Homer’s two great epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, are often described as the earliest literature, the ‘primary source’ from which all European literature derives, the ‘gateway’ to new avenues of thought. Between them they contain around 28,000 lines and preceding their appearance and for hundreds of years following them, ‘there is nothing remotely resembling these amazing achievements’. Homer’s genius was recognised in Greece from the very beginning. Athenians referred to his books the way devout Christians nowadays refer to the Bible, or Muslims to the Qur’an. Socrates quoted lines from the
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