Why do you think poets like Homer improvised or recited stories, rather than writing them?

Answer 1

Reading and writing were limited to the few, and storytelling was the way of passing history on from one generation to the next.
How much improvisation was involved we can see in how much takes place in the stories over time, how attached they were to history, tells us how carefully they were passed down from one generation to the next.

There is another element which is social bonding. I can slouch off to my room and pick up my book and it's just me and the book. My "shared" experience is with some one I can't see or talk with. In storytelling there is a shared experience of the group listening. This provides a bonding experience of great worth to society. Although it's not an analogy, that desire to share experience is one reason I think talk radio is so popular.

The last element is hard to explain unless you are a university student who sits under the lectures of a prof or a church goer who sits under the ministry of preacher. But there is something about how the spoken word affects one, a kind of immediate transference, not only of words and content, but of spirit, that takes place in no other medium that I know.

That's a great question to think about.

Answer 2

We know that the poems come from a tradition of oral poetry because of the number of phrases and even sentences that are repeated - these are called "formulae" and they are the building blocks of the oral poet. Within living memory there were guys in the Balkans who composed epic poetry in this way.
It's still a matter of dispute whether Homer personally could write. Some elements in the poems seem to suggest he could.

Answer 3

Homer is said to be blind, so how could he wrote. But latest studies tell us that there was no Homer but several authors during centuries that composed those Epics. Their works were told during festivales and were part of ceremonies

Answer 4

because despite their immense talent. Only the very wealthy could read or write. Their stories were often passed down in verse or song. Then a scribe would write it down for them.

Answer 5

It would take a very long time to make a stone tablet of the Illiad...and it wasn't really about accuracy it was about good story telling.

Answer 6

Well, they referred to him as the Blind Poet for a reason. . .

Answer 7

very few people could read in Homer's time.

Answer 8

They didn't have written language yet.

Answer 9

bnecause no one could read.