What’s in a Name?
The “Homer” behind the Iliad Poet?
Much of what I’ve written about previously has dealt with Homer: was he the individual who composed the Iliad; did he write it; why is the Iliad so different from the Cyclic poems, and were the Iliad and the Odyssey composed by the same person (accepting the conclusion they were both produced by individuals, not a long-term process within an oral tradition)? I’ve mentioned before that it’s generally believed neither the poet of the Iliad or the Odyssey were named Homer, so where did that name come from and, if they were two separate individuals, why do we know both of them by that name? As I’ve also said, the confusion created by the name Homer being attached to both poems has affected how the poems are perceived, and obscured the history behind them.
At different times, different people have advanced reasons why it’s believable that the Iliad and the Odyssey were written (or composed) by the same poet, but their reasoning depends on accepting the premise they are the product of the same poet, not on examining the data to see if it supports that premise. I’m sensitive to this issue, because I’ve written everything from technical reports to history to various forms of fiction to poetry (rarely), and they each require a different style and voice. “Homer” may have done likewise, but that doesn’t explain the differences between the Iliad and the Odyssey. A way to look at it is as if a 21st-century author wrote in the style of Jane Austin. They might do this to convey a period flavor (as historical authors try to do), but even if they’re diligent about it, a close reading would show that they and Austin were writing in different times and places. That’s the case of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and it seems unlikely to me that many literary scholars would think they were written by the same person if they read them without attribution.1 So the question of their attribution seems worth pursuing.
I don’t have the Classicist chops to prosecute this pursuit, but others do and one did: none other than the redoubtable Gregory Nagy. In his essay, “Pindar’s Homer is not ‘our’ Homer,” he offers an etymology for the name “Homer”, or Homēros (Ὅμηρος), which he identifies as a “speaking name” (nomen loquens). He posits it is made up of the “prefix homo ‘together’ and the root of the verb ar-ar-iskein (ἀρ-αρ-ίσκειν) ‘fit, join’” – thus, “one who fits/joins together.”
Nagy describes this as a metaphor related to constructing a chariot wheel: Homer is a master poet who “‘fits together’ pieces of song that are made ready to be parts of an integrated whole just as a master carpenter or joiner ‘fits together’ or ‘joins’ pieces of wood that are made ready to be parts of a chariot wheel.”
We have a word for a craftsman who makes wheels (an advanced art): a wheelwright. We have an analogous word for a person who crafts, improves, and “fits together” elements of a story: a wordsmith. Although Nagy does not go there, this suggests that “Homer” may not have been considered a name when it first came into use: that is, the Iliad poet was not named Homer, he was a wordsmith, or the Wordsmith. Thus, the Odyssey poet was another wordsmith, as were some of the Cyclic poets and other authors of epic poetry. As time went by and the reputation of the Cyclic poems faded, their authors no longer merited the title of wordsmith, and it became applied only to the composers of the Iliad and the Odyssey, while the names of “lesser” poets were attached, suppositionally, to the Cyclic poems. At some point, Homer started to be taken as a “speaking name,” creating confusion ever since.2 Seen in this light, the ancient Greeks who applied Homer to the epics (which is first attested centuries after they were written; we don’t know exactly when it came into use3) didn’t think the epics had a sole author, but were created by a class of master poets, whose names were not recorded.4
Perhaps if we think of the composers of the Iliad and the Odyssey as not being named Homer, but as master poets who were given that title, they might emerge from their current obscurity into somewhat clearer light.
Sources
Nagy, G. “Pindar’s Homer is not ‘our’ Homer.” Classical Inquiries. December 24, 2015.
https://classical-inquiries.chs.harvard.edu/pindars-homer-is-not-our-homer/.
West, Martin. The Epic Cycle: A Commentary on the Lost Troy Epics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
West, Martin. The Making of the Iliad. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
West, Martin. The Making of the Odyssey. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Martin West shows this in exacting detail in his 2011 and 2014 books.
Compare this to my supposition that Helen was not named “Helen” but was a Helen or the Helen, after the goddess with whom she’s associated.
Prior to the appearance of Homer, we find the Iliad poet simply called “The Poet.”
Why their names weren’t recorded is an open question. West suggests these poets may have been seen more as performers and adapters of inherited songs, as opposed to “authors” and their names were thus “a matter of indifference,” perhaps especially in the 8th century. In contrast, he says the genealogical poems do “seem to have agreed authors: Hesiod, Kinaithon [Cinaethon], Asius…” indicating that genre mattered (West 2013, 31). This might lead me to also wonder if these poets were considered to be interlocutors of the Muses (and almost certainly considered themselves inspired by them), and so taking any personal credit for their work would be impious, however “original” it might have been.
How this might apply to the Odyssey poet and the poets of the Cyclic poems, writing around the same time as Sappho and other famous poets whose names were recorded (630-570), is also an open question. Maybe in this era, the traditions that applied to recording poetic authorship were still genre dependent? In Aristotle’s day and later, multiple authors were assigned to each of the Cyclic poems in antiquity. According to West only one seems to be reasonably well supported: Eugammon, to whom the Telegony is ascribed (one of the latest of the Cyclic poems). A circumstantial argument can be made for Arctinos (Arktinos), the ascribed poet of the Aethiopis, and the rest cannot be relied on to any degree. One possible complication is that names of the performers (rhapsodes) who owned, or recopied, the poems could have become attached to the works in place of the creators. See West 2013 (pp. 26-40) for a full discussion.