Greek oral tradition - stories passed on by word of mouth
Homer lived at the end of the Greek Dark Ages
He composed stories of the Trojan War c. 750 - 700 BCE
- the lliad - probably one of the last conquests of the Mycenaeans (the Trojan War)
- The Odyssey - Odysseus attempt to return home, being thwarted by the angry god of the sea, Poseidon
the Odyssey was 12,110 lines of dactylic hexameter
Did Homer actually exist?
- the "Homeric question" - Homer may have been a mythical creation himself
- a blind wandering minstrel; an heroic figure
- lliad and Odyssey may be the culmination of many generations of storytelling
- or Homer actually existed.
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