Word: homer
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Dates: during 1890-1899
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...WEDNESDAY.The Study of Homer. Lecuture. Professor Wright. Sever...
...Merry's "Homer's Odyssey, Books...
...Perrin's Homer's Odyssey Books...
From about 600 B. C. we find the Homeric poems recited by the rhapsodist, or professional reciter, and not by men who were themselves poets. They spread the study of Homer over all Greece, and in all the leading cities the rhapsodists gathered. As they commenced a recitation, they would invoke Zeus with the words, "Beginning with praise of Thee, would I celebrate deeds of men." Prizes were offered to the rhapsodist who best recited, and often the reward of such a competition was a tripod. But far above these mere reciters were the old minstrels who combined the orator...
That the influence of Homer upon Greek thought and life was marked is in one respect the cause of his influence upon our literature. For the Iliad and the Odyssey were learned by every Greek school boy; every child was taught his first lines of the Iliad, just as at present he is taught his A. B, C. For the Greeks saw how beautifully every phrase of life was pictured in Homer from whom as Ovid says, "As from a spring perennial the lips of bards are moistened and refreshed," and knew that their children could not become great...