Homer
(fl.c. 850? BC)
In collections: GBWW, HTR
Works
About
Resources
Acknowledged works
Attributed works not considered authentic
  • Batrachomyomachia ("The Frog-Mouse War")
  • The Capture of Oechalia
  • The Contest of Homer and Hesiod
  • The Cypria
  • The Epigoni
  • Homeric Hymns
  • The Little Iliad
  • The Margites
  • The Nostoi
  • The Phocais
  • The Thebaid

      Homer was the greatest of the ancient Greek poets, the author of two great works that are foundational to the whole western canon of literature, and Plato even called him the "educator of all Greece". Wouldn't you think, with that kind of résumé, that we would know a fair bit about the man?

      Nope. Not even close.

      In truth, we know next to nothing about Homer himself - not when he lived (guesses range from 750BC all the way back to 1200BC), not where he came from (seven cities claim him as a native son, and none of those claims can be disproven), not even something so basic as whether or not he actually existed as a single individual. Everything we think we know is extrapolated from analysis of the Iliad and Odyssey and from the handful of things written about him in antiquity.

Homer's works appear in these reading lists / collections:
  • Great Books of the Western World
  • Harvard Classics
  • How to Read a Book
  • Great Books Foundation Adult Discussion Series
Online references about Homer:
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