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Was Homer a Liar?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

John Chadwick
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Extract

...une tradition à la fois antique et directe, ininterrompue, orale, deformée, méconnaissable et vivante.

M. Proust

This is a deliberately provocative title, chosen in an iconoclastic moment, when I was annoyed by reading yet another book, in which the author prostrates himself abjectly before the altar of Homer the historian. The worship of this false god has reached such proportions that every writer on Mycenaean Greece devotes a great deal of space to what Homer says, and spends page after page trying to reconcile the Homeric account with the archaeological evidence. The idea that Homer can tell us about the Mycenaean Age dies hard; it is time to administer the coup de grâce.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 20 , Issue 77 , March 1972 , pp. 1 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © 1972 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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References

The books on Homer are endless, and even a select bibliography could be very large. The general questions are discussed in the introductions published in various languages, e.g.:Google Scholar
Wace, A.J.B. and Stubbings, F.H.: 1962 A Companion to Homer, London,.Google Scholar
Mazon, P.: 1948 Introduction à l'Iliade, Paris.Google Scholar
Gil, L.: 1963 Introduccion a Homero, Madrid,.Google Scholar
Burr, V.: 1944 Neon Katalogos, Klio, Beiheft 49 n. f..Google Scholar
Dow, S. and Chadwick, J.: 1971 The Linear Scripts and the Tablets as Historical Documents, Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd edition, Vol. II, Chapter XIII (published separately Cambridge).Google Scholar
Finley, M.I., Caskey, J.L., Kirk, G.S. and Page, D.L.: (1964) ”The Trojan War,“ Journal of Hellenic Studies, 84, pp. 1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simpson, R. Hope and Lazenby, J.F.: 1970 The Catalogue of the Ships in Homer's Iliad, Oxford,.Google Scholar
Jachmann, G.: 1958 Der homerische Schiffskatalog und die Ilias, Köln,.Google Scholar
Kirk, G.S.: 1962 The Songs of Homer, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Kirk, G. S. (editor): 1964 Language and Background of Homer, Cambridge.Google Scholar
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Severyns, A.: 1960 Grèce et Proche-Orient avant Homère, Bruxelles.Google Scholar