Book contents
- Frontmatter
- 1 Books and readers in the Greek world
- 2 Homer
- 3 Hesiod
- 4 The epic tradition after Homer and Hesiod
- 5 Elegy and iambus
- 6 Archaic choral lyric
- 7 Monody
- 8 Choral lyric in the fifth century
- 9 Early Greek philosophy
- 10 Tragedy
- 11 The satyr play
- 12 Comedy
- 13 Historiography
- 14 Sophists and physicians of the Greek enlightenment
- 15 Plato and the Socratic work of Xenophon
- 16 Oratory
- 17 Aristotle
- 18 Hellenistic poetry
- 19 Post-Aristotelian philosophy
- 20 The literature of the Empire
- 21 Epilogue
- Appendix of authors and works
- Metrical appendix
- Works Cited in the Text
Appendix of authors and works
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
- Frontmatter
- 1 Books and readers in the Greek world
- 2 Homer
- 3 Hesiod
- 4 The epic tradition after Homer and Hesiod
- 5 Elegy and iambus
- 6 Archaic choral lyric
- 7 Monody
- 8 Choral lyric in the fifth century
- 9 Early Greek philosophy
- 10 Tragedy
- 11 The satyr play
- 12 Comedy
- 13 Historiography
- 14 Sophists and physicians of the Greek enlightenment
- 15 Plato and the Socratic work of Xenophon
- 16 Oratory
- 17 Aristotle
- 18 Hellenistic poetry
- 19 Post-Aristotelian philosophy
- 20 The literature of the Empire
- 21 Epilogue
- Appendix of authors and works
- Metrical appendix
- Works Cited in the Text
Summary
HOMER
LIFE
Worked probably in latter half of 8th c. B.C., but nothing plausible known about his life or background. His date depends mainly on refs. in ll. and Od. to 8th-c. practices and artefacts (e.g. hoplite-style fighting, gorgon-head brooch, tripod-cauldrons), on the probable posteriority of Hesiod, the decline of oral composition by the time of Archilochus, the appearance of epic scenes on vases etc. after 680, and on ancient opinions (esp. Herodotus (2.53) and Hesychius, citing a probably classical source on date of Arctinus (Suda s.v.)). His region is indicated by predominantly Ionic dialect of the poems, by local east-Aegean detail and colour (e.g. ll. 2.144-6, 459-63, 13.12- 14) and by the unanimous ancient tradition, which associated him primarily with Chios and Smyrna (so e.g. Pindar according to Vit. Thorn. 2); other Lives (in OCT v; mostly of Graeco-Roman date and feebly fictitious) add Cumae and Colophon, agreeing that he died on Ios. See G. S. Kirk, The songs of Homer (Cambridge 1962) 271-87.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of Classical Literature , pp. 719 - 892Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1985