey”).
About half of the ancient Greek literary papyri found are passages from Homer.

Nothing is known for certain about the life and personality of Homer.

Homer - legendary ancient Greek poet-storyteller

It is clear, however, that the Iliad and Odyssey were created much later than the events described in them, but earlier than the 6th century BC. e., when their existence was reliably recorded. The chronological period in which modern science localizes the life of Homer is approximately the 8th century BC. e. According to Herodotus, Homer lived 400 years before him; other ancient sources say that he lived during the Trojan War.

Bust of Homer in the Louvre

Homer's birthplace is unknown. In the ancient tradition, seven cities argued for the right to be called his homeland: Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Salamis, Rhodes, Argos, Athens. As Herodotus and Pausanias report, Homer died on the island of Ios in the Cyclades archipelago. Probably, the Iliad and Odyssey were composed on the Asia Minor coast of Greece, inhabited by Ionian tribes, or on one of the adjacent islands. However, the Homeric dialect does not provide accurate information about the tribal affiliation of Homer, since it is a combination of the Ionian and Aeolian dialects of the ancient Greek language. There is an assumption that his dialect represents one of the forms of poetic Koine, which was formed long before the estimated time of Homer's life.

Paul Jourdy, Homère chantant ses vers, 1834, Paris

Traditionally, Homer is portrayed as blind. It is most likely that this idea does not come from the real facts of his life, but is a reconstruction typical of the genre of ancient biography. Since many outstanding legendary soothsayers and singers were blind (for example, Tiresias), according to ancient logic that connected the prophetic and poetic gifts, the assumption of Homer’s blindness looked very plausible. In addition, the singer Demodocus in the Odyssey is blind from birth, which could also be perceived as autobiographical.

Homer. Naples, National Archaeological Museum

There is a legend about the poetic duel between Homer and Hesiod, described in the work “The Contest of Homer and Hesiod,” created no later than the 3rd century. BC e., and according to many researchers, much earlier. The poets allegedly met on the island of Euboea at games in honor of the deceased Amphidemus and each read their best poems. King Paned, who acted as a judge at the competition, awarded victory to Hesiod, since he calls for agriculture and peace, and not for war and massacres. At the same time, the audience's sympathies were on Homer's side.

In addition to the Iliad and the Odyssey, a number of works are attributed to Homer, undoubtedly created later: the “Homeric hymns” (VII-V centuries BC, considered, along with Homer, the oldest examples of Greek poetry), the comic poem “Margit”, etc. .

The meaning of the name “Homer” (it was first found in the 7th century BC, when Callinus of Ephesus called him the author of “Thebaid”) was tried to be explained back in antiquity; the variants “hostage” (Hesychius), “following” (Aristotle) were proposed. or “blind” (Ephorus of Kim), “but all these options are as unconvincing as modern proposals to attribute to him the meaning of “compiler” or “accompanist”.<…>This word in its Ionian form Ομηρος is almost certainly a real personal name" (Boura S.M. Heroic poetry.)

Homer (circa 460 BC)

A.F. Losev: The traditional image of Homer among the Greeks. This traditional image of Homer, which has existed for about 3000 years, if we discard all the pseudo-scientific inventions of the later Greeks, comes down to the image of a blind and wise (and, according to Ovid, also poor), necessarily an old singer, creating wonderful tales under the constant guidance of the muse that inspires him and leading the life of some wandering rhapsodist. We find similar features of folk singers among many other nations, and therefore there is nothing specific or original about them. This is the most common and most widespread type of folk singer, the most beloved and most popular among different peoples.

Most researchers believe that Homer's poems were created in Asia Minor, in Ionia in the 8th century. BC e. based on mythological tales of the Trojan War. There is late ancient evidence of the final edition of their texts under the Athenian tyrant Pisistratus in the mid-6th century. BC e., when their performance was included in the festivities of the Great Panathenaia.

In ancient times, Homer was credited with the comic poems “Margit” and “The War of Mice and Frogs”, a cycle of works about the Trojan War and the return of heroes to Greece: “Cypria”, “Aethiopida”, “The Lesser Iliad”, “The Capture of Ilion”, “Returns” ( so-called “cyclic poems”, only small fragments have survived). Under the name "Homeric Hymns" there was a collection of 33 hymns to the gods. During the Hellenistic era, philologists of the Library of Alexandria Aristarchus of Samothrace, Zenodotus of Ephesus, Aristophanes of Byzantium did a great deal of work collecting and clarifying the manuscripts of Homer’s poems (they also divided each poem into 24 cantos according to the number of letters of the Greek alphabet). The sophist Zoilus (4th century BC), nicknamed “the scourge of Homer” for his critical statements, became a household name. Xenon and Hellanicus, so-called. “dividing”, expressed the idea that Homer may have owned only one “Iliad”

Jean-Baptiste Auguste Leloir (1809-1892). Home.

In the 19th century, the Iliad and Odyssey were compared with the epics of the Slavs, skaldic poetry, Finnish and German epics. In the 1930s The American classical philologist Milman Parry, comparing Homer's poems with the living epic tradition that still existed at that time among the peoples of Yugoslavia, discovered in Homer's poems a reflection of the poetic technique of folk singers. The poetic formulas they created from stable combinations and epithets (“swift-footed” Achilles, “shepherd of nations” Agamemnon, “much-witted” Odysseus, “sweet-tongued” Nestor) made it possible for the narrator to “improvise” perform epic songs consisting of many thousands of verses.

Medieval illustration for the Iliad

The language of Homer's poems - exclusively poetic, “supra-dialectal” - was never identical to living spoken language. It consisted of a combination of Aeolian (Boeotia, Thessaly, the island of Lesbos) and Ionian (Attica, island Greece, the coast of Asia Minor) dialect features with the preservation of the archaic system of earlier eras. The songs of the Iliad and Odyssey were metrically shaped by the hexameter, a poetic meter rooted in Indo-European epic, in which each verse consists of six feet with a regular alternation of long and short syllables. The unusual poetic language of the epic was emphasized by the timeless nature of events and the greatness of the images of the heroic past.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) - Homer and his Guide (1874)

Sensational discoveries of G. Schliemann in the 1870s and 80s. proved that Troy, Mycenae and the Achaean citadels are not a myth, but a reality. Schliemann's contemporaries were struck by the literal correspondence of a number of his findings in the fourth shaft tomb in Mycenae with the descriptions of Homer. The impression was so strong that the era of Homer became associated for a long time with the heyday of Achaean Greece in the 14th-13th centuries. BC e. The poems, however, also contain numerous archaeologically attested features of the “heroic age” culture, such as mention of iron tools and weapons or the custom of cremation of the dead. In terms of content, Homer's epics contain many motifs, storylines, and myths gleaned from early poetry. In Homer you can hear echoes of Minoan culture, and even trace connections with Hittite mythology. However, his main source of epic material was the Mycenaean period. It is during this era that his epic takes place. Living in the fourth century after the end of this period, which he highly idealizes, Homer cannot be a source of historical information about the political, social life, material culture or religion of the Mycenaean world. But in the political center of this society, Mycenae, objects identical to those described in the epic (mainly weapons and tools) were found, while some Mycenaean monuments present images, things and even scenes typical of the poetic reality of the epic. The events of the Trojan War, around which Homer unfolded the actions of both poems, were attributed to the Mycenaean era. He showed this war as an armed campaign of the Greeks (called Achaeans, Danaans, Argives) under the leadership of the Mycenaean king Agamemnon against Troy and its allies. For the Greeks, the Trojan War was a historical fact dating back to the 14th-12th centuries. BC e. (according to Eratosthenes' calculations, Troy fell in 1184)

Karl Becker. Homer sings

For people of antiquity, Homer's poems were a symbol of Hellenic unity and heroism, a source of wisdom and knowledge of all aspects of life - from military art to practical morality. Homer, along with Hesiod, was considered the creator of a comprehensive and orderly mythological picture of the universe: the poets “compiled genealogies of the gods for the Hellenes, provided the names of the gods with epithets, divided virtues and occupations among them, and drew their images” (Herodotus). According to Strabo, Homer was the only poet of antiquity who knew almost everything about the ecumene, the peoples inhabiting it, their origin, way of life and culture. Thucydides, Pausanias (writer), and Plutarch used Homer’s data as authentic and trustworthy. The father of tragedy, Aeschylus, called his dramas “crumbs from the great feasts of Homer.”

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. Homer and the Shepherds

Homer- one of the most famous poets of ancient Greece. He owns such famous works as “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey”. No one knows the exact date of birth, but it is believed that he was born in the 9th century BC in Smyrna, which is located in the Aegean region of Turkey.
An interesting fact is that almost half of all papyri from ancient Greece found today are excerpts from Homer.
Nothing is known for certain about the biography; there are only assumptions. Different sources indicate different dates of birth with their own confirmations. If you believe Herodotus, then Homer lived four hundred years before him, which falls in 850 BC.
There is also a theory that Homer lived 622 years before the birth of the Persian king Xerxes, which falls in 1102 BC. The third theory talks about Homer's life during the Trojan War.
There is a legend that once on the island of Euboea there was a poetic confrontation between Homer and Hesiod, where King Paned awarded victory to Hesiod. The public did not agree with this and fully supported the losing side, but the judge was implacable.
Homer wrote many works, some of which have survived to this day. These are considered “Homeric hymns”, “Margrit” and others.
It is not the original form of the world-famous epic poems that has survived to our times. They were corrected and collected together by order of the tyrant Peisistratus or his son Hipparchus in the 6th century BC. Proof of this are some contradictions in the texts, unnatural deviations from the main plot.
There is an opinion that both written poems were passed down orally from generation to generation, due to the life of the poet in a non-written time. Such assumptions were made in ancient times.
One of the most important features of the Illiad is the “law of chronological incompatibility.” Sometimes it happened that parallel events were shown as sequential.
The Iliad and Odyssey are written in a formulaic style. Homer often used such compound epithets as “swift-footed”, “thunderer”, “magnificent-legged”.
Until the 19th century, the prevailing opinion was that both poems were unhistorical and were just a figment of fantasy. Thanks to the excavations of Heinrich Schliemann, the opinion about this has changed dramatically. After this, they began to believe that everything described happened in reality during the period of the ancient Greek “dark ages”, which covered the 11th - 9th centuries BC.
At the end of the 5th - 4th centuries BC. the entire education system of Greece was based on the study of Homeric poems. Then Rome borrowed it.
Late 4th century BC Many poets appeared who tried to imitate Homer, write in his style and try to write their works better than Ilida and Odysseus. This is how the poems “Argonautica” from A. Rhodes, “Post-Homeric Events” from K. Smirnsky and “The Adventure of Dionysus” from N. Panopolitansky came out. Other poets were of the opinion that only small works are capable of being perfect.
Thanks to Virgil, the heroic epic "Aeneid" was published. In the first six books one can see the full influence of the Odyssey, in the last six - of the Iliad.
There is no doubt that Herodotus and Pausanias told the truth, and Homer did die on the island of Ios, located in the southern Aegean Sea.
Homer made a huge contribution to the development and education of ancient Greece and Rome. The influence of his famous poems can be seen in almost every work of ancient literature.