CLA160H1 Lecture 6: Week 6 - Odyssey - Books 1-4
Document Summary
Introduction to the odyssey: date: 700-650 bc. Absolute date of composition is not known. Not known whether it was written before or after the odyssey, usually thought to be the later (contested) Also not known if this predates hesiod. Seems that the odyssey does use slighter later linguistic forms that the iliad: authorship. Widely accepted in antiquity that one person composed both. However, there were a few dissenting voices. Same author view has been seriously challenged in modern scholarship. Long history as part of the homeric question. First seriously questioned by a wolf, a german scholar in 1795. Most scholars are now inclined to the view that the two poems were composed by different poets. Authorship clouded by the oral nature of the poems. Held that the author of the odyssey was a woman but this seems unlikely to be true. No external evidence one way or the other. Have internal evidence, the poem itself suggests male authorship.
