{"id":5076,"date":"2016-11-07T10:47:48","date_gmt":"2016-11-07T15:47:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/?p=5076"},"modified":"2016-11-07T10:48:35","modified_gmt":"2016-11-07T15:48:35","slug":"how-homer-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/2016\/11\/07\/how-homer-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"How Homer Matters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"250\" src=\"http:\/\/players.brightcove.net\/911432378001\/4yTSKnBce_default\/index.html?videoId=4584091490001\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The core of what is valuable about those epics is that they are intensely human. &#8230; It is an absolutely down-the-barrel look at the realities of who we are.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In his lecture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, author Adam Nicholson argues the importance of Homer thousands of years after he wrote the <em>Iliad<\/em> and the <em>Odyssey<\/em>. He examines the uncertain origins of Homer, the oral tradition of epic poetry, and the contrasting cultures of the Trojans and the Greeks. His talk is set against a background of archaeology and art history.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a quick synopsis of some key points throughout the lecture:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Homer&#8217;s origins are unknown, but that hasn&#8217;t stopped scholars from speculating. Some believe there are multiple Homers or that he was actually a woman or a group of women.<\/li>\n<li>Homer&#8217;s epics are built on the foundations of oral tradition. Indeed, Nicholson says, the final versions of the <em>Iliad<\/em> or the <em>Odyssey<\/em>&#8211;that is, the written versions&#8211; is &#8220;the last Homer&#8221; of many who came before him.<\/li>\n<li>Interestingly, oral tradition does not mean memorization of thousands of lines word-for-word, but instead involves a general idea of the plot and specific phrases and stanzas combined with on-the-spot composition.<\/li>\n<li>Nicholson holds the controversial belief that Homer&#8217;s origins are much farther back than previously thought. Instead of a poet from 800 BC writing about a war that took place in 1200 BC, Nicholson claims that archaeological findings prove that Troy was an impoverished state at that time, but far wealthier a thousand years prior.<\/li>\n<li>In the<em> Iliad<\/em>, Troy is defined by cloth, whereas the Greeks are defined by bronze, particularly in the form of weaponry. Each is a metaphor for their communities; the Trojans are marked by integrity in a closely woven urban setting, while the Greeks are marked by honor and individuality in what Nicholson calls a &#8220;blade&#8221; culture. Both have their pros and cons. The climax of the clashing of these two cultures comes from the meeting of Achilles and Priam after the death of Hector. In the <em>Odyssey<\/em>, Odysseus is, in a sense, the child of this meeting, combining the qualities of both cultures.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So what makes Homer important after all these years? &#8220;Homer is beautiful because he doesn&#8217;t submit to all the pains of existence,&#8221; Nicholson says. He depicts the complex beauty of life, complete in its delights and violence, joys and sorrows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;The core of what is valuable about those epics is that they are intensely human. &#8230; It is an absolutely down-the-barrel look at the realities of who we are.&#8221; In his lecture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, author Adam Nicholson argues the importance of Homer thousands of years after he wrote the Iliad and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6257,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[898,244,3857,4854,522],"tags":[5412,48495,3919],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5076"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6257"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5076"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5091,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5076\/revisions\/5091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}