Homer, the author of The Iliad and The Odyssey, is a mystery. Many scholars believe a single person, Homer, did write the poems but almost as many believe they were written by a group of people. There is no dispute that Homer existed; the debate is over his authorship. Aristotle attributed the difference to Homer’s style to aging while some scholars see the style in which the two poems were written and “subtle differences of vocabulary,” (Kirk, “Homer”), demonstrate that there are various authors. Another theory about a group of authors is that stories were orally handed down and Homer assembled these stories (biography.com). Homer’s poems are written in a balladeer or minstrel poem style (biography.com). His stories are repetitive in nature. …show more content…
His works, rich with metaphor and simile, was the “basis of Greek education and culture in the Classical Age” (Kirk, “Homer”). His works were not just memorized poems for the educated Greek but served as their moral compass in the Classical Age. Centuries after Homer’s, “professional singers memorized and performed The Iliad and The Odyssey at religious festivals throughout Greece” (Literature, “Homer: The Epic Poet, p.1190). Homer incorporated human characteristics into the gods involved in the story. Greeks during this time believed the gods chose sides and intervened in the everyday lives of Greek citizens (Literature, “Examining the Homeric Epics, p. 1188). Just as current day science fiction is imaginable to today’s reading audiences, the mythical creatures created by Homer could be envisioned by the audience in ancient …show more content…
“A hexameter verse was the standard for the epic poems in the classical Greek and Latin literature. The correspondence which consequently obtains between the rhythm and the syntax—the thought being given out in lengths, as it were, and these again divided by tolerably uniform pauses—produces a swift flowing movement such as is rarely found when periods are constructed without direct reference to the meter. That Homer possesses this rapidity without falling into the corresponding faults, that is, without becoming either fluctuant or monotonous, is perhaps the best proof of his unequalled poetic skill”