Homer (8th century BCE) is the blind bard from Chios recognized by Plato and Aristotle, as well as the historian Herodotus (5th/4th century BCE), as the poet who composed the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Zeus starts the Trojan War to bring an end to the race of heroes by having Helen kidnapped. The Judgment of Paris (son of King Priam of Troy) begins at Thetis and Peleus’s wedding. The Iliad describes the war between the Greeks and the Trojans at Ilium (Troy), whereby the Greeks went to retrieve the gift Aphrodite gives to Paris.
Epic or epikos (Greek) comes from the Greek word epos, ‘word, song,’ and is related to eipein ‘say.’ This oral expression of song is about the feeling and ethical intent of the speaker rather than the form or subject matter. It is an emotive experience. An epic poem tells a story of deep feeling and ethical significance. You may see this in the stock epithets and traditional phrases.
Elements of the epic’s narrative structure:
- oral tradition, it is sung, it is a ceremonial performance (as opposed to narrated using ordinary speech)
- it has repetitive elements, uses epithets and epic similes, lists and catalogues
- it has a set meter
- it begins in medias res
- some common themes, such as revenge, recklessness, belly & consumption, hospitality, sacrifice to the gods, singers and bards (storytellers), homecoming, battle, deception, loyalty, fate, metis (cunning, wisdom, skill and craft), family, kingship, and restoration of power
- the hero is a figure of great national or even cosmic importance
- the setting is ample in scale; it may be worldwide or larger, i. e.: the Mediterranean basin, the Underworld
- the action involves extraordinary deeds in battle, or an arduous and dangerous journey
- the gods or other supernatural beings take an interest or active part in the action
Homer’s epics were sung for entertainment and in poetry contests. They were works of memory and spoken aloud even after the papyrus scroll was used to record the poems in writing.
In classical hexameter, the six feet follow these rules:
- A foot can be made up of two long syllables (– –), a spondee; or a long and two short syllables, a dactyl (– υ υ).
- The first four feet can contain either one of them.
- The fifth is almost always a dactyl, and last must be a spondee.
I begin | my song with | the Heli | konian | Muses whose | domain
dactyl | dactyl | dactyl | dactyl | dactyl | spondee
