Homer is one of the most romantic figures in the history of Western literature. According to popular belief, he was a blind poet who orally composed and recited both the Odyssey and the closely related Greek epic, the Iliad (also covered in Litei -attire and Its Times). Today there is considerable doubt that the same poet wrote both of these poems. Some scholars also think it likely that Homer was not blind and that he had traveled extensively. Scholars also debate whether he wrote down the poem himself or just created the oral version that was later written down by others. It is widely believed, however, that the written poems are polished examples of the type of epic tales that existed in ancient Greece. Herodotus, the Greek historian of the fifth century B.c., claims that Homer was writing around 850 B.c., but modern critics contend that he flourished between 700 and 750 B.c. In view of the poem's ancient setting some 500 years earlier, only a few details of the tale can be confirmed as historical. Others are either the product of Homer's imagination or the remnants of epic tradition.
The Bronze Age.
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