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The Homeric Question concerns the doubts and consequent debate over the identity of Homer, the authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey, and their historicity (especially concerning the Iliad). The subject has its roots in classical antiquity and the scholarship of the Hellenistic period, but has flourished among Homeric scholars of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.
The main subtopics of the Homeric Question are:
- "Who is Homer?"[1]
- "Are the Iliad and the Odyssey of multiple or single authorship?"[2]
- "By whom, when, where, and under what circumstances were the poems composed?"[3]
To these questions the possibilities of modern textual criticism and archaeological answers have added a few more:
- "How reliable is the tradition embodied in the Homeric poems?"[4]
- "How old are the oldest elements in Homeric poetry which can be dated with certainty?"[5]
- ^ Kahane, p. 1.
- ^ Jensen, p. 10. This question has attracted luminaries from all walks of life, including William Ewart Gladstone, who amused himself in spare time by inditing a tome in dilation of the view that Homer was one man, solely and individually responsible for both the Iliad and the Odyssey.
- ^ Fowler, p. 23.
- ^ Luce, p. 15.
- ^ Nilsson, p. 11.