Homer

About this book

Ideally we should not speak of "poetry" in connection with Homer at all, for it may be prejudicial to ask Homer what "poetry" is when that good Greek word is not attested before the fifth century; it seems that it was only in that enlightened critical culture that sophists and other philosophers of language began calling what Homer and his fellows did "making" (poiêsis) and the performer a "maker" (poiêtês).l