homer, an encarta encyclopedia article titled "homer"

the modern text of the homeric poems was transmitted through medieval and renaissance manuscripts, themselves copies of now-lost ancient manuscripts of the epics. from classical antiquity until recently, homer's readers may have distrusted the tales describing him as a blind beggar bard of chios and may have argued that portions of the texts, such as the concluding scenes of the odyssey, were added by another hand. however, they generally believed that homer was a poet (or at most, a pair of poets) much like the poets they knew from their own experience. they believed that the iliad and the odyssey, although based on traditional materials, were independent, original, and largely fictional.

in the last 200 years, however, this view has changed radically, following the emergence and continuing discussion of the "homeric question"—namely, by whom, how, and when were the iliad and odyssey composed? a generally accepted answer has yet to be found. in the 19th and 20th centuries the so-called analysts argued that inconsistencies in the works proved that the poems were collections, or accretions, of short, independently composed lays, simple narrative poems; the unitarians, on the other hand, argued that these inconsistencies were insignificant or imaginary, and that the overall unity of the epics proved that each was the product of a single writer. more recently, scholarly discussion has centered on the theory of oral-formulaic composition. according to this theory, the elaborate system of poetic diction found in the homeric epics was developed over many generations by bards who performed the poems for aristocratic patrons. since writing was not yet in use for literary purposes, these bards had to perform without the aid of a written text. however, instead of composing and memorizing fixed works, they built up over time a vast stock of verbal formulas that enabled them to improvise long poems on heroic topics more or less spontaneously. these formulas extended from short phrases, such as "swift-footed achilles," to long scenes that depict repeated or stereotypical actions, such as the arming of a warrior, a duel, or the eating of a meal. the poet was free to alter or recombine elements of the longer formulas to suit the context.

no one view on this issue has prevailed, but it is fair to say that practically all commentators would agree that tradition had a great deal to do with the poems' composition and that each epic bears evidence that suggests a single creator. meanwhile, archaeological discoveries of the last 125 years, especially those of german archaeologist heinrich schliemann, have shown that much of the civilization homer described was not fictional. the epics, therefore, can be considered historical documents, to a certain extent, and discussion of this facet of them has constantly been intertwined with the debate on the question of their creation.