Homer

Martin Mueller (Northwestern University)
Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error

Homer is the name for the putative author(s) of the poems known since antiquity as the Iliad and Odyssey. The 16,000 lines of the former and 12,000 lines of the latter make up the bulk of Early Greek epic, which also includes about 2,000 lines of Hesiod as well as another 2,500 lines of Homeric Hymns (not by Homer), and a narrative poem called

The Shield of Herakles

.

The texts

The texts

The Iliad and Odyssey have been transmitted with exceptional fidelity since the second century BCE. The many papyrus fragments since that period show that texts had pretty much the same lines in the same order, and the manuscript tradition of Homer shows less internal variance than the texts of Shakespeare. Before the second century BCE textual variance was much greater. We know this from papyrus fragments

7164 words

Citation: Mueller, Martin. "Homer". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 November 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2190, accessed 29 March 2024.]

2190 Homer 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.