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The Epic

Homer

Homer is the name traditionally given to the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, the two major epics of Greek antiquity. Nothing is known about Homer as an individual. In fact, the question of whether a single person can be said to be responsible for the creation of the two epics is still controversial. However, linguistic and historical evidence allows the assumption that the poems were composed in the Greek settlements on the west coast of Asia Minor sometime in the 9th century B.C.E.

Both epics relate legendary events that were believed to have occurred many centuries before they were written. The Iliad is set in the final year of the Trojan War. This sets the background for its central plot, which is the story of 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. Achilles rejects the Greeks’ attempts at reconciliation (becoming friends from enemies); however, he finally relents to some extent and allows his companion Patroclus to lead his troops in his place. Patroclus is killed, and as a result Achilles is filled with fury and remorse. He turns his wrath against the Trojans, whose leader, Hector (son of King Priam), he kills in single combat. The poem ends as Achilles surrenders the corpse of Hector to Priam for burial, recognizing a certain kinship with the Trojan king as they both face the tragedies of death and sorrow.

The Odyssey describes the return of the Greek hero Odysseus from the Trojan War. The opening scenes show the disorder that has arisen in Odysseus’ household during his long absence: A band of suitors is destroying his property as they woo his wife Penelope. The focus then shifts to Odysseus himself. The story tells of his ten years of traveling, during which he has to face such dangers as the man-eating giant Polyphemus and such subtler threats as the goddess Calypso, who offers him immortality if he will abandon his quest for home. The second half of the poem begins with Odysseus’ arrival at his home island of Ithaca. Here, exercising great patience and self-control, Odysseus tests the loyalty of his servants. He plots and carries out a bloody revenge on Penelope’s suitors, and is reunited with his son, his wife, and his aged father.

Both epics are composed in an impersonal, elevated, formal verse, using language that was never used for normal speech; the meter that is used is called dactylic hexameter. Stylistically there is no real distinction made between the two works. However, it is easy to see why many readers have believed that they come from different hands. The Iliad portrays passions, with insoluble (unsolvable) dilemmas. It has no real villains; Achilles, Agamemnon, Priam, and the rest are caught up, as actors and victims, in a cruel and ultimately tragic universe. On the other hand, in the Odyssey, the wicked are destroyed, right prevails, and the family is reunited with normal thinking, particularly Odysseus’, who acts as the guiding force throughout the story.

Besides the Iliad and the Odyssey, the so-called Homeric Hymns are a series of rela-tively short poems celebrating the various gods and composed in a style similar to that of the epics, which have also traditionally been attributed to Homer.

The modern text of the Homeric poems was conveyed through medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, copies of now-lost ancient manuscripts of the epics. From classical antiquity until recently, readers of Homer, although they may not have trusted the spurious tales describing him as a blind beggar bard (travelling story-teller, poet, minstrel) of Chios, and although they may have argued that portions of the texts, such as the ending scenes of the Odyssey, were added by another person, generally believed that Homer was a poet (or at most, a pair of poets) much like the poets they knew from their own experience. In short, they believed that the Iliad and the Odyssey, although of course based on traditional materials, were independent, original, and largely fictional. However, in the last 200 years, this view has changed radically.

The question is often asked: by whom, how, and when were the Iliad and Odyssey written? A generally accepted answer has never been found. Some argue that they must be by different authors because of small differences in the writing, while other claim that they are drastically changes from the original stories because of the long tradition of oral story telling. No one view on this issue has prevailed, but it is fair to say that practically all commentators would agree on two points. First, that tradition had a great deal to do with the poems’ composition, and second, that in the main part of the poem each epic bears the strong impress of a single writer. Meanwhile, archaeological discoveries from the last 125 years, especially those of Heinrich Schliemann, have shown that much of the civilization Homer described was not in fact fictional. Therefore, the epics are to a certain extent, historical documents. As you can imagine, discussion of this facet of them has constantly been intertwined with the debate on the question of their creation.

In a very direct way Homer was the parent of all succeeding Greek literature. Drama, historiography, and even philosophy all show both the mark of the comic and tragic issues that are raised in the epics and the techniques Homer used to approach them. For the later epic poets of Western literature, Homer was of course always the master (even when, like Dante, they did not know the works directly). To his most successful followers, oddly enough, his work was as much a target as a model. Virgil’s Aeneid, for instance, is a refutation (disagreement) of the individualistic value system of the Homeric epic. The most Homeric scenes in Paradise Lost, by the English poet John Milton, are the stanzas describing the battle in heaven, and are essentially comic. As for novels, such as Don Quixote (1605), by the Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes, or Ulysses (1922), by the Irish writer James Joyce, the more Homeric they are, the more they lean toward parody and mock epic. Since Homer’s time, in fact, an heroic ethos and the erudition necessary to appreciate Homer have never been combined in a serious author, and it seems unlikely that they ever will be.