Homer's epic is the collective name of Iliad and Odyssey. Homer's epic, known as the ancestor of European literature, is the crystallization of highly developed western ancient literary skills. For more than 3,000 years, many scholars have studied these two epics, and the books printed by the research results alone can form a small library. Homer's epic tells the story of Greece's attack on Troy in BC 12 and after the war. The formation and recording of epic almost experienced the whole process of slavery. After the Trojan War, many short songs praising war heroes appeared in Asia Minor. In the process of communication, these short songs are integrated with the stories of gods, which enhances the mythical color of war heroes. After finishing by Homer, it gradually became a grand war legend in the 8th and 7th centuries BC, and it was not officially recorded in words until the 6th century BC. In the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, it was edited by Alexandria scholars, with 24 volumes in each part. The formation of this book has gone through several centuries, and it is a mixture of historical factors of various eras, which can be regarded as the national creation of the ancient Greeks.
Homer's epic is the social history and custom history during the transition from ancient Greek clan society to slavery, which has important values in history, geography, archaeology and folklore. This epic also shows humanism and affirms human dignity, value and strength. This is the artistic creation of human childhood, which inevitably has ideological and artistic limitations.
In ancient Greece, myths and legends about the Trojan War were widely circulated. Many rappers and bard wandering in the Greek world like it very much, thus making it passed down from generation to generation. The Iliad and Odyssey, two outstanding poems of the great ancient Greek poet Homer, are based on this.
Is there Homer in history? Did he really write these two epics? These issues have been debated for a long time in western academic circles. As early as ancient Greece, famous historians Herodotus, Thucydides, philosophers Plato and Aristotle all affirmed that Homer was the author of two epics. Until the beginning of18th century, Europeans still believed that Homer was a great ancient poet in history.
However, it was also in the early years of the18th century that French monks Zheng Dobi Yong and Vico took the lead. They believe that Homer, which people have always believed before, does not exist. He is only the general representative of Greek rap artists of all ethnic groups, not a person. The two epics are separated by hundreds of years, so it is impossible for one person to write a work. This ground-breaking new viewpoint quickly caused a sensation in western academic circles, and the "Homer problem" sprang up suddenly.
1795, the German scholar Wolff made a detailed study of the epic along this line of thought, thus asserting that every part of the epic was sung by the singer as an independent poem, and after many times of sorting and processing, it became what we see today. Later, Wolff's compatriot Rahman expounded his views more clearly, thus forming the "short song theory".
In contrast, it is the "unification theory" represented by German scholar Nicky. This theory is essentially the resurrection of the traditional Homer view. He believed that Homer did exist, and he lived no later than the ninth century BC. He believes that Homer used the materials of ancient folk poems, and re-processed and reorganized them to form a complete artistic structure.