Who wrote The Iliad and The Odyssey?

Answer 1

The original author(s) of these works is not positively known.

The Greek Poet Homer ('Ομηρος) produced their current form around the 9th Century BC. (Homer could have been a group of writers as no records have ever been found of the actual poet.)

However, there is a pattern of style being used in the the Iliad, so Homer could be the one who synthesized the oral poem and added new linguistic devices in the poem to make it more interesting.

The Iliad and The Odyssey were first told in forms similar to their present forms by Homer, a blind poet who is believed to have lived around 850 B.C. However, they were not actually written by Homer. Rather, Homer originally presented his works through oral presentation, i.e. by speaking or singing them.

Answer 2

Tradition holds that a sightless Ionian Greek named Homer composed the Iliad and the Odyssey around 800 BCE. It is likely that Homer brought together a number of stories handed down by oral tradition, creating a central plot as a means of holding the various narrative strands together. His epics were, in turn, handed down by word of mouth for the next 300 years until the Greeks rediscovered writing.

Answer 3

Homer