Homer

This passage is about the ancient Greek storyteller, Homer.

Lexile Level: 940L

Categories: History People & Places

Homer is often called the "blind bard." It is believed that he lived in Greece in the seventh or eighth century B.C. At that time, bards entertained kings and queens with stories about the gods and goddesses. Homer played a stringed lyre and sang. The songs told stories about the trials of humans that the gods either loved or hated. It is said that these songs were later written down as the great epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. There are many repeated words in these epics. Scholars say that this is because they were originally oral. The repetition made it easier for listeners to follow the story from one day to the next. There is a debate among scholars about whether these tales were really told by the single individual, Homer, or by several bards. Many think that those who wrote down the epics had gathered the stories from a variety of sources. Others say that the stories are much too coherent to have been written by several individuals. Either way, many readers still enjoy the blind bard's stories today.