Homer – ancient poet

Homer was a legendary ancient Greek poet, narrator, author of epic poems The Iliad (ancient monument of European literature) and The Odyssey. These long poems tell of historic events and heroic deeds during and after the Trojan War in ancient Greece. They have been translated into many languages. People all over the world still read them today.
Approximately half of the Greek literary papyri are passages from Homer.
Almost nothing is known about life and personality of Homer.
It is clear that the Iliad and Odyssey were created much later described events, but before the VI century BC, when their existence was recorded. According to Herodotus, Homer lived 400 years before him and other ancient sources say that he lived in the time of the Trojan War.

Traditionally Homer portrayed blind.
Many scholars today believe that the stories were written by more than one person. The Iliad and the Odyssey belong to different literary types. The Iliad is essentially dramatic in its confrontation of opposing warriors who converse like the actors in Attic tragedy, while the Odyssey is cast as a novel narrated in more everyday human speech. Both epics were created without recourse to writing.

The Iliad dates to the second half of the 8th century BCE and is the oldest written literature in the West that has come down to us.
Later Greek times credited Homer with the composition of a group of comparatively short ‘‘hymns’’ addressed to various gods.
Established at the end of the classical era system of education in ancient Greece was based on a study of the Homeric poems.
Dante Alighieri put Homer in the first circle of Hell as a virtuous non-Christian.

Homer – ancient poet