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Homer

Genre

Poetry, Historical Fiction, History

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Homer (Greek: Όμηρος born c. 8th century BC) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the most revered and influential authors in history.
Homer's Iliad centers on a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles during the last year of the Trojan War. The Odyssey chronicles the ten-year journey of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, back to his home after the fall of Troy. The poems are in Homeric Greek, also known as Epic Greek, a literary language which shows a mixture of features of the Ionic and Aeolic dialects from different centuries; the predominant influence is Eastern Ionic. Most researchers believe Homer (Greek: Όμηρος born c. 8th century BC) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the most revered and influential authors in history.
Homer's Iliad centers on a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles during the last year of the Trojan War. The Odyssey chronicles the ten-year journey of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, back to his home after the fall of Troy. The poems are in Homeric Greek, also known as Epic Greek, a literary language which shows a mixture of features of the Ionic and Aeolic dialects from different centuries; the predominant influence is Eastern Ionic. Most researchers believe that the poems were originally transmitted orally. Despite being predominantly known for its tragic and serious themes, the Homeric poems also contain instances of comedy and laughter.
Homer's epic poems shaped aspects of ancient Greek culture and education, fostering ideals of heroism, glory, and honor. To Plato, Homer was simply the one who "has taught Greece" (τὴν Ἑλλάδα πεπαίδευκεν). In Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, Virgil refers to Homer as "Poet sovereign", king of all poets; in the preface to his translation of the Iliad, Alexander Pope acknowledges that Homer has always been considered the "greatest of poets". From antiquity to the present day, Homeric epics have inspired many famous works of literature, music, art, and film.
The question of by whom, when, where and under what circumstances the Iliad and Odyssey were composed continues to be debated. Scholars remain divided as to whether the two works are the product of a single author. It is thought that the poems were composed at some point around the late eighth or early seventh century BC. Many accounts of Homer's life circulated in classical antiquity; the most widespread account was that he was a blind bard from Ionia, a region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey. Modern scholars consider these accounts legendary.

French: Homère, Italian: Omero, Portuguese, Spanish: Homero. ...more

Combine Editions
Homer’s books

Average rating: 3.88 · 1,875,353 ratings · 51,495 reviews · 5,097 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Odyssey 3.84 avg rating — 1,219,540 ratings — published -700 — 1345 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Iliad by Homer, Emily Wilson (Translator) 3.93 avg rating — 521,217 ratings — published -800 — 5444 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Iliad / The Odyssey by Homer, Robert Fagles (Translator), Bernard Knox (Introduction) 4.07 avg rating — 85,060 ratings — published -800 — 818 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Homeric Hymns 4.05 avg rating — 6,729 ratings — published -699 — 162 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Iliad by Homer, William B. Jones Jr. (Introduction) 3.85 avg rating — 4,375 ratings — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Odyssey I–XII 4.12 avg rating — 1,770 ratings — published -700 — 235 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Iliad, Books 1–12 (Loeb Classical Library, #170) by Homer, Augustus Taber Murray (Translator), William F. Wyatt Jr. (Translator) 4.49 avg rating — 1,280 ratings — published -800 — 165 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Illiad 3.93 avg rating — 1,450 ratings — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Circe and the Cyclops 3.74 avg rating — 1,458 ratings — published -850 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Iliad/The Odyssey/The Aeneid by Homer, Virgil, Bernard Knox (Editor) 4.37 avg rating — 1,140 ratings — published 600	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Homer…

Series by Homer

The Iliad by Homer (2 books)
by

Homer,

Augustus Taber Murray (Translator),

David B. Monro (Editors, Introduction)

4.51 avg rating — 2,283 ratings

Ulisses (3 books)
by

Homer,

Sebastien Ferran (Adapted by)

4.21 avg rating — 34 ratings

Good news, book nerds! And movie nerds! And TV nerds! It’s time once again for our regular roundup of new and upcoming book-to-screen...

Polls

September 2017 Revisit the Shelf Poll

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., 275 pages, 1969

46 votes, 14.0%

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, 329 pages, 1856

45 votes, 13.7%

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, 393 pages, 1938

38 votes, 11.6%

The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 422 pages, 1922

27 votes, 8.2%

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, 1037 pages, 1936

23 votes, 7.0%

The Odyssey by Homer, 541 pages, -800

23 votes, 7.0%

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, 496 pages, 1943

20 votes, 6.1%

Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, 518 pages, 1891

20 votes, 6.1%

Middlemarch by George Eliot, 904 pages, 1871

16 votes, 4.9%

Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier, 320 pages, 1925

16 votes, 4.9%

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, 945 pages, 1985

15 votes, 4.6%

Heidi by Johanna Spyri, 352 pages, 1880

14 votes, 4.3%

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, 672 pages, 1859

14 votes, 4.3%

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, 320 pages, 1984

12 votes, 3.6%

329 total votes

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