CLASSIC 45B Lecture 11: Introduction to Homer and the Odyssey
Document Summary
Name given to the author of the iliad and odyssey. According to tradition, a blind bard (from the island) of chios, or the city of smyrna in asia minor?) Idea of blind poet (romantic ideas about a poet who sees beyond physical reality and is able to bring to our eyes great stories) Other places in competition as birthplaces of homer. Date of composition of the poems: 8th-7th century bce-archaic greece. Re-thinking our notions of authorship and literature. Antiquity: peisistratus edition of the poem (6th century bce), and alexandrian scholarship (3rd-2nd century bce), scholia (commentaries) How our notions of homeric poetry as oral poetry began: comparative work of milman parry and albert lord. Understanding the terms epic and poetry in the context of early. External form and rhythm as frames for composing poetry. Interlacing of the two (glory and homecoming) narrated in an epic. Stories of heroes returning home from the war. Those poems don"t survive except in summary forms.
