HOMER The Beginning of Western Literature

Homer Statue 2nd Cent B.C.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

Aims:• To Introduce Homer and the Iliad.

Objectives:1. Students will discuss the Homeric questions.2. Students will predict reasons for the contemporary relevance

of the Iliad.3. Students will watch the clip.4. Students will discuss the nature of the Iliad.

HOMER – ‘THE HOMERIC QUESTION’

• Most historians think ‘Homer’ lived in about 800 B.C.• That is about 400 years after the Trojan war. • So?• Historians think the Iliad and Odyssey were refined and

written down in around this period.• There is real debate about whether Homer existed or not. • This is the Homeric question. Does it matter?• The language and style of the Iliad suggest he could have

been from Smyrna in modern Turkey.

Troy

Smyrna

THE ILIAD

• A central text to both Greek and western culture.• Knowledge of the Iliad was a sign of education from Classical

Greece through to Victorian England.• How can a book retain its power and relevance through so

many different cultures?

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccdneMYVVVo

THE ILIAD

• The Iliad is arguably the first Western work of literature.• The themes of war, love ,sacrifice ,ethics and the perfidy of

the gods ring true throughout the ages.• The writing is of a very high quality and many of his similes

and metaphors are still used today.

THE ILIAD

• The Iliad is a written version of hundreds of years of oral history. So?• Alexander the Great slept with a copy.• It is still used in military academies around the world. • Most papyrus fragments from the ancient world are of the

Iliad.• Throughout the last 120 years archaeologists have spent

a fortune trying to prove that the Iliad is true. Why?

WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE ILIAD?