Who was Homer? | Daily Bellringer 

Glad it was helpful!

Thanks!

Thanks!

Sort of!! To my understanding, when referencing works that are considered to be "epic poems" such as the Iliad, Odyssey, or even The Epic of Gilgamesh and Paradise Lost, while they are narratives, it's more like the old Arlo Guthrie song Alice's Restaurant Massacre. That is, it's a narrative within the language and structure of poetry. Poetry is defined by the use of different poetic devices like metaphor, hyperbole, simile, allusion, personification and the like to convey feeling and beauty in a different way than regular prose might be able to get across. To contrast this, there were more literal stories of history written by people like Josephus that are still great literary works, but those were just historical events as they happened, not poetry. It's also worth thinking about that since it was written over 2,000 years ago in a different culture and language, their definitions and rules surrounding poetry are probably significantly different than the traditional Western "roses are red, violets are blue" perception of poetry. Sorry for that big word burger, to summarize, it's complicated. God, it would be so cool to speak ancient Greek and understand all of the nuances that get lost in translation.

Thank you for taking the time to write and explain this in detail 👍