Homer's Iliad and Odyssey: Poems of Many Turnings
Third Millenium BCE to 600 CE
Heroes and Heroines
First published: 19 December 2019
Abstract
The complex and varied pathways that brought Homeric epic from its beginnings on the coast of Asia Minor to worldwide appreciation involved changes of media (oral transmission to papyrus scrolls to handwritten manuscripts to printed texts and ultimately paperbacks and digital editions), empires (Athenian, Roman, Byzantine), continents, and languages. This chapter traces key stages in the journey of Homer from the eighth century bce to the twenty-first century ce, and asks what features of the Iliad and Odyssey may have prepared the poems for globally broad reception.
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