Homer

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POETRY FROM AROUND THE WORLD!
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EPIC POEMS

• GREEK POETRY
• BY HOMER

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Which one is Homer?
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Meet Homer

• Homer wrote two Epic Poems The Iliad and The
  Odyssey
• He lived in Ionia, Greece around 700 BC
• He was blind so he needed to memorize his stories
• The Iliad and The Odyssey are over 16,000 lines
  long!!!!

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Question

• Brainstorm everything you know about the word
  epic. If youve never heard the word before,
  look it up in the dictionary and record the
  definition.
• Epic Poem a long, narrative poem about a larger
  than life hero who embodies the values of his or
  her people
• What epic stories are you familiar with?

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Background on The Iliad

• The name comes from the Greek word for Troy
• The poem opens in the middle of the famous Trojan
  War
• This war, fought in the early 12th Century BC,
  happened because Paris, a Trojan Prince kidnapped
  Helen, the Queen of Sparta, in Greece
• For 9 years, the Greeks attacked Troy
  unsuccessfully
• The poem ends before the war ends

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Background on The Odyssey

• A sequel to The Iliad
• Follows the story of Odysseus who got lost on his
  way home from the Trojan War.
• Gets shipwrecked
• Has to deal with vengeful gods and monsters (Six
  headed monster, Cyclops, etc)
• Wants to get home to his wife in Ithaca
• Takes place over 10 years

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More about the poem

• 16,000 lines!
• Tells a story that actually occurs over only a
  few days
• Set in mythic times when the gods intervened in
  the every day lives of the Greeks
• Explores the ideals of Ancient Greece religion,
  heroism, honor
• The most important thing to the Ancient Greeks
  was how you faced adversity

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