The Iliad and Odyssey are associated with a poet named Homer, but the real identity of this Homer is unknown.
If there was a Homer, he may have come from Asia Minor (now part of Turkey).
The dialect used in the Epic (the Homeric dialect) is different from Attic Greek, which was spoken around Athens on the mainland.
The Homeric version of Greek was recited and then written down as the Iliad and the Odyssey.
The prestige of the Homeric name is such that locating Homer in a place can boost that place’s prestige, similar to how Shakespeare elevates Stratford-upon-Avon.
A commonly believed detail about Homer (and a related figure in Greek myth) is his blindness; this detail is discussed but not proved.
Blindness, Prophecy, and the Aoidos
Tiresias is cited as the most famous blind prophet in Greek myth; he is not an epic singer but a seer, whose story involves Zeus and Hera.
In the myth, Hera blinds Tiresias for his answer to a question about male vs. female pleasure; Zeus rewards him with the gift of prophecy, enabling him to foresee the future while remaining physically blind.
This story is used to illustrate how the epic tradition elevates certain figures (gods, seers) above the ordinary by granting them extraordinary abilities, such as prophecy.
In the Homeric epics, Demodocus is a model of a blind bard (aoidos) within the Odyssey; the question arises whether Homer himself might be imagined as a blind bard.
The speaker notes a striking analogy: in the Homeric tradition, a blind bard composes an epic that is attributed to’ a poet who could be blind, raising questions about authorship and performance.
The discussion asks whether the Greeks had a great respect for blind people, and whether blindness could be associated with “seeing” in the sense of poetic insight; the answer is nuanced and not straightforward.
Oral Tradition, Fairy Tales, and Cross-Cultural Transmission
There is evidence of hundreds of years of oral performance before the Homeric epics.
In Europe, oral traditions persisted and were later collected by scholars.
The Brothers Grimm (G. and W. Grimm) collected oral tales in Germany in the eighteenth century from villagers in remote areas; they demonstrated the long oral tradition behind many fairy tales (e.g., references to “Wolf Gummy”).
Mary Anne Perry (likely Mary Renault reference in the discussion mirrors the real Mary Renault’s works) compiled songs of the Serbian people; translations from Serbia show epics and songs that had been told for centuries and later translated.
In American culture, there are parallels with Appalachian folk songs, work songs in the American South, and slave songs; all illustrate a long tradition of oral storytelling and song.
The main point: oral tradition persisted for centuries, and many of its works were not written down, risking loss unless later transcribed.
The Golden Fleece: An Oral-Epic Variant and Visual Evidence
An image was shown of the mythic mission to retrieve the Golden Fleece (Jason and the Argonauts): the fleece belonged to a magical ram with a golden fleece that could fly and speak.
The ram helped save a boy; the ram’s actions are part of a larger myth that includes a distant kingdom and a sacred grove of Ares guarded by a dragon.
The mission, led by Jason and the Argonauts on the ship Argo, is to obtain the fleece and bring it back to Greece.
The fleece is kept as a sacred/religious item; its guarding dragon and the magical ram are part of the legendary narrative surrounding the fleece.
A vase fragment shows that the story could have several versions: in some versions Jason succeeds and brings back the fleece; in others, the dragon kills him and the fleece remains elsewhere. The vase is damaged, suggesting multiple versions may have circulated orally.
The existence of alternate endings implies that myths could diverge in oral tradition and that what survives in writing may just be one of several variants.
The instructor warns that even if a common version exists (Jason succeeds), it does not disprove the existence of other, older or parallel versions that did not survive in written form.
The possibility of multiple versions illustrates how oral storytelling could preserve different endings and how artifacts (like the vase) can hint at those other versions.
The Turning Point: From Oral to Written Transmission
Before writing, epic performance relied on memorization, formulaic composition, and recital by aoidoi, with a high degree of improvisation within established patterns.
With the advent of writing, the oral tradition is fixed in text, becoming the final version that can be preserved and transmitted.
The Homeric epics likely emerged from a long oral tradition and were later fixed in writing; the written version may reflect earlier oral layers but represents a canonical form that others might not reproduce exactly.
The debate about whether Homer actually wrote the epics or dictated them to a scribe remains unresolved; it may be more accurate to say Homer composed the Iliad and the Odyssey, or that someone else compiled and refined earlier oral material into a fixed written form under the name Homer.
The professor emphasizes that there is no single answer to Homer’s authorship, and multiple plausible explanations exist among scholars.
Pre-Homeric Writing and the Early Greek Script
Writing in Greece predates Homer and includes Mycenaean tablets from Crete and the mainland (Bronze Age).
Linear B was deciphered around 1951 by Michael Ventris and represents an early form of Greek; Linear A remains undeciphered and is not Greek.
The early writing system was primarily used for administrative purposes rather than heroic or religious epic poetry; thus the epic tradition remained oral for centuries.
Dating and Context: When Was Homer's Iliad and Odyssey Created?
Most scholars place the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey in the late 8th century BCE, with the Iliad generally preceding the Odyssey.