Homer

According to ancient tradition, the author of the Greek narrative epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey (both derived from oral tradition). Little is known about the man, but modern research suggests that both poems should be assigned to the 8th century BC, with the Odyssey the later of the two.

The epics, dealing with military values, social hierarchy, and the emotions and objectives of a heroic class of warriors, supported or opposed by the gods, had an immediate and profound effect on Greek society and culture and were a strong influence on the Roman poet Virgil in the composition of his Aeneid.

The poems may have taken shape as part of an oral tradition, subject to adaptation and development, but the reintroduction of writing to Athens by the later part of the 8th century BC possibly affected their final form. The predominant dialect in the poems indicates that Homer may have come from an Ionian Greek settlement, such as Smyrna or Chios, as was traditionally believed. There are some strong arguments for believing that the same man wrote both works. Not only is the characterization in the Odyssey completely consistent with that of the Iliad, but also a number of the leading characters in the Iliad (for example, Achilles, Helen, and Nestor) are brought into the Odyssey for the sole apparent purpose of explaining their subsequent history. The epics contain reminiscences of Mycenean culture and artefacts, which have been confirmed by archaeological discoveries.

During the Renaissance, a revival of the study of Greek brought English translations from Alexander Pope and George Chapman. Modern writers influenced by Homer include James Joyce and Nikos Kazantzakis.

Homer

City in Kenai Peninsula Borough, southern Alaska; population (1990) 3,700. Homer is situated on Kachemak Bay, an arm of lower Cook Inlet, on the southwestern Kenai Peninsula, 201 km/125 mi south-southwest of Anchorage.

Established in 1896 by a prospecting party led by Homer Pennock, this ice-free deepwater fishing port developed after neither gold nor coal deposits of any great size were found. Fishing and fish processing remain its principal industries; it is also a market centre for an agricultural area, as well as a centre for tourism.

Homer

Town in Cortland County, central New York State, 5 km/3 mi north of Cortland; population (1990) 6,500. Settled in 1791, it contains a number of historic houses.

Homer is situated in a dairy-farming region, but also has gravel pits and a number of small industries, including food canneries. It served as the model for ‘Homeville’ in Edward Noyes Westcott's 1898 novel David Harum.

Homer

Unincorporated village in Burlington township, Licking County, central Ohio, 16 km/10 mi south of Mount Vernon. It was the birthplace, in 1838, of the prominent early feminist campaigner Victoria Claflin Woodhull.