Was Homer Real? The Truth About the "Author" of the Odyssey and Iliad

DISCLAIMER This video was produced by a random student on the internet who loves reading, especially about ancient history and classics. The purpose of my videos is to make classics and ancient history interesting and accessible to everyone. It is important to highlight that I am not a professional or qualified educator, “expert”, historian or classicist. However, I ensure that all the information I use in my video scripts has been collated from numerous credible sources, which I will link in the description box if accessible online. I always work my hardest to deliver thoroughly researched and reliable information in my videos, but please always conduct additional, independent research to formulate a thorough understanding of any topic discussed. Additionally, I am dyslexic, and I will mispronounce words throughout this video, sometimes without realising it. This is not ill-intended or stemming from willful ignorance, and I do make the effort to research how to pronounce words before I start filming, but I often misread my phonetic spelling. In light of this, please do not rely on my video for an authoritative or reliable source of how to pronounce certain words.

Maybe the real Homer was all the Greeks we met along the way. Probably not though.

The variously attributed "Homer was not written by Homer, but by another man of that name" quote should always accompany this topic.

I love how engaged you are. I feel like I’m just having a chat with a nice stranger I met at the library.

We should be thankful that tik-tok didn't exist in the 19th century or he would have presented this theory while wearing bear ears and a button nose.

2000 years from now people are going to think some guy named “booktok” wrote an awful lot of books in 2022

I had a professor who used to make a joke about this hypothesis. "Maybe a woman did write The Odyssey after all. No ancient man would ever make a story about a fellow man who was that horse-sh*t of a navigator." Some other students saw this joke as sexist, but it's clearly a joke about male hubris and sexism in ancient writing.

I love the idea that the Odyssey started as a cringe self-insert fanfic. What a proud tradition

I really enjoyed it. Please do more of these. My own view is that Homer was the one who finally wrote the stories down, but was part of a long tradition of poets. I base it on modern studies of poetry in oral based non-literate societies. The poem follows such a structure, and could have kept all the details of structure in doing so. It also has older words in it, interspersed. Much like if Shakespeare were suddenly to appear in your speech. That may suggest the ancient history was modernised. Also, plagiarism was not a big thing until recent times. Copying old masters was often part of becoming an artist. Blindness can also have degrees, and certain tricks can overcome certain types, such as only letting miniscule light hit the eyes. I really enjoyed your take on it and how you relay the sources. P.s. on the woman aspect, most art portrays arms of war incorrectly, right through the middle ages and back to Roman times. Artists would describe axes wrong. Also, until historically recently, women were seen as controlling the internal world, while men faced outside threats and got outside resources. The powerful women in the Iliad and Odyssey likely were accurate portrayals, and modern minds see the Trojan War as historical. Look at how women are portrayed in the Christian Gospels, all written by men. I like to think the female characters were just that amazing, and that Homer like a certain Roman who was exiled, simply really knew people well.

I had heard that the name Homer came from the idea that they weren't the original author, but the person who had written down the oral stories. They were similar to the Grimm brothers.

The axe handles are absolutely hilarious. I'm reading Moby Dick right now and 19th century logic is .... wild sometimes.

If he became blind later in life it was probably through cataracts which are very common in sunny areas and as people get older.

Thank you for making my morning. My toddler kept me up all night, and I am struggling so hard right now. I saw your video and feel a little more accepting of this waking up business!

I'd love to see a video about Penelope from the Odyssey. It might be a bit of a basic topic but she's my favourite female character in classical mythology.

Have you considered doing voice over work? I would love some audiobooks with your voice.

I have just found out your channel and i'm really happy about it. It's simply marvelous the way you speak about the subjects, well supported, clear and entertaining. And i also loved your accent. Congratulations for the excellent work :)

You've got to admire the 19th century literary man's backhanded compliment to women which manages to keep them in their place more firmly than before.

Fascinating, thanks for sharing this, always interesting hearing new perspectives on history and the classics! Love the content!

Yes! Super stoked for another history video 💕

Loved this! And the thumbnail is just chefs kiss 😂