c. 8th century B.C.E.–c. early 7th century B.C.E.

Poet

Iliad and Odyssey.

The long epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey stand at the beginning of Greek literature, and the Greeks generally attributed them to a poet named Homer. Nothing can be said for certain about his identity. The years of his life are much disputed; guesses range from the time of the Trojan War, which was generally placed around 1200 B.C.E., up to 500 years after the Trojan War or about 700 B.C.E., which is a date most modern scholars can accept as the approximate period when he lived. It is generally agreed that he lived near the end of a bardic tradition, when oral poets who were generally illiterate performed at festivals or banquets. Yet at some point, the Iliad and the Odyssey took their present form and were written...