Homer biography briefly the most important. Homer - biography, facts from life, photographs, background information

HOMER, the first of the Greek poets whose works have come down to us, and generally acknowledged to be one of the greatest European poets. We do not have any reliable information about him and his life.

Many cities laid claim to the right to be called the poet’s homeland, among them Smyrna and Chios in Asia Minor. In the same way, ancient chronographs differ in the dates of Homer’s life: some make him contemporary with the Trojan War (early 12th century BC), but Herodotus believed that Homer lived in the mid-9th century. BC Modern scholars tend to attribute his activities to the 8th or even 7th century. BC, indicating Chios or some other region of Ionia on the coast of Asia Minor as his main place of residence. In ancient times, Homer, in addition to the Iliad and Odyssey, was credited with the authorship of other poems (fragments from some of them have survived), but modern researchers usually believe that their authors lived later than Homer.

Nothing is known for certain about the life and personality of Homer.

It is clear, however, that the Iliad and Odyssey were created much later than the events described in them, but earlier than the 6th century BC. e., when their existence was reliably recorded. Thus, the chronological period in which Homer’s life could be localized is from the 12th to the 7th century BC. e., but the most likely date is the latest.

Homer's birthplace is unknown. Seven cities fought for the right to be called his homeland: Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Salamis, Rhodes, Argos, Athens. Probably, the Iliad and Odyssey were composed on the Asia Minor coast of Greece, inhabited by Ionian tribes, or on one of the adjacent islands. However, the Homeric dialect does not even provide accurate information about Homer’s tribal affiliation, since it is a combination of the Ionian and Aeolian dialects of the ancient Greek language. There is an assumption that the Homeric dialect represents one of the forms of poetic Koine, which was formed long before the estimated time of Homer’s life. Traditionally, Homer is portrayed as blind. It is most likely that this idea does not come from the real facts of Homer’s life, but is a reconstruction typical of the genre of ancient biography. Since many outstanding legendary soothsayers and singers were blind (for example, Tiresias), according to the ancient logic that connected the prophetic and poetic gifts, the assumption of Homer’s blindness looked very plausible. In addition, the singer Demodocus in the Iliad is blind from birth, which could also be perceived as autobiographical. There is a legend about the poetic duel between Homer and Hesiod, described in the work “The Contest of Homer and Hesiod,” created no later than the 3rd century. BC e., and according to many researchers, much earlier. The poets allegedly met on the island of Euboea at games in honor of the deceased Amphidemus and each read their best poems. King Paned, who acted as a judge at the competition, awarded victory to Hesiod, since he calls for agriculture and peace, and not for war and massacres. However, the audience's sympathies were on Homer's side. In addition to the Iliad and the Odyssey, a number of works are attributed to Homer, undoubtedly created later: “Homeric hymns”, the comic poem “Margit”, etc. They tried to explain the meaning of the name “Homer” back in antiquity, the options “hostage” or “blind” were proposed. .

Homer - Greek Homeros, lat. Homerus, a poet who stands at the origins of Greek and, therefore, European literature, whose name is associated with the most ancient literary genre of the Greeks, the heroic epic, especially the Iliad and Odyssey. Already in ancient times, nothing reliable was known about the personality and time of Homer’s life. He was depicted as a blind old man. Of the cities that claimed the right to be considered his homeland, the claims of Smyrna in Ionian Asia Minor and the island of Chios seem to be the most justified. It is generally accepted that Homer lived around the 8th century BC. Homer is a poet of classical antiquity, but at the same time he is a great teacher-mentor and a model for all of antiquity. The “Homeric question” (the question about the author and the circumstances of the emergence of the Homeric epic) existed already in antiquity. Back in the 6th century. BC By order of Pisistratus, the texts of Homer were examined. Up to 5th century BC In addition to the Iliad and Odyssey, Homer was also credited with numerous epic poems (the so-called epic cycle Cypria, Margaret, Homeric hymns). Homer was considered the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey until the “chorizonten” (dividers) challenged his authorship of the Odyssey in the Hellenistic era. In modern times, F. A. Wolf in his “Prolegomena ad Homerum” (1795) again raised this question. Between scholars who divided the epic into separate songs (Lachman's song theory) and Unitarians who defended the strict unity of the epic stood scholars who accepted later interpolations, expansions and compilations of several minor epics, or considered Homer only as the editor of the epic. State modern research allows us to consider Homer the author of the Iliad. He used more ancient songs, drawing on epic traditions and acting according to a single plan. These songs, heroic tales and small epics are an oral preliminary stage that leads into the world of the 2nd millennium to the early Greek tribes that penetrated the Mediterranean. The question of to what extent the Cretan-Mycenaean culture is reflected in the Iliad again became controversial after an attempt was made to decipher Linear B. The songs were performed by wandering rhapsodists at meals of the noble society (nobility). Whether these rhapsodes had at least partially written texts is controversial, as is the question of the written text of Homer's epic. The use of the B. letter is considered very probable today, given the artistic composition of the poems. The Iliad, named after the Greek city of Ilion (Troy), depicts a 49-day period of time in 24 books, the end of the 10-year Greek struggle for Troy. Its theme is the anger of Achilles, from whom Agamemnon stole his slave Briseis, because of which Achilles refused to participate in battles. After his friend Patroclus is killed, Achilles re-enters the battle to avenge him. From his mother Thetis, Achilles receives the armor forged for him by Hephaestus (description of the shield in the 18th book) and kills Hector in battle. The epic ends with funeral games in honor of Patroclus. The Iliad reflects different eras. Numerous episodic events, along with the main actions, show heroes, often descended from the gods, in heavy battles. The gods take part in the struggle on both sides, and multiple scenes with the gods take on the character of a burlesque. What follows are small poetic additions to the Odyssey, which is apparently a later work and not Homer's. The poem probably belongs to a student of Homer (?) and was revised later. The 24 books chronicle Odysseus's 10-year journey and return to his homeland to his wife Penelope. Before returning home, Odysseus stops with the nymph Calypso. After the shipwreck, appearing before the Phaeacians, the hero talks about the events he experienced. The poem tells how Penelope, waiting for her husband to return home, cunningly delays her marriage with the suitors; her son Telemachus assists Odysseus, who has returned home unrecognized, in beating the suitors. In the epic, many stories about sea voyages are intertwined with fairy-tale motifs. Vase painting, as well as wall painting, in various variations represents numerous scenes from the “Iliad” and “Odyssey”; plastic art created an idealized portrait of the blind poet; “Iliad” and “Odyssey” are written in hexameter, their language is based on long-standing traditions artistic speech with Ionian-Aeolian elements. Distinct phrases repeated in the form of formulas probably refer to the oral initial stages preserved in the epic. Among the unattainable peaks of Homer's epic are flights of fantasy, the power of eloquence, slowing down the pace of action to create dramatic tension, in particular, art, naturalness in the depiction of life, the beauty of comparisons, testifying to the amazing observation, human participation and psychological sensitivity of the author. In the field of epic, the Iliad and the Odyssey are the highest examples of poetic works. The most widely read author for 3000 years, Homer was studied in school very early and right up to Byzantine times. Having become the standard for evaluating any poem of antiquity, Homer’s epic gave impetus to everything that followed artistic creativity. Livy Andronicus translated the Odyssey into Latin, Virgil, with his Aeneid, wanted to reach the level of the Homeric epic. In the areas of the Latin language, in the Middle Ages, and in Romanesque countries until modern times, the epic of Virgil had a greater influence than the epic of Homer. In the 18th century, under the influence of R. Wood (England), Homer was again recognized as an unsurpassed genius. From that time on, his poetry began to exert strong impact on the classics of world literature (Lessing, Herder, Goethe).

Homer is an ancient Greek poet. To date, there is no convincing evidence of the reality of the historical figure of Homer. According to ancient tradition, it was customary to imagine Homer as a blind wandering singer-aed; seven cities argued for the honor of being called his homeland. He was probably from Smyrna (Asia Minor), or from the island of Chios. It can be assumed that Homer lived around the 8th century BC.

Homer is credited with authoring two of the greatest works of ancient Greek literature, the Iliad and the Odyssey. In ancient times, Homer was recognized as the author of other works: the poem “Batrachomachia” and the collection of “Homeric hymns.” Modern science assigns only the Iliad and the Odyssey to Homer, and there is an opinion that these poems were created by different poets and at different times historical time. Even in ancient times, the “Homeric question” arose, which is now understood as a set of problems related to the origin and development of the ancient Greek epic, including the relationship between folklore and the literary creativity.

The time of creation of poems. History of the text

Biographical information about Homer given by ancient authors is contradictory and implausible. “Seven cities, arguing, are called the homeland of Homer: Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Pylos, Argos, Ithaca, Athens,” says one Greek epigram (in fact, the list of these cities was more extensive). Regarding the life of Homer, ancient scholars gave various dates, starting from the 12th century BC (after the Trojan War) and ending with the 7th century BC; There was a widespread legend about a poetic competition between Homer and Hesiod. Most researchers believe that Homer's poems were created in Asia Minor, in Ionia in the 8th century BC, based on mythological tales about the Trojan War. There is late antique evidence of the final edition of their texts under the Athenian tyrant Pisistratus in the mid-6th century BC, when their performance was included in the festivals of the Great Panathenaia.

In ancient times, Homer was credited with the comic poems “Margit” and “The War of Mice and Frogs”, a cycle of works about the Trojan War and the return of heroes to Greece: “Cypria”, “Aethiopida”, “The Lesser Iliad”, “The Capture of Ilion”, “Returns” ( so-called “cyclical poems”, only small fragments have survived). Under the name "Homeric Hymns" there was a collection of 33 hymns to the gods. A huge amount of work on collecting and clarifying the manuscripts of Homer’s poems was done in the Hellenistic era by the philologists of the Alexandria Library Aristarchus of Samothrace, Zenodotus from Ephesus, Aristophanes from Byzantium (they also divided each poem into 24 songs according to the number of letters Greek alphabet). The sophist Zoilus (4th century BC), nicknamed “the scourge of Homer” for his critical statements, became a household name. Xenon and Hellanicus, so-called. “dividing”, expressed the idea that Homer may have owned only one “Iliad”; they, however, did not doubt either the reality of Homer or the fact that each of the poems had its own author.

Homeric question

The question of the authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey was raised in 1795 by the German scientist Friedrich August Wolf in the preface to the publication of the Greek text of the poems. Wolf considered it impossible to create a large epic in an unwritten period, believing that the tales created by various aeds were written down in Athens under Peisistratus. Scientists were divided into “analysts”, followers of Wolf’s theory (German scientists K. Lachmann, A. Kirchhoff with his theory of “small epics”; G. Herman and the English historian J. Groth with their “theory of the main core”, in Russia it was shared by F . F. Zelinsky), and “unitarians”, supporters of the strict unity of the epic (Homer translator Johann Heinrich Voss and philologist G.V. Nitsch, Johann Friedrich Schiller, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in Germany, Nikolai Ivanovich Gnedich, Vasily Andreevich

Zhukovsky, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin in Russia).

Homeric poems and epics

In the 19th century, the Iliad and Odyssey were compared with the epics of the Slavs, skaldic poetry, Finnish and German epics. In the 1930s The American classical philologist Milman Perry, comparing Homer's poems with the living epic tradition that still existed at that time among the peoples of Yugoslavia, discovered in Homer's poems a reflection of the poetic technique of folk singers. The poetic formulas they created from stable combinations and epithets (“swift-footed” Achilles, “shepherd of nations” Agamemnon, “much-witted” Odysseus, “sweet-tongued” Nestor) made it possible for the narrator to “improvise” perform epic songs consisting of many thousands of verses.

The Iliad and Odyssey belong entirely to the centuries-old epic tradition, but this does not mean that oral creativity is anonymous. “Before Homer, we cannot name anyone’s poem of this kind, although, of course, there were many poets” (Aristotle). Aristotle saw the main difference between the Iliad and the Odyssey from all other epic works in the fact that Homer does not unfold his narrative gradually, but builds it around one event - the basis of the poems is the dramatic unity of action. Another feature that Aristotle also drew attention to: the character of the hero is revealed not by the author’s descriptions, but by the speeches uttered by the hero himself.

Language of poems

The language of Homer's poems - exclusively poetic, “supra-dialectal” - was never identical to living colloquial speech. It consisted of a combination of Aeolian (Boeotia, Thessaly, the island of Lesbos) and Ionian (Attica, island Greece, the coast of Asia Minor) dialect features with the preservation of an archaic system more early eras. The songs of the Iliad and Odyssey were metrically shaped by the hexameter, a poetic meter with roots in Indo-European epic, in which each verse consists of six feet with a regular alternation of long and short syllables. The unusual poetic language of the epic was emphasized by the timeless nature of events and the greatness of the images of the heroic past.

Homer and archeology

Sensational discoveries of the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in the 1870-80s. proved that Troy, Mycenae and the Achaean citadels are not a myth, but a reality. Schliemann's contemporaries were struck by the literal correspondence of a number of his findings in the fourth shaft tomb in Mycenae with the descriptions of Homer. The impression was so strong that the era of Homer became associated for a long time with the heyday of Achaean Greece in the 14th-13th centuries BC. In the poems, however, numerous archaeologically attested features of the culture of the “heroic age” can also be traced, such as the mention of iron tools and weapons or the custom of cremation of the dead.

A comparison of the evidence of the Homeric epic with archaeological data confirms the conclusions of many researchers that in its final edition it took shape in the 8th century BC. the oldest part Many researchers consider the “Catalogue of Ships” (Iliad, 2nd Canto) to be an epic. Obviously, the poems were not created at the same time: “The Iliad” reflects ideas about the person of the “heroic period”; “The Odyssey” stands, as it were, at the turn of another era - the time of the Great Greek colonization, when the boundaries of the world mastered by Greek culture expanded.

Homer in antiquity

For people of antiquity, Homer's poems were a symbol of Hellenic unity and heroism, a source of wisdom and knowledge of all aspects of life - from military art to practical morality. Homer, along with Hesiod, was considered the creator of a comprehensive and orderly mythological picture of the universe: the poets “compiled genealogies of the gods for the Hellenes, provided the names of the gods with epithets, divided virtues and occupations among them, and drew their images” (Herodotus). According to Strabo, Homer was the only poet of antiquity who knew almost everything about the ecumene, the peoples inhabiting it, their origin, way of life and culture. Thucydides, Pausanias, and Plutarch used Homer’s data as authentic and trustworthy. The father of tragedy, Aeschylus, called his dramas “crumbs from the great feasts of Homer.”

Greek children learned to read from the Iliad and the Odyssey. Homer was quoted, commented on, and explained allegorically. The Pythagorean philosophers called on the Pythagorean philosophers to correct souls by reading selected passages from Homer’s poems. Plutarch reports that Alexander the Great always carried a copy of the Iliad with him, which he kept under his pillow along with a dagger.

Translations of Homer

In the 3rd century. BC e. The Roman poet Livy Andronicus translated the Odyssey into Latin. IN medieval Europe Homer was known only through quotations and references from Latin writers and Aristotle; the poetic glory of Homer was eclipsed by the glory of Virgil. Only at the end of the 15th century. the first translations of Homer appeared in Italian(Angelo Poliziano and others). An event in European culture of the 18th century. became translations of Homer into English by Alexander Pop and into German I. G. Fossa. For the first time, fragments of the Iliad were translated into Russian into twenty-syllable syllabics - the so-called. Alexandrian - verse by Mikhail Lomonosov. At the end of the 18th century. E. Kostrov translated the first six songs of the Iliad (1787) in iambic; Prose translations of P. Ekimov’s “Iliad” and P. Sokolov’s “Odyssey” were published.

The titanic work of creating the Russian hexameter and adequately reproducing Homer’s figurative system was done by N. I. Gnedich, whose translation of the Iliad (1829) still remains unsurpassed in the accuracy of philological reading and historical interpretation. The translation of “The Odyssey” by Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky (1842-49) is distinguished by the highest artistic skill. In the 20th century, Gmer's Iliad and Odyssey were translated by the Russian writer Vikenty Vikentyevich Veresaev.

Homer is a famous ancient Greek poet, whose work not only served as a model for all ancient creators - he is considered the progenitor of European literature. Many representatives of modern generations associate ancient culture with his name, and acquaintance with world literature usually begins with the poems “Iliad” and “Odyssey”, which belonged to (or were attributed to) this legendary author. Homer is the first ancient Greek poet whose creative legacy has survived to this day, and about half of the ancient Greek papyri of literary content discovered to date are fragments of his works.

Reliable, historically confirmed data about the personality of Homer, his life path are absent, and they were unknown even in ancient times. In antiquity, 9 biographies of Homer were created, and all of them were based on legends. Not only the years of his life are unknown, but also his century. According to Herodotus, this was the 9th century. BC e. Scientists of our time call approximately the 8th century. (or 7th century) BC e. There is no exact information about the place of birth of the great poet. It is believed that he lived in one of the areas of Ionia. Legend has it that as many as seven cities - Athens, Rhodes, Smyrna, Colophon, Argon, Salamis, Chios - challenged each other for the honor of calling themselves the birthplace of Homer.

According to tradition, the great poet is portrayed as a blind old man, but scientists are of the opinion that this is the influence of the ideas of the ancient Greeks, a feature of the biographical genre. The Greeks saw the relationship between poetic talent and prophetic gift in the example of many famous personalities who were deprived of sight, and believed that Homer belonged to this glorious cohort. In addition, in the Odyssey there is such a character as the blind singer Demodocus, who was identified with the author of the work himself.

From the biography of Homer there is such an episode as a poetic competition with Hesiod on the island of Euboea. The poets read their best works at the games organized in memory of the deceased Amphidemus. Victory, according to the will of the judge, went to Hesiod, because he sang peaceful life and the labor of farmers, but legend says that the public sympathized more with Homer.

Like everything else in Homer’s biography, it is not known for certain whether the famous poems “Iliad” and “Odyssey” belonged to his pen. In science since the 18th century. there is the so-called Homeric question - this is the name of the controversy surrounding the authorship and history of writing legendary works. Be that as it may, it was they who brought the author fame for all time and entered the treasury of world literature. Both poems are based on legends and myths about the Trojan War, i.e. about the military actions of the Achaean Greeks against the inhabitants of the Asia Minor city, and represent a heroic epic - a large-scale canvas, the characters of which are both historical characters and heroes of myths.

The ancient Greeks considered these poems sacred, solemnly performed them on public holidays, they began and completed the learning process with them, seeing in them a treasury of a wide variety of knowledge, lessons of wisdom, beauty, justice and other virtues, and their author was revered almost as deity. According to the great Plato, Greece owes its spiritual development to Homer. The poetics of this master of words had a huge influence on the work of not only ancient authors, but also recognized classics of European literature living many centuries later.

There are so-called Homeric hymns, which in ancient times were attributed to the great blind man, but neither they nor other works of which Homer was called the author belong to his creative heritage.

According to Herodotus and Pausanias, death overtook Homer on the island of Ios (Cyclades archipelago).

Encyclopedic YouTube

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✪ Homer and the Homeric question (narrated by philologist Nikolai Grintser)

✪ Homer's poem "Odyssey". Video tutorial on General history 5th grade

✪ Homer's poem "Iliad". Video lesson on General History 5th grade

✪ Homer - O D I S S E YA (audiobook part 1)

Subtitles

Biography

Nothing is known for certain about the life and personality of Homer.

There is a legend about a poetic duel between Homer and Hesiod, described in the work “The Contest of Homer and Hesiod,” created no later than the 3rd century. BC e. , and according to many researchers, much earlier. The poets allegedly met on the island of Euboea at games in honor of the deceased Amphidemus and each read their best poems. King Paned, who acted as a judge at the competition, awarded victory to Hesiod, since he calls for agriculture and peace, and not for war and massacres. At the same time, the audience's sympathies were on Homer's side.

In addition to the Iliad and the Odyssey, a number of works are attributed to Homer, undoubtedly created later: “Homeric hymns” (VII-V centuries BC, considered, along with Homer, the oldest examples of Greek poetry), the comic poem “Margit”, etc. .

The meaning of the name “Homer” (it was first found in the 7th century BC, when Callinus of Ephesus called him the author of “Thebaid”) was tried to be explained back in antiquity; the options “hostage” (Hesychius), “following” (Aristotle) were proposed. or “blind” (Efor Kimsky), “but all these options are as unconvincing as modern proposals to attribute to him the meaning of “compiler” or “accompanist.”<…> This word in its Ionian form Ομηρος is almost certainly a real personal name."

Homeric question

The set of problems associated with the authorship of the Iliad and the Odyssey, their origin and fate before the moment of recording, was called the “Homeric question”. It arose in antiquity, for example, then there were claims that Homer created his epic based on the poems of the poetess Fantasia during the Trojan War.

"Analysts" and "Unitarians"

Artistic Features

One of the most important compositional features of the Iliad is the “law of chronological incompatibility” formulated by Thaddeus Frantsevich Zelinsky. It consists in the fact that “in Homer the story never returns to the point of its departure. It follows that parallel actions in Homer cannot be depicted; Homer’s poetic technique knows only a simple, linear, and not a double, square dimension.” Thus, sometimes parallel events are depicted as sequential, sometimes one of them is only mentioned or even suppressed. This explains some apparent contradictions in the text of the poem.

Researchers note the coherence of the works, the consistent development of action and the integral images of the main characters. Comparing Homer's verbal art with fine arts of that era, they often talk about the geometric style of poems. However, opposing opinions in the spirit of analyticism are also expressed about the unity of the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey.

The style of both poems can be described as formulaic. In this case, a formula is not understood as a set of clichés, but as a system of flexible (changeable) expressions that are associated with a specific metric location in a line. Thus, we can talk about a formula even when a certain phrase appears in the text only once, but it can be shown that it was part of this system. In addition to the actual formulas, there are repeated fragments of several lines. For example, when one character retells the speeches of another, the text can be reproduced again in full or almost verbatim.

Homer is characterized by compound epithets (“swift-footed,” “rose-fingered,” “thunderer”); the meaning of these and other epithets should be considered not situationally, but within the framework of the traditional formulaic system. Thus, the Achaeans are “lush-legged” even if they are not described in armor, and Achilles is “swift-footed” even when resting.

Historical basis of Homer's poems

In the middle of the 19th century, the prevailing opinion in science was that the Iliad and Odyssey were unhistorical. However, Heinrich Schliemann's excavations at Hisarlik Hill and Mycenae showed that this was not true. Later, Hittite and Egyptian documents were discovered, which reveal certain parallels with the events of the legendary Trojan War. The decipherment of the Mycenaean syllabary writing (Linear letter B) provided a lot of information about life in the era when the Iliad and Odyssey took place, although no literary fragments in this writing were found. However, the data from Homer's poems relate in a complex way to the available archaeological and documentary sources and cannot be used uncritically: the data from the “oral theory” indicate the very large distortions that must arise with historical data in traditions of this kind.

According to modern opinion, the world of Homer’s poems reflects a realistic picture of life in recent times during the ancient Greek “dark ages”.

Homer in world culture

The influence of Homer's poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey" on the ancient Greeks is compared with the Bible for the Jews.

In the post-classical era, large hexametric poems were created in the Homeric dialect in imitation or as competition with the Iliad and Odyssey. Among them are “Argonautica” by Apollonius of Rhodes, “Post-Homeric Events” by Quintus of Smyrna and “The Adventures of Dionysus” by Nonnus of Panopolitanus. Other Hellenistic poets, while recognizing the merits of Homer, abstained from the large epic form, believing that "in big rivers muddy water"(Callimachus) - that only in a small work can one achieve impeccable perfection.

In literature Ancient Rome the first surviving (fragmentary) work is a translation of the Odyssey by the Greek Livy Andronicus. The main work of Roman literature - the heroic epic "Aeneid" by Virgil is an imitation of the "Odyssey" (the first 6 books) and the "Iliad" (the last 6 books). The influence of Homer's poems can be seen in almost all works of ancient literature.

Homer is practically unknown to the Western Middle Ages due to too weak contacts with Byzantium and ignorance of the ancient Greek language, but the hexametric heroic epic remains in culture great value thanks to Virgil.

Literature

Texts and translations

For more information, see the articles Iliad and Odyssey see also: en:English translations of Homer

With the advent of printing, the Iliad and Odyssey were first published in 1488 in Florence by Demetrius Chalcocondylus.
Russian prose translation: Complete collection Homer's works. / Per. G. Yanchevetsky. Revel, 1895. 482 pp. (supplement to the Gymnasium magazine)
In the “Loeb classical library” series, the works were published in 5 volumes (No. 170-171 - Iliad, No. 104-105 - Odyssey); and also No. 496 - Homeric Hymns, Homeric Apocrypha, Biographies of Homer.
In the “Collection Budé” series, the works are published in 9 volumes: “Iliad” (introduction and 4 volumes), “Odyssey” (3 volumes) and hymns.
Krause V. M. Homeric Dictionary (to the Iliad and Odyssey). From 130 pics. in the text and a map of Troy. St. Petersburg, A. S. Suvorin. 1880. 532 stb. ( example of a pre-revolutionary school publication)
Part I. Greece // Ancient literature. - St. Petersburg: Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University, 2004. - T. I. - ISBN 5-8465-0191-5.

Monographs on Homer

For bibliography, see also the articles: Iliad and Odyssey

Petrushevsky D. M. Society and state in Homer. M., 1913.
Zelinsky F. F. Homeric psychology. Pg., Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences, 1920.
Altman M. S. Remnants of the tribal system in proper names in Homer. (News of GAIMK. Issue 124). M.-L.: OGIZ, 1936. 164 pp. 1000 copies.
Freidenberg O. M. Myth and literature of antiquity. M.: Vost. lit. 1978. 2nd ed., add. M., 2000.
Tolstoy I. I. Aeds: Ancient creators and bearers of the ancient epic. M.: Nauka, 1958. 63 pp.
Losev A. F. Homer. M.: GUPI, 1960. 352 pp. 9 i.e.
- 2nd ed. (Series “Life of Remarkable People”). M.: Mol. Guards, 1996=2006. 400 pp.
Yarkho V. N. Guilt and responsibility in the Homeric epic. Herald of Ancient History, 1962, No. 2, p. 4-26.
Sugar N. L. Homeric epic. M.: KhL, 1976. 397 pp. 10,000 copies.
Gordesiani R.V. Problems of Homeric Epic. Tb.: Tbil Publishing House. Univ., 1978. 394 pp. 2000 copies.
Stahl I.V. The artistic world of Homer's epic. M.: Nauka, 1983. 296 pp. 6900 copies.
Chelyshev P. V., Koteneva A. V. Essays on the history of world culture: gods and heroes ancient mythology. M.: MGGU, 2013. 351 p. 100 copies ISBN 978-5-91615-032-2
Chelyshev P.V. Ancient space and its inhabitants. – Lambert Academic Publishing, 2016. – 154 p. ISBN 978-3-659-96641-5
Koteneva A. V. Psychology in the epic poems of Homer. Concepts, phenomena and mechanisms. – Lambert Academic Publishing, 2016. ISBN 978-3-659-95960-8
Cunliffe R. J. A lexicon of the homeric dialect. L., 1924.
Leumann M. Homerische Würter. Basel, 1950.
Michalopoulos, Dimitri, L" Odyssee d"Homère au-delà des mythes, Le Pirée: Institut d'Histoire Maritime Hellene, 2016, ISBN 978-618-80599-2-4
Treu M. Von Homer zur Lyrik. Munich, 1955.
Whitman C.H. Homer and the heroic tradition. Oxford, 1958.
Lord A. Narrator. M., 1994.

Homer is known to the world as an ancient Greek poet. Modern science recognizes Homer as the author of such poems as the Iliad and the Odyssey, but in antiquity he was recognized as the author of other works. It is worth saying that the existence of Homer’s personality is, in principle, questioned. There is also an opinion that the authorship of both the Iliad and the Odyssey belongs to different people who lived at different times. There are also works called Homeric hymns, but they are not counted among the creations of Homer himself.

Be that as it may, Homer is the first ancient poet whose works have survived to this day. During his lifetime, 9 biographies of him were compiled. So, according to Herodotus, the poet lived in the 9th century. BC e. To this day, the place of his birth remains a mystery, but it is generally accepted that he lived in Asia Minor, in Ionia. According to legend, as many as 7 major Greek city policies argued for the right to call themselves the homeland of the creator.

It is traditional to portray Homer as blind, but scientists explain this not so much by the real state of his vision, but by the influence of the culture of the ancient Greeks, where poets were identified with prophets.

In the poet's biography there is a place for a poetic battle with such a person as Hesiod. It took place on the island of Euboea during games in memory of the deceased. Hesiod emerged victorious because he raised more populist themes. However, Homer was more sympathetic to the audience.

Since the 17th century, scientists have been faced with the so-called Homeric question - a dispute about the authorship of legendary poems. But, no matter what scientists argue about, Homer went down in the history of world literature, and in his homeland for a long time after death he had special respect. His epics were considered sacred, and Plato himself said that spiritual development Greece is the merit of Homer.

The legendary storyteller died on the island of Ios.

Homer's biography about the main thing

Before talking about the biographical facts of Homer, it should be noted that his name translated from ancient Greek means “blind.” Perhaps it was for this reason that the assumption arose that the ancient Greek poet was blind.

If we talk about the exact date of Homer’s birth, it is not known for certain until today. But there are several versions of his birth.

So, version one. According to her, Homer was born very little time after the end of the war with Troy.

According to the second version, Homer was born during the Trojan War and saw all the sad events. If you follow the third version, Homer's life span varies from 100 to 250 years after the end of the Trojan War.

But all versions are similar in that the period of Homer’s creativity, or rather his heyday, falls at the end of the 10th - beginning of the 9th century BC.

The exact date of Homer’s birth is unknown, and the place where the ancient rhetorician was born is also unknown. As many as seven cities in Greece are arguing over where Homer was actually born. These are, for example, Athens, Colophon, Smyrna, Argos and others.

Due to the insufficiency of many biographical data in connection with the personality of Homer, it began to appear large number legends.

One of them says that shortly before his death, Homer turned to the seer so that he would reveal the secret of his origin into the world. Then the seer named Ios as the place where Homer would die. Homer went there. He remembered the sage’s admonition to beware of riddles from young people. But remembering is one thing, but in reality it always turns out differently. The boys who were fishing saw the stranger, got into conversation with him and asked him a riddle. He could not find an answer to it, he went in his thoughts, stumbled and fell. Three days later, Homer died. He was buried there.

Homer penned two brilliant poems: “The Odyssey” and “The Iliad.” The Greeks have always believed and continue to think so. Some critics began to question this fact and began to express the point of view according to which these works appeared only in the 18th century and they did not belong to Homer at all.

In the 18th century German linguists published a work in which we're talking about that during Homer’s life there was no written language, texts were stored in memory and passed on from mouth to mouth. Therefore, such significant texts could not be preserved in this way.

It is worth noting that such famous masters of the pen as Goethe and Schiller still gave the authorship of the poems to Homer. We believe that it is important to provide additional interesting facts related to the biography and work of the ancient Greek rhetorician.

Firstly, a selective translation of Homer’s texts was carried out by Mikhail Lomonosov.

Secondly, in 1829, Nikolai Gnedich for the first time translated the entire Iliad into Russian.

Thirdly, today there are nine versions of Homer’s biography, but none can be considered completely documentary. In every description great place fiction occupies.

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Interesting facts and dates from life

Homer- one of the most famous poets of ancient Greece. He owns these famous works like the Iliad and the Odyssey. No one knows the exact date of birth, but it is believed that he was born in the 9th century BC in Smyrna, which is located in the Aegean region of Turkey.
An interesting fact is that almost half of all papyri from ancient Greece found today are excerpts from Homer.
Nothing is known for certain about the biography; there are only assumptions. IN different sources different dates of birth are indicated with their own confirmations. If you believe Herodotus, then Homer lived four hundred years before him, which falls in 850 BC.
There is also a theory that Homer lived 622 years before the birth of the Persian king Xerxes, which falls in 1102 BC. The third theory talks about Homer's life during the Trojan War.
There is a legend that once on the island of Euboea there was a poetic confrontation between Homer and Hesiod, where King Paned awarded victory to Hesiod. The public did not agree with this and fully supported the losing side, but the judge was implacable.
Homer wrote many works, some of which have survived to this day. These are considered “Homeric hymns”, “Margrit” and others.
It is not the original form of the world-famous epic poems that has survived to our times. They were corrected and collected together by order of the tyrant Peisistratus or his son Hipparchus in the 6th century BC. Proof of this are some contradictions in the texts, unnatural deviations from the main plot.
There is an opinion that both written poems were passed down orally from generation to generation, due to the life of the poet in a non-written time. Such assumptions were made in ancient times.
One of the most important features of the Illiad is the “law of chronological incompatibility.” Sometimes it happened that parallel events were shown as sequential.
The Iliad and Odyssey are written in a formulaic style. Homer often used such compound epithets as “swift-footed”, “thunderer”, “magnificent-legged”.
Up until the 19th century, the prevailing opinion was that both poems were unhistorical and were merely figments of fantasy. Thanks to the excavations of Heinrich Schliemann, the opinion about this has changed dramatically. After this, they began to believe that everything described happened in reality during the period of the ancient Greek “dark ages”, which covered the 11th - 9th centuries BC.
At the end of the 5th - 4th centuries BC. the entire education system of Greece was based on the study of Homeric poems. Then Rome borrowed it.
Late 4th century BC Many poets appeared who tried to imitate Homer, write in his style and try to write their works better than Ilida and Odysseus. This is how the poems “Argonautica” from A. Rhodessky, “Post-Homeric Events” from K. Smirnsky and “The Adventure of Dionysus” from N. Panopolitansky came out. Other poets were of the opinion that only small works are capable of being perfect.
Thanks to Virgil, the heroic epic "Aeneid" was published. In the first six books one can see the full influence of the Odyssey, in the last six - of the Iliad.
There is no doubt that Herodotus and Pausanias told the truth, and Homer did die on the island of Ios, located in the southern Aegean Sea.
Homer made a huge contribution to the development and education of ancient Greece and Rome. The influence of his famous poems can be seen in almost every work of ancient literature.