3/11

Today I was not in class because I was out of town.

Here are the notes Sydney let me use to put on here.

Homer the Storyteller

• Greek oral tradition - stories passed on by word of mouth 
• Homer lived at the end of the "Greek Dark Ages"
• He composed stories of the Trojan War c. 750 - 700 BCE 
• The lliad: probably one of the last conquests of the Mycenaens (the Trojan War) 
• The Odyssey: Odysseus attempt to return home, being thwarted by angry god of the sea, Poseidon 
• The Odyssey was 12,110 lines of clactylic hexameter 

Did Homer actually exist ?

• "Homeric question" Homer may have been a mythical creation himself 
• A blind wandering minstrel; a heroic figure 
• lliad and the odyssey may be the culmination of many generations of storytelling 
• Or Homer actually existed and was just that awesome