homer/Odyssey?

Question

I am suppose to write a two page essay titled "did homer write the odyssey?". what discussions can I make out of it because I am really stuck.

Answer 1

Well, Homer was reportedly a blind traveling storyteller, who told stories from memory alone. That was a common practice in ancient Greece. Homer and many others probably recounted similar tales as they wandered from city to city, each man making small variations to the tale to suit his taste. You could speculate on how various men would alter the tale and how you would alter it yourself today. You can list a few of his adventures, such as when a god gives him the winds captured in a bag so his ship can sail safely home but his sailors suspect he is hiding treasure so they open the bag and losen the winds, leading to shipwreck. How would that play out if you wrote it today? Make a list of some of Odysseus's adventures and suggest alternate endings.

And Homer is also supposed to have written "The Illiad" which is in a very different style, being entirely concerned with war and violence, while the lighter and more amusing "The Odyssey" tells of the adventures of Odysseus as he tries to return to his home. So one could make an argument that the two books had different authors as well

Hope that helps a little bit. .

Answer 2

No ! - it is not a waste of time ! Both The Odyssey and The Iliad both by the Greek poet Homer are recognized as the cornerstones of Western Literature . The time-line for the books' chronology is The Battle of Troy(The Iliad) occurs and then(The Odyssey) Odysseus' voyage home . Helen of Troy was a Spartan woman who came from an exceptional culture that was known for not only a warrior society but the women themselves were renown for their beauty and the equality the women enjoyed for having a near equal status with the men in Greek culture . I always recommend to those who have not yet read these works a prose(text) version before reading a verse translation because it is more easily read in prose than a verse edition . See if it is an acceptable choice to your parent-tutor . These two books are among my perennial favorites and I have every English translation available . If you have to read both or perhaps one of the two then I would suggest The Odyssey since it is more of an adventure story than The Iliad . Within the pages of these two books there is every human emotion , e.g. pride , anger , humor , vanity , love , etc . . . I think that you will find the books quite interesting ! Both of these works of Western literature has changed my life in many ways , i.e. I read and reread them yearly and I always look for another translation to be done . I really hope that you like them for they are very interesting and gives you an insight to human nature . Good luck ! :0)

Answer 3

> "did homer write the odyssey?"

Possibly.

Even *if* Homer really existed, he was possibly just one of a group of poets who composed the Odessey, or was one of the poets who standardized an oral tradition that started generations before him, or just passed on the oral tradition to a scribe. The debate is still open.

"Exactly when these poems would have taken on a fixed written form is subject to debate. The traditional solution is the "transcription hypothesis," wherein a non-literate "Homer" dictates his poem to a literate scribe between the 8th and 6th centuries. The Greek alphabet was introduced in the early 8th century, so that it is possible that Homer himself was of the first generation of rhapsodes that were also literate. More radical Homerists, such as Gregory Nagy, contend that a canonical text of the Homeric poems as "scripture" did not exist until the Hellenistic period (3rd to 1st century BC)."

"Homer", Wikipedia, 2007-04-09 :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer

"The details of the ancient oral performance, and the story's conversion to a written work inspire continual debate among scholars."

"Scholars have seen strong influences from Near Eastern mythology and literature in the Odyssey. Martin West has noted substantial parallels between the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Odyssey. There are also some parallels between the Odyssey and the story of Sindbad."

"Odissey", Wikipedia, 2007-04-09 :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey

"The Homer Homepage", 2007-04-09 :
http://www.gpc.edu/~shale/humanities/literature/world_literature/homer.html

Answer 4

perhaps "Homer" is not one person, but an agreed upon tradition that these stories follow.

Answer 5

i had an odyssey........... i loved that van
- Homer Simpson
that was a funny episode...........