Homer Wikipedia Biography

The biography of Homer is an ancient Greek poet - a narrator, a collector of legends, the author of the ancient literary works “Iliad” and “Odyssey”. Historians do not have accurate data on the date of birth of the storyteller. The poet's birthplace remains a mystery. Even more dozen other settlements of ancient Greece were mentioned by different authors at different times, in connection with the birth of Homer.

Most often, the storyteller is considered a native of Smirna. The works of Homer are addressed to the ancient history of the world, there are no references to contemporaries, which complicates the dating of the author’s life. There is a legend that Homer himself did not know his place of birth. From the oracle, the storyteller found out that the island of Jos was the birthplace of his mother.

The statue of Homer is biographical data on the life of a storyteller, presented in medieval works, cause doubts among historians. In the works of the poet’s life it is mentioned that Homer is the name that the poet received because of his acquired blindness. Translated, it can mean “invisible” or “led”. At birth, his mother called him with Melesigen, which means "Born by the Melez River." One of the legends, Homer blinded when he saw Achilles's sword.

In consolation, the goddess Fetid endowed him with the gift of chants. There is a version that the poet was not a “led”, but “leading”. Homer called him not after the storyteller was blinded, but on the contrary, he saw and began to speak wisely. According to most ancient biographers, Melezigen was born a woman named Krifeid. Homer the storyteller performed at the feasts of noble people, in city meetings, in the markets.

According to historians, ancient Greece during the life of Homer experienced its flowering. The poet recited individual parts of his works, traveling from city to city. He used respect, had an overnight stay, food and was not a dirty wanderer who sometimes portray biographers. There is a version that Odyssey, Iliad and Homeric Anthems are the work of different authors, and Homer was only a performer.

Historians consider the version that the poet belonged to the family of singers. In ancient Greece, craft and other professions were often passed down from generation to generation. In this case, any family member could speak under the name Homer. From generation to generation of history and the manner of fulfillment were transferred from a relative to a relative. This fact would explain the different period of the creation of poems, and would clarify the issue with the dates of the storyteller’s life.

The formation of the poet is one of the most detailed stories about the formation of Homer as a poet belongs to the pen of Herodot Galicarnassky, whom Cicero called "the father of history." According to the ancient historian, the poet was called Melesigen at birth. He lived with his mother in Smirna, where he became a student of the owner of the Femia school. Melesigen was very smart and comprehended science well.

The teacher died, leaving his best pupil school. Having worked for some time a mentor, Melesigen decided to deepen his knowledge about the world. A man named Menes, who was born from the island of Lefkada, volunteered to help him. Melesigen closed the school and went on a ship's ship on a sea trip to see new cities and countries. During the wander, the poet Homer, the former teacher collected stories, legends, asked about the customs of local peoples.

Arriving in Itaku, Melezigen felt unwell. Menes left the satellite under the supervision of a reliable person and sailed to his homeland. Mellezigen went on foot in further journey. On the way, he recited the stories he collected during the wandering. According to Herodotus Galicarnassky, the storyteller in the city of Colofon finally blinded. There he took a new name for himself.

Modern researchers tend to question the story told by Herodotus, as well as the works of other ancient authors about Homer's life. The Homeric question in the year Frederick Augustus Wolf in the preface to the publication of the text of the poems of the ancient Greek storyteller nominated the theory, which was called the “Homeric question”. The main meaning of the opinion of the scientist was that poetry during the time of Homer was oral art.

A blind wandering storyteller could not be the author of a complex artistic work. Homer's busts composed songs, hymns, musical epics, which formed the basis of the Iliad and Odyssey. According to Wolf, the finished type of poem received, thanks to other authors. Since then, scientists engaged in the work of Homer have been divided into two camps: “analysts” support Wolf theory, and “toilets” have an opinion about the strict unity of the epic.

Blindness of some researchers of Homer's work indicate that the poet was sighted. The fact that philosophers and thinkers were considered in ancient Greece by people who are deprived of ordinary vision, but having a gift to look at the essence of things in ancient Greece. Blindness could be synonymous with wisdom. Homer was considered one of the creators of the comprehensive picture of the world, the author of the genealogy of the gods.

His wisdom was obvious to everyone. A blind Homer with a guide.The artist William Bugro, ancient biographers brought in their works the exact portrait of Homer-Rolepets, but they composed their labors many centuries after the death of the poet. Since reliable data about the poet’s life has not been preserved, the interpretation of ancient biographers could not be quite correct.

In favor of this version, the fact of the presence in all biographies of fictional events with the participation of mythical characters is indicated. The works preserved ancient evidence give an idea that in the era of antiquity the compositions of Homer were considered a source of wisdom. The poems gave knowledge regarding all the spheres of life - from universal morality to the foundations of military art.

Plutarch wrote that the great commander Alexander Macedonian always kept a copy of the Iliad with him. Greek children were taught to read on the Odyssey, and some excerpts from the works of Homer, Pythagorean philosophers prescribed as a means for correcting the soul. The illustration of the Iliad Homer is considered the author of not only the Iliad and Odyssey.

The storyteller could be the creator of the comic poem “Margit” and “Homeric hymns”. Among other works attributed to the ancient Greek storyteller, there is a cycle of texts about the return of the heroes of the Trojan War to Greece: “Cyprus”, “Section of Ilion”, “Ethiopides”, “Malaya Iliad”, “Return”. Homer's poems are distinguished by a special language that had no analogue in colloquial speech.

The manner of the narrative made legends memorable and interesting. Death is a legend that describes the death of Homer. In old age, a blind storyteller went to the island of Ios. Traveling, Homer met two young fishermen who made a riddle to him: "We have what we did not catch and what we caught, we threw out." The poet was thinking about the solution of the puzzle for a long time, but he could not find the right answer.

The boys caught lice, not fish. Homer was so annoyed by the fact that he could not solve the riddle that he slipped and hit his head. According to another version, the narrator committed suicide, since death was not as terrible for him as the loss of sharpness of the mind. Interesting facts exist about a dozen storyteller biographies that have come to our time from antiquity, but they all contain fabulous elements and mention of the participation of ancient Greek gods in the events of Homer's life.

The poet spread his works outside ancient Greece with the help of students. They were called homimines. They wandered in different cities, fulfilling the works of their teacher on the squares. About half of all papyrus ancient Greek scrolls found are excerpts from different works of the poet. The composition of the storyteller was transmitted orally. The poems that we know today were collected and structured into holistic works from scattered songs by the army of poets of the Athenian tyrant Pisistrat.

Some parts of the texts were edited taking into account the wishes of the customer. The Soviet prose writer Osip Mandelstam wrote in the year the poems “Insomnia. Tight sails ”, in which he appealed to the storyteller and heroes of the poem“ Iliad ”. Until the mid -seventies of the twentieth century, the events described in Homer's poems were considered a pure fiction.

But the archaeological expedition of Henry Shliman, who found Troy, proved that the work of the ancient Greek poet is based on real events. After such a find, the admirers of Plato strengthened in the hope that once archaeologists will find Atlantis.