The Questions and Answers of Homer
In the times of Ancient Greece, there was a great amount of confusion in the world. The nation of Greece itself was divided, neighboring villages would constantly engage in small wars and capture prisoners, which were held for ransom or sold into slavery. This is probably why there is no factual information on the poet called Homer. There has been a great deal of controversy over Homer and the Homeric epics. In his epic poems, he used some universal themes. In addition, when reciting his epic poems he used a formula so he did not have to memorize the entire story. Although there are no facts, we can still learn much from what he left behind.The name Homer, itself, means Hostage. Still, Homer is the single most well know poet in the world. The Greek called him the "holy poet". His two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, are said to be the best of western literature. It even ranks above Aeneid by the Roman poet Virgil (Beye). Of course, his poems are not great for the actual plot, for these stories have been around for generations before him (Beers 330). For instance, the Iliad was based on the Trojan War, which was discovered to be circa 1400-120 BC by archaeologist Heinrich Schliem (Whitelaw). What makes them grea
3. Type of poem called "praise-blame poetry" "Homer" Norton Anthology World Masterpieces Expanded Edition, The Volume 1 Ed. Maynard Mack. New York, NY: W.W. Norton Company, 1995. 116. Another smaller part of the controversy deals with how the works were written down. The question is, how were they written during Homer's time when the Green language was not there yet (Beye). For, the Iliad was written during the Dark Age (1150-750 BC) which was a time illiteracy (Whitelaw). One theory, created by Barry Powell, is that Homer had a person, who Barry calls the "Adapter", who literally created a language to record the epics. Furthermore, the Greek system of writing borrowed a lot of Phoenician syllabary (Whitelaw). This theory is not a very sound one, and there is no evidence to back it up. 2. Modern theory says not single poet 4. Iliad is story of young man trying to grow up a. Aristotle and Pindar agreed on where he lived 5. Book about Bards and Alexandrian scholars writing poems
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2339
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)
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