In the Western classical tradition Homer (English pronunciation: /homr/; Ancient Greek: Hmros) is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics are at the beginning of the Western canon of literature and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.

When he lived is controversial. Herodotus estimates that Homer lived 400 years before Herodotus' own time which would place him at around 850 BC;1 while other ancient sources claim that he lived much nearer to the supposed time of the Trojan War in the early 12th Century BC.2

For modern scholars "the date of Homer" refers not to an individual but to period when the epics were created. The consensus is that "the Iliad and the Odyssey date from around the 8th century BC the Iliad being composed before the Odyssey perhaps by some decades"3 i.e. earlier than Hesiod4 the Iliad being the oldest work of Western literature. Over the past few decades some scholars have argued for a 7th-century date. Some of those who argue that the Homeric poems developed gradually over a long period of time give an even later date for composition of the poems; according to Gregory Nagy for example they only became fixed texts in the 6th century.5 The question of the historicity of Homer the individual is known as the "Homeric question"; there is no reliable biographical information handed down from classical antiquity.6 The poems are generally seen as the culmination of many generations of oral story-telling in a tradition with a well-developed formulaic system of poetic composition. Some scholars such as Martin West claim that "Homer" is "not the name of a historical poet but a fictitious or constructed name."7

The formative influence played by the Homeric epics in shaping Greek culture was widely recognized and Homer was described as the teacher of Greece.8 Contents 1 Life and legends 2 Works attributed to Homer 3 Problems of authorship 4 Homeric studies 5 Homeric dialect 6 Homeric style 7 History and the Iliad 8 Hero cult 9 Transmission and publication 10 See also 10.1 Topics 10.2 Modern scholars 11 Notes 12 Selected bibliography 12.1 Editions 12.2 Interlinear translations 12.3 English translations 12.4 General works on Homer 12.5 Influential readings and interpretations 12.6 Commentaries 12.7 Trends in Homeric scholarship 12.8 Dating the Homeric poems 13 External links Life and legends Homer and His Guide by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (18251905). The scene portrays Homer on Mount Ida beset by dogs and guided by the goatherder Glaucus. (The tale is told in Pseudo-Herodotus).

"Homer" is a Greek name attested in Aeolic-speaking areas9 and although nothing definite is known about him traditions arose purporting to give details of his birthplace and background. The satirist Lucian in his True History describes him as a Babylonian called Tigranes who assumed the name Homer when taken "hostage" (homeros) by the Greeks.10 When the Emperor Hadrian asked the Oracle at Delphi about Homer the Pythia proclaimed that he was Ithacan the son of Epikaste and Telemachus from the Odyssey.11 These stories were incorporated into the various12 Lives of Homer compiled from the Alexandrian period onwards.13 Homer is most frequently said to be born in the Ionian region of Asia Minor at Smyrna or on the island of Chios dying on the Cycladic island of Ios.1314 A connection with Smyrna seems to be alluded to in a legend that his original name was Melesigenes ("born of Meles" a river which flowed by that city) with his mother the nymph Kretheis. Internal evidence from the poems gives evidence of familiarity with the topography and place-names of this area of Asia Minor for example Homer refers to meadow birds at the mouth of the Caystros (Iliad 2.459ff.) a storm in the Icarian sea (Iliad 2.144ff.) and mentions that women in Maeonia and Caria stain ivory with scarlet (Iliad 4.142).15

The association with Chios dates back to at least Semonides of Amorgos who cited a famous line in the Iliad (6.146) as by "the man of Chios". An eponymous bardic guild known as the Homeridae (sons of Homer) or Homeristae ('Homerizers')16 appears to have existed there tracing descent from an ancestor of that name17 or upholding their function as rhapsodes or "lay-stitchers" specialising in the recitation of Homeric poetry. Wilhelm Drpfeld18 suggests that Homer had visited many of the places and regions which he describes in his epics such as Mycenae Troy the palace of Odysseus at Ithaca and more. According to Diodorus Siculus Homer had even visited Egypt.19

The poet's name is homophonous with (hmros) "hostage" (or "surety") which is interpreted as meaning "he who accompanies; he who is forced to follow" or in some dialects "blind".20 This led to many tales that he was a hostage or a blind man. Traditions which assert that he was blind may have arisen from the meaning of the word in both Ionic where the verbal form (homre) has the specialized meaning of "guide the blind"21 and the Aeolian dialect of Cyme where (hmros) is synonymous with the standard Greek (typhls) meaning 'blind'.22 The characterization of Homer as a blind bard goes back to some verses in the Delian Hymn to Apollo the third of the Homeric Hymns23 verses later cited to support this notion by Thucydides.24 The Cumean historian Ephorus held the same view and the idea gained support in antiquity on the strength of a false etymology which derived his name from ho m horn ( : "he who does not see"). Critics have long taken as self-referential25 a passage in the Odyssey describing a blind bard Demodocus in the court of the Phaeacian king who recounts stories of Troy to the shipwrecked Odysseus.26

Many scholars take the name of the poet to be indicative of a generic function. Gregory Nagy takes it to mean "he who fits (the Song) together".27 (homr) another related verb besides signifying "meet" can mean "(sing) in accord/tune".28 Some argue that "Homer" may have meant "he who puts the voice in tune" with dancing.2930 Marcello Durante links "Homeros" to an epithet of Zeus as "god of the assemblies" and argues that behind the name lies the echo of an archaic word for "reunion" similar to the later Panegyris denoting a formal assembly of competing minstrels.3132

Some Ancient Lives depict Homer as a wandering minstrel like Thamyris33 or Hesiod who walked as far as Chalkis to sing at the funeral games of Amphidamas.34 We are given the image of a "blind begging singer who hangs around with little people: shoemakers fisherman potters sailors elderly men in the gathering places of harbour towns".35 The poems give us evidence of singers at the courts of the nobility. Scholars are divided as to which category if any the court singer or the wandering minstrel the historic "Homer" belonged.36 For more details on this topic see Ancient accounts of Homer Life of Homer (Pseudo-Herodotus). Works attributed to Homer The Greeks of the sixth and early fifth centuries understood by "Homer" generally "the whole body of heroic tradition as embodied in hexameter verse".37 Thus in addition to the Iliad and the Odyssey there are "exceptional" epics which organize their respective themes on a "massive scale".38 Many other works were credited to Homer in antiquity including the entire Epic Cycle. The genre included further poems on the Trojan War such as the Little Iliad the Nostoi the Cypria and the Epigoni as well as the Theban poems about Oedipus and his sons. Other works such as the corpus of Homeric Hymns the comic mini-epic Batrachomyomachia ("The Frog-Mouse War") and the Margites were also attributed to him but this is now believed to be unlikely. Two other poems the Capture of Oechalia and the Phocais were also assigned Homeric authorship but the question of the identities of the authors of these various texts is even more problematic than that of the authorship of the two major epics. Problems of authorship For more details on this topic see Homeric Question. The idea that Homer was responsible for just the two outstanding epics the Iliad and the Odyssey did not win consensus until 350 BC.39 While many find it unlikely that both epics were composed by the same person others argue that the stylistic similarities are too consistent to support the theory of multiple authorship. One view which attempts to bridge the differences holds that the Iliad was composed by "Homer" in his maturity while the Odyssey was a work of his old age. The Batrachomyomachia Homeric Hymns and cyclic epics are generally agreed to be later than the Iliad and the Odyssey. Most scholars agree that the Iliad and Odyssey underwent a process of standardisation and refinement out of older material beginning in the 8th century BC. An important role in this standardisation appears to have been played by the Athenian tyrant Hipparchus who reformed the recitation of Homeric poetry at the Panathenaic festival. Many classicists hold that this reform must have involved the production of a canonical written text. Other scholars still support the idea that Homer was a real person. Since nothing is known about the life of this Homer the common jokealso recycled with regard to Shakespearehas it that the poems "were not written by Homer but by another man of the same name."4041 Samuel Butler argues based on literary observations that a young Sicilian woman wrote the Odyssey (but not the Iliad)42 an idea further pursued by Robert Graves in his novel Homer's Daughter and Andrew Dalby in Rediscovering Homer.43 Independent of the question of single authorship is the near-universal agreement after the work of Milman Parry44 that the Homeric poems are dependent on an oral tradition a generations-old technique that was the collective inheritance of many singer-poets (aoidoi). An analysis of the structure and vocabulary of the Iliad and Odyssey shows that the poems contain many formulaic phrases typical of extempore epic traditions; even entire verses are at times repeated. Parry and his student Albert Lord pointed out that such elaborate oral tradition foreign to today's literate cultures is typical of epic poetry in a predominantly oral cultural milieu the key words being "oral" and "traditional". Parry started with "traditional": the repetitive chunks of language he said were inherited by the singer-poet from his predecessors and were useful to him in composition. Parry called these repetitive chunks "formulas". 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 it is possible that Homer himself was of the first generation of authors who were also literate. The classicist Barry B. Powell suggests that the Greek Alphabet was invented c. 800 BC by one man probably Homer in order to write down oral epic poetry.45 More radical Homerists like Gregory Nagy contend that a canonical text of the Homeric poems as "scripture" did not exist until the Hellenistic period (3rd to 1st century BCE). Homeric studies Main article: Homeric scholarship The study of Homer is one of the oldest topics in scholarship dating back to antiquity. The aims and achievements of Homeric studies have changed over the course of the millennia. In the last few centuries they have revolved around the process by which the Homeric poems came into existence and were transmitted over time to us first orally and later in writing. Some of the main trends in modern Homeric scholarship have been in the 19th and early 20th centuries Analysis and Unitarianism (see Homeric Question) schools of thought which emphasized on the one hand the inconsistencies in and on the other the artistic unity of Homer; and in the 20th century and later Oral Theory the study of the mechanisms and effects of oral transmission and Neoanalysis the study of the relationship between Homer and other early epic material. Homeric dialect Main article: Homeric Greek The language used by Homer is an archaic version of Ionic Greek with admixtures from certain other dialects such as Aeolic Greek. It later served as the basis of Epic Greek the language of epic poetry typically in dactylic hexameter. Homeric style Aristotle remarks in his Poetics that Homer was unique among the poets of his time focusing on a single unified theme or action in the epic cycle.46 The cardinal qualities of the style of Homer are well articulated by Matthew Arnold: The translator of Homer should above all be penetrated by a sense of four qualities of his author:that he is eminently rapid; that he is eminently plain and direct both in the evolution of his thought and in the expression of it that is both in his syntax and in his words; that he is eminently plain and direct in the substance of his thought that is in his matter and ideas; and finally that he is eminently noble.47 Statue of Homer outside the Bavarian State Library in Munich. The peculiar rapidity of Homer is due in great measure to his use of hexameter verse. It is characteristic of early literature that the evolution of the thought or the grammatical form of the sentence is guided by the structure of the verse; and the correspondence which consequently obtains between the rhythm and the syntaxthe thought being given out in lengths as it were and these again divided by tolerably uniform pausesproduces a swift flowing movement such as is rarely found when periods are constructed without direct reference to the metre. 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. The plainness and directness of both thought and expression which characterise him were doubtless qualities of his age but the author of the Iliad (similar to Voltaire to whom Arnold happily compares him) must have possessed this gift in a surpassing degree. The Odyssey is in this respect perceptibly below the level of the Iliad. Rapidity or ease of movement plainness of expression and plainness of thought are not distinguishing qualities of the great epic poets Virgil Dante48 and Milton. On the contrary they belong rather to the humbler epico-lyrical school for which Homer has been so often claimed. The proof that Homer does not belong to that schooland that his poetry is not in any true sense ballad poetryis furnished by the higher artistic structure of his poems and as regards style by the fourth of the qualities distinguished by Arnold: the quality of nobleness. It is his noble and powerful style sustained through every change of idea and subject that finally separates Homer from all forms of ballad-poetry and popular epic. Like the French epics such as the Chanson de Roland Homeric poetry is indigenous and by the ease of movement and its resultant simplicity distinguishable from the works of Dante Milton and Virgil. It is also distinguished from the works of these artists by the comparative absence of underlying motives or sentiment. In Virgil's poetry a sense of the greatness of Rome and Italy is the leading motive of a passionate rhetoric partly veiled by the considered delicacy of his language. Dante and Milton are still more faithful exponents of the religion and politics of their time. Even the French epics display sentiments of fear and hatred of the Saracens; but in Homer's works the interest is purely dramatic. There is no strong antipathy of race or religion; the war turns on no political events; the capture of Troy lies outside the range of the Iliad; and even the protagonists are not comparable to the chief national heroes of Greece. So far as can be seen the chief interest in Homer's works is that of human feeling and emotion and of drama; indeed his works are often referred to as "dramas". History and the Iliad Main article: Historicity of the Iliad Greece according to the Iliad The excavations of Heinrich Schliemann at Hisarlik in the late 19th century provided initial evidence to scholars that there was a historical basis for the Trojan War. Research into oral epics in Serbo-Croatian and Turkic languages pioneered by the aforementioned Parry and Lord began convincing scholars that long poems could be preserved with consistency by oral cultures until they are written down.44 The decipherment of Linear B in the 1950s by Michael Ventris (and others) convinced many of a linguistic continuity between 13th century BC Mycenaean writings and the poems attributed to Homer. It is probable therefore that the story of the Trojan War as reflected in the Homeric poems derives from a tradition of epic poetry founded on a war which actually took place. It is crucial however not to underestimate the creative and transforming power of subsequent tradition: for instance Achilles the most important character of the Iliad is strongly associated with southern Thessaly but his legendary figure is interwoven into a tale of war whose kings were from the Peloponnese. Tribal wanderings were frequent and far-flung ranging over much of Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean.49 The epic weaves brilliantly the disiecta membra (scattered remains) of these distinct tribal narratives exchanged among clan bards into a monumental tale in which Greeks join collectively to do battle on the distant plains of Troy. Hero cult The Apotheosis of Homer by Archelaus of Priene. Marble relief possibly of the 3rd century BC now in the British Museum. In the Hellenistic period Homer was the subject of a hero cult in several cities. A shrine the Homereion was devoted to him in Alexandria by Ptolemy IV Philopator in the late 3rd century BC. This shrine is described in Aelian's 3rd century work Varia Historia. He tells how Ptolemy "placed in a circle around the statue of Homer all the cities who laid claim to Homer" and mentions a painting of the poet by the artist Galaton which apparently depicted Homer in the aspect of Oceanus as the source of all poetry. A marble relief found in Italy but thought to have been sculpted in Egypt depicts the apotheosis of Homer. It shows Ptolemy and his wife or sister Arsinoe III standing beside a seated poet flanked by figures from the Odyssey and Iliad with the nine Muses standing above them and a procession of worshippers approaching an altar believed to represent the Alexandrine Homereion. Apollo the god of music and poetry also appears along with a female figure tentatively identified as Mnemosyne the mother of the Muses. Zeus the king of the gods presides over the proceedings. The relief demonstrates vividly that the Greeks considered Homer not merely a great poet but the divinely inspired reservoir of all literature.50 Homereia also stood at Chios Ephesus and Smyrna which were among the city-states that claimed to be his birthplace. Strabo (14.1.37) records a Homeric temple in Smyrna with an ancient xoanon or cult statue of the poet. He also mentions sacrifices carried out to Homer by the inhabitants of Argos presumably at another Homereion.51 Transmission and publication Though evincing many features characteristic of oral poetry the Iliad and Odyssey were at some point committed to writing. The Greek script adapted from a Phoenician syllabary around 800 BCE made possible the notation of the complex rhythms and vowel clusters that make up hexameter verse. Homer's poems appear to have been recorded shortly after the alphabet's invention: an inscription from Ischia in the Bay of Naples ca. 740 BCE appears to refer to a text of the Iliad; likewise illustrations seemingly inspired by the Polyphemus episode in the Odyssey are found on Samos Mykonos and in Italy dating from the first quarter of the seventh century BCE. We have little information about the early condition of the Homeric poems but in the second century BCE Alexandrian editors stabilized this text from which all modern texts descend. In late antiquity knowledge of Greek declined in Latin-speaking western Europe and along with it knowledge of Homer's poems. It was not until the fifteenth century AD that Homer's work began to be read once more in Italy. By contrast it was continually read and taught in the Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire where the majority of the classics also survived. The first printed edition appeared in 1488. See also Poetry portal Literature portal Topics Achaeans (Homer) Achilles Aoidos Ancient accounts of Homer Aristarchus of Samothrace Bibliomancy Catalogue of Ships Cyclic Poets Dactylic hexameter Deception of Zeus Epic Cycle Epic poetry Epithets in Homer Geography of the Odyssey Greek mythology Homeric Greek Homeric nod Homeric Question Homeric scholarship Homer's Ithaca Hector Historicity of the Iliad Ithaca Life of Homer (Pseudo-Herodotus) List of characters in the Iliad Odysseus Peisistratos (Athens) Rhapsode Shield of Achilles Sortes Homerica Tabula Iliaca "Telemachy" Trojan Battle Order Trojan War Trojan War in art and literature Troy Troy VII Venetus A Manuscript Zenodotus of Ephesus Modern scholars Richard Bentley Ioannis Kakridis Adolf Kirchhoff Geoffrey Kirk Karl Lachmann Walter Leaf Albert Lord David Binning Monro Karl Otfried Mller Gilbert Murray Gregory Nagy Gregor Wilhelm Nitzsch Milman Parry Barry B. Powell Heinrich Schliemann William Bedell Stanford Jean-Baptiste Gaspard d'Ansse de Villoison Alan Wace Martin Litchfield West Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff Friedrich August Wolf Notes Herodotus 2.53. Graziosi Barbara (2002). The Invention of Homer. Cambridge. pp. 98101.  Vidal-Naquet Pierre (2000). Le monde d'Homre. Perrin. p. 19.  M. L. West (1966). Hesiod's Theogony. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 40 46. ISBN 058534339X.  Nagy Gregory (2001). Homeric Poetry and Problems of Multiformity: The "Panathenaic Bottleneck. 96. Classical Philology (journal). pp. 109119.  G. S. Kirk's comment that "Antiquity knew nothing definite about the life and personality of Homer" represents the consensus (Kirk The Iliad: a Commentary (Cambridge 1985) v. 1). West Martin (1999). "The Invention of Homer". Classical Quarterly 49 (364).  Heubeck Alfred; West Stephanie; Hainsworth J. B. (1988). A Commentary on Homer's Odyssey. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 3. ISBN 0198140479.  Silk Michael (1987). Homer: The Iliad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 5. ISBN 0521832330.  Lucian Verae Historiae 2.20 cited and tr.Barbara GraziosiInventing Homer:The Early Reception of Epic Cambridge University Press 2002 p.127 Parke Herbert W. (1967). Greek Oracles. pp. 136137 citing the Certamen 12. ISBN 0090841115.  There were seven in addition to an account of a bardic competition between Homer and Hesiod.F.Stoessl'Homeros'in Der Kleine Pauly: Lexikon der Antike in fnf Bnden Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag Mnchen 1979 Bd.2 p.1202 a b Kirk G.S. (1965). Homer and the Epic: A Shortened Version of the Songs of Homer. London: Cambridge University Press. pp. 190. ISBN 0521093562.  Homren was one of the names for a month in the calendar of Ios. H.G. Liddell R. Scott A Greek-English Lexicon rev. ed. Sir Henry Stuart-Jones Clarendon Press Oxford 1968 ad loc Barry B. Powell Did Homer sing at Lefkandi Electronic Antiquity July 1993 Vol. 1 No. 2. Gilbert Murray The Rise of the Greek Epic p.307 "The probability is that 'Homer' was not the name of a historical Greek poet but is the imaginary ancestor of the Homeridai; such guild-names in -idai and -adai are not normally based on the name of an historical person". M.L. West The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth Clarendon Press Oxford 1997 p. 622. West conjectures a Phoenician prototype for Homer's name "*ben merm" ("sons of speakers") id est professional tale-tellers. "Troja und Ilion" and "Alt-Ithaka: Ein Beitrag zur Homer-Frage Studien und Ausgrabungen aus der insel Leukas-Ithaka" The Historical Library of Diodorus Siculus Book I ch.VI. P. Chantraine dictionnaire tymologique de la langue grecque Klincksieck Paris 1968 vol.2 (3-4) p.797 ad loc. H.G.Liddell R.Scott A Greek-English Lexicon rev. ed. Sir Henry Stuart-Jones Clarendon Press Oxford 1968 ad loc. Pseudo-Herodotus Vita Homeri1.3 in Thomas W. Allen Homeri Opera Tomus V(1912) 1946 p.194. Cf. Lycophron Alexandra l.422 Homeric Hymns 3:172-3 Thucidides The Peloponnesian War 3:104 Barbara GraziosiInventing Homer: The Early Reception of Epic Cambridge University Press 2002 p.133 Odyssey 8:64ff. Gregory Nagy The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore and London 1979 pp296-300 M.L. West (ed.) Hesiod TheogonyClarendon Press Oxford 1966 on line 39 p.170 Gilbert Murray The Rise of the Greek Epic ibid. p. Filippo Cssola (ed.) Inni Omerici Mondadori Milan 1975 p. xxxiii Marcello Durante 'II nome di Omero' in Rendiconti Accademia Lincei XII 1957 pp. 94-111 Marcello Durante Sulla preistoria della tradizione poetica grecaEdizioni dell'Ateneo Rome 1971 2 vols. vol. 2 pp. 185-204 esp. pp. 194ff. Iliad 2.595 Hesiod Works and Days 654-5; Martin P. Nilsson Homer & Mycenae(12933) University of Pennsylvania Press 1972 pp. 207ff. Joachim Latacz Homer: His Art and His World tr. James P. Holoka University of Michigan Press Ann Arbor 1996 p. 29 Barbara Graziosi ibid. esp. p.134 Gilbert Murray The Rise of the Greek Epic' 4th ed. ibid. p. 93 William G. Thalman Conventions of Form and Thought in Early Greek Greek Epic Poetry Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore and London 1984 p. 119 Gilbert Murray: The Rise of the Greek Epic 4th ed. 1934 Oxford University Press reprint 1967 p. 299 Yorku.ca Worldwideschool.org Butler Sam (1897) The authoress of the Odyssey : where and when she wrote who she was the use she made of the Iliad and how the poem grew under her hands London : Longmans Green Mary Ebbott "Butler's Authoress of the Odyssey: gendered readings of Homer then and now" (Classics@: Issue 3). a b Adam Parry (ed.) The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers of Milman Parry Clarendon Press Oxford 1987. "Signs of Meaning" Science 324 p 38 3-April-2009 reviewing Powell's Writing and citing Powell's Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet CUP 1991 Aristotle Poetics 1451a 16-29. Cf. Aristotle "On the Art of Poetry" in T.S. Dorsch (tr.) Aristotle Horace Longinus: Classical Literary Criticism Penguin Harmondsworth 1965 ch. 8 pp. 42-43 Matthew Arnold 'On Translating Homer' (Oxford Lecture 1861) in Lionel Trilling (ed.) The Portable Matthew Arnold(1949) Viking Press New York 1956 pp. 204-228 p. 211 Dante has Virgil introduce Homer with a sword in hand as poeta sovrano (sovereign poet) walking ahead of Horace Ovid and Lucan. Cf. Inferno IV 88 Gilbert Murray The Rise of the Greek Epic Clarendon Press Oxford 1907 pp. 182f. slightly expanded in the 4th. ed.(1934) 1960 pp. 206ff. Morgan Llewelyn 1999. Patterns of Redemption in Virgil's Georgics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) p. 30. Zanker Paul 1996. The Mask of Socrates: The Image of the Intellectual in Antiquity Alan Shapiro trans. (Berkeley: University of California Press). Selected bibliography Editions (texts in Homeric Greek) Demetrius Chalcondyles editio princeps Florence 1488 the Aldine editions (1504 and 1517) Th. Ridel Strassbourg ca. 1572 1588 and 1592. Wolf (Halle 17941795; Leipzig 1804 1807) Spitzner (Gotha 18321836) Bekker (Berlin 1843; Bonn 1858) La Roche (Odyssey 18671868; Iliad 18731876 both at Leipzig) Ludwich (Odyssey Leipzig 18891891; Iliad 2 vols. 1901 and 1907) W. Leaf (Iliad London 18861888; 2nd ed. 1900-1902) W. Walter Merry and James Riddell (Odyssey i.-xii. 2nd ed. Oxford 1886) Monro (Odyssey xiii.-xxiv. with appendices Oxford 1901) Monro and Allen (Iliad) and Allen (Odyssey 1908 Oxford). D.B. Monro and T.W. Allen 1917-1920 Homeri Opera (5 volumes: Iliad 3rd edition Odyssey 2nd edition) Oxford. ISBN 0-19-814528-4 ISBN 0-19-814529-2 ISBN 0-19-814531-4 ISBN 0-19-814532-2 ISBN 0-19-814534-9 H. van Thiel 1991 Homeri Odyssea Hildesheim. ISBN 3-487-09458-4 1996 Homeri Ilias Hildesheim. ISBN 3-487-09459-2 M.L. West 1998-2000 Homeri Ilias (2 volumes) Munich/Leipzig. ISBN 3-598-71431-9 ISBN 3-598-71435-1 P. von der Mhll 1993 Homeri Odyssea Munich/Leipzig. ISBN 3-598-71432-7 Ilias in Wikisource Interlinear translations The Iliad of Homer a Parsed Interlinear Handheldclassics.com (2008) Text ISBN 978-1607252986 English translations Main article: English Translations of Homer This is a partial list of translations into English of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. Augustus Taber Murray (18661940) Homer: Iliad 2 vols. revised by William F. Wyatt Loeb Classical Library Harvard University Press (1999). Homer: Odyssey 2 vols. revised by George E. Dimock Loeb Classical Library Harvard University Press (1995). Robert Fitzgerald (19101985) The Iliad Farrar Straus and Giroux (2004) ISBN 0-374-52905-1 The Odyssey Farrar Straus and Giroux (1998) ISBN 0-374-52574-9 Robert Fagles (19332008) The Iliad Penguin Classics (1998) ISBN 0-14-027536-3 The Odyssey Penguin Classics (1999) ISBN 0-14-026886-3 Stanley Lombardo (b. 1943) Iliad Hackett Publishing Company (1997) ISBN 0-87220-352-2 Odyssey Hackett Publishing Company (2000) ISBN 0-87220-484-7 Iliad (Audiobook) Parmenides (2006) ISBN 1-930972-08-3 Odyssey (Audiobook) Parmenides (2006) ISBN 1-930972-06-7 The Essential Homer (Audiobook) Parmenides (2006) ISBN 1-930972-12-1 The Essential Iliad (Audiobook) Parmenides (2006) ISBN 1-930972-10-5 Samuel Butler (novelist) (18351902) The Iliad Red and Black Publishers (2008) ISBN 978-1-934941-04-1 The Odyssey Red and Black Publishers (2008) ISBN 978-1-934941-05-8 Herbert Jordan (b. 1938) "Iliad" University of Oklahoma Press (2008) ISBN 9780806139746 (soft cover); ISBN 9780806139425 (cloth bound) General works on Homer Pierre Carlier Homre Fayard 1999. ISBN 2-213-60381-2 Pierre Vidal-Naquet Le monde d'Homre Perrin 2000. ISBN 2-262-01181-8 Jacqueline de Romilly Homre Presses Universitaire de France 5th ed. 2005. ISBN 2-13-054830-X J. Latacz 2004 Troy and Homer: Towards a Solution of an Old Mystery Oxford ISBN 0-19-926308-6; 5th updated and expanded edition Leipzig 2005 (in Spanish 2003 ISBN 84-233-3487-2 modern Greek 2005 ISBN 960-16-1557-1) Robert Fowler (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Homer Cambridge University Press Cambridge 2004. ISBN 0-521-01246-5 I. Morris and B. B. Powell 1997 A New Companion to Homer Leiden. ISBN 90-04-09989-1 B. B. Powell 2007 "Homer" 2nd edition. Oxford. ISBN 978-1-4051-5325-5 Wace A.J.B.; F.H. Stubbings (1962). A Companion to Homer. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-07113-1.  Influential readings and interpretations E. Auerbach 1953 Mimesis Princeton (orig. publ. in German 1946 Bern) chapter 1. ISBN 0-691-11336-X M.W. Edwards 1987 Homer Poet of the Iliad Baltimore. ISBN 0-8018-3329-9 B. Fenik 1974 Studies in the Odyssey Wiesbaden ('Hermes' Einzelschriften 30). M.I. Finley The World of Odysseus 1954 rev. ed. 1978. I.J.F. de Jong 1987 Narrators and Focalizers Amsterdam/Bristol. ISBN 1-85399-658-0 G. Nagy 1980 "The Best of the Achaeans" Baltimore. ISBN 978-0801860157 Commentaries Iliad: P.V. Jones (ed.) 2003 Homer's Iliad. A Commentary on Three Translations London. ISBN 1-85399-657-2 G. S. Kirk (gen. ed.) 1985-1993 The Iliad: A Commentary (6 volumes) Cambridge. ISBN 0-521-28171-7 ISBN 0-521-28172-5 ISBN 0-521-28173-3 ISBN 0-521-28174-1 ISBN 0-521-31208-6 ISBN 0-521-31209-4 J. Latacz (gen. ed.) 2002- Homers Ilias. Gesamtkommentar. Auf der Grundlage der Ausgabe von Ameis-Hentze-Cauer (18681913) (6 volumes published so far of an estimated 15) Munich/Leipzig. ISBN 3-598-74307-6 ISBN 3-598-74304-1 N. Postlethwaite (ed.) 2000 Homer's Iliad: A Commentary on the Translation of Richmond Lattimore Exeter. ISBN 0-85989-684-6 M.W. Willcock (ed.) 1976 A Companion to the Iliad Chicago. ISBN 0-226-89855-5 Odyssey: A. Heubeck (gen. ed.) 1990-1993 A Commentary on Homer's Odyssey (3 volumes; orig. publ. 1981-1987 in Italian) Oxford. ISBN 0-19-814747-3 ISBN 0-19-872144-7 ISBN 0-19-814953-0 P. Jones (ed.) 1988 Homer's Odyssey: A Commentary based on the English Translation of Richmond Lattimore Bristol. ISBN 1-85399-038-8 I.J.F. de Jong (ed.) 2001 A Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey Cambridge. ISBN 0-521-46844-2 Trends in Homeric scholarship "Classical" analysis A. Heubeck 1974 Die homerische Frage Darmstadt. ISBN 3-534-03864-9 R. Merkelbach 1969 Untersuchungen zur Odyssee (2nd edition) Munich. ISBN 3-406-03242-7 D. Page 1955 The Homeric Odyssey Oxford. U. von Wilamowitz-Mllendorff 1916 Die Ilias und Homer Berlin. F.A. Wolf 1795 Prolegomena ad Homerum Halle. Published in English translation 1988 Princeton. ISBN 0-691-10247-3 Neoanalysis M.E. Clark 1986 "Neoanalysis: a bibliographical review" Classical World 79.6: 379-94. J. Griffin 1977 "The epic cycle and the uniqueness of Homer" Journal of Hellenic Studies 97: 39-53. J.T. Kakridis 1949 Homeric Researches London. ISBN 0-8240-7757-1 W. Kullmann 1960 Die Quellen der Ilias (Troischer Sagenkreis) Wiesbaden. ISBN 3-515-00235-9 Homer and oral tradition E. Bakker 1997 Poetry in Speech: Orality and Homeric Discourse Ithaca NY. ISBN 0-8014-3295-2 J.M. Foley 1999 Homer's Traditional Art University Park PA. ISBN 0-271-01870-4 G.S. Kirk 1976 Homer and the Oral Tradition Cambridge. ISBN 0-521-21309-6 A.B. Lord 1960 The Singer of Tales Cambridge MA. ISBN 0-674-00283-0 M. Parry 1971 The Making of Homeric Verse Oxford. ISBN 0-19-520560-X B. B. Powell 1991 Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet ISBN 0-521-58907-X Dating the Homeric poems R. Janko 1982 Homer Hesiod and the Hymns Cambridge. ISBN 0-521-23869-2 External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Homer Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Homeros Wikisource has original works written by or about: Homer Iliad by Homer Works by Homer at Project Gutenberg. Works by or about Homer in libraries (WorldCat catalog) Iliad bilingual edition bks 1-12 at archive.org Collection of Homer-related links Greek lessons based on Homer Clyde Pharr Homer and the study of Greek Homer SORGLL: Homer Iliad Bk I 1-52; read by Stephen Daitz Racing Odysseus: A College President Becomes a Freshman Again A former college president attended St. John's College and wrote a memoir about his experience reading Homer rowing Crew and examining the importance of a liberal arts education in todays society. Heath Malcolm (May 4 2001). "Aristotle's Poetics: Notes on Homer's Iliad and Odyssey". http://www.leeds.ac.uk/classics/resources/poetics/poet-hom.htm. Retrieved 2008-10-01  Translation issues: Iliad translator Herbert Jordan (U. of Oklahoma Press 2008) describes translation issues including: how literal should it be; whether to call the besiegers Achaeans Argives Danaans or Greeks; howand whetherto translate "winged words"; what the wall by the ships looked like; whether the besiegers slept in tents huts campsor nothing. Authority control: LCCN: n78095639 v d eAncient Greece Outline       Timeline Periods Cycladic civilization  Minoan civilization  Mycenaean civilization  Greek Dark Ages  Archaic period  Classical Greece  Hellenistic Greece  Roman Greece Geography Aegean Sea  Hellespont  Macedonia  Sparta  Athens  Corinth  Thebes  Thermopylae  Ionian Sea  Ionia  Aeolis  Doris  Antioch  Alexandria  Pergamon  Miletus  Ephesus  Delphi  Delos   Olympia  Troy  Rhodes  Crete  Peloponnesus  Epirus  Cyprus  Pontus  Magna Graecia  Ancient Greek Colonies Politics Apella  Ecclesia  Heliaia  Boule  Agora  Graph paranmn  Areopagus  League of Corinth  Diadochi Rulers Kings of Sparta  Kings of Athens  Archons of Athens  Kings of Macedon  Kings of Pontus  Kings of Paionia  Roman Emperors  Kings of Kommagene  Kings of Lydia  Attalid Kings of Pergamon  Diadochi   Kings of Argos  Tyrants of Syracuse Life Agriculture  Clothing  Cuisine  Democracy  Economy  Education  Festivals  Homosexuality  Law  Marriage  Mourning ritual  Olympic Games  Pederasty  Philosophy  Prostitution  Religion  Slavery  Warfare  Wine Military Wars  Army of Macedon  Antigonid Macedonian army  Pezhetairoi  Hoplite  Seleucid army  Hellenistic armies  Phalanx formation  Peltast  Sarissa  Xyston  Sacred Band of Thebes People Philosophers Anaxagoras  Anaximander  Anaximenes  Antisthenes  Aristotle  Democritus  Diotima of Mantinea  Diogenes of Sinope  Epicurus  Empedocles  Heraclitus  Hypatia  Leucippus  Gorgias  Parmenides  Plato  Protagoras  Pythagoras  Socrates  Thales  Themistoclea  Zeno Authors Aeschylus  Aesop  Aristophanes  Euripides  Herodotus  Hesiod  Homer  Lucian  Menander  Pindar  Plutarch  Polybius  Sappho  Sophocles  Thucydides  Xenophon Others Alexander the Great  Alcibiades  Archimedes  Aspasia  Demosthenes  Euclid  Hipparchus  Hippocrates  Leonidas  Lycurgus  Milo of Croton  Pericles  Ptolemy  Solon  Themistocles Buildings Parthenon  Temple of Artemis  Acropolis  Ancient Agora  Temple of Zeus at Olympia  Temple of Hephaestus  Samothrace temple complex Arts Architecture  Coinage  Literature  Music  Pottery  Sculpture  Theatre Sciences Astronomy  Mathematics  Medicine  Technology Language Proto-Greek  Mycenaean  Homeric  Dialects (Aeolic  Arcadocypriot  Attic  Doric  Ionic  Locrian  Macedonian  Pamphylian)  Koine Writing Linear A  Linear B  Greek alphabet Lists Ancient Greek tribes  Greeks  Thracian Greeks  Cities in Epirus  Ancient Macedonians  Playwrights  Theatres  Poets  Tyrants  Philosophers  Cities  Mythological figures  Place names Portal Persondata Name Homer Alternative names Short description Author Date of birth ca. 8th century BC Place of birth Date of death Place of death