Full Name: Homer
Birth Date: c. 800 BCE
Death Date: c. 701 BCE
Birthplace: Greece
Occupation: Poet
Religion: Polytheism
Zodiac sign: Cancer
Homer is the name given to the man credited with composing The Iliad and The Odyssey, great Greek poems that are the earliest surviving example of European literature. Almost nothing is known about Homer, including whether he truly existed, but the ancient Greeks in the centuries that followed the poems’ composition considered him a distinct individual and depicted him as a sculptor.
Early Life:
Homer was born on the coast of Asia Minor sometime between the 12th and 8th centuries BC. It is not known whether he was literate or composed the poems orally while others wrote them down. Homer’s poems The Iliad and The Odyssey had a vast effect on western culture. Although, it is slightly known that the Iliad is not entirely the original composition.
Writing Technique:
Many of scholars are convinced that the two epic poems were written by the same person, Homer. These are written in hexameter verse and reveal structural, stylistic, and dramatic harmony.
The narratives are characterized by swift description, straightforward storytelling, generous use of smiles, and such oft-repeated epithets. Homer includes a reverence for lineage and the heroic code, destiny, and fate, and the role therein of the gods, who guide arrows, brings false dreams, and directly or indirectly influence human life. These masterpieces influenced almost all Greek poetry and Western literature.
The Iliad by Homer:
Achilles is one of the main characters of the epic The Iliad. He plays a vital role in the epic and took part the in the Trojan War on the side of the Greeks. Homer begins his epic with the wrath of Achilles.
In The Iliad, the gods and goddesses quarrel like human beings and take part in fighting directly. Homeric gods are immortals, but they are subject to undergo suffering.
Achilles was the son of Peleus and the sea goddesses Thetis. Helen was the daughter of Zeus by Leda who was reputed to be the most beautiful woman in the ancient world. Helen left her husband, Menelaus, to get away with Paris. She loathes herself now for the misery that she has caused so many Trojan and Achaean men.