The Odyssey, by Homer, contains information regarding the author’s life, provenance, genre, language, and intended audience. While nothing is certain about Homer’s life, scholars can estimate his biographical information. There are seven different cities in Greece that claim to be the birthplace of Homer, but ancient Greek tradition is that he was born in Ionia which is located near eastern Aegean. Even though Homer was blind, he was the author of many poems such as The Iliad and The Odyssey. Like Homer’s life, the exact provenance is not known either. The Odyssey is believed to be written around the late seventh, early eighth century BCE; however, the location where the book was written is debated. Furthermore, The Odyssey was originally an oral epic poem, but became just an epic poem once it was written down. The original …show more content…
Finally, the way Homer wrote was a simplistic style, and he used familiar descriptions and events to increase the appeal of the story. Also, Homer used a poetic style to make retelling the story easier. Because of the way Homer wrote The Odyssey, the intended audience was ordinary people in Greece around the eighth century BCE. Overall, Homer wanted to share the story of a hero’s journey to return home after the Trojan War with as many people as he could. There are two main important contextual parts of The Odyssey: the way it was spread amongst people and the way it was received. To begin, The Odyssey was spread was through oral presentation. Because it was an oral epic poem, the linguistic consistencies were lost as it was told from