The Iliad & The Odyssey (Including "Homer and His Age")

The Iliad and the Odyssey are two epic poems written by Homer around the 9th century BC. They are two of the oldest recorded written works in history. The Iliad deals with a ten-year war between the Greeks and Trojans, called the Siege of Troy. It centers around Achilles, the great Greek hero who was dipped in the river Styx when he was young and whose only weak spot was his heel. He was killed when Apollo helped one of his enemies shoot an arrow into his heel. The Odyssey is about Odysseus?s voyage from the war back home to Ithaca, which took another 10 years. Homer (around the 9th century BC) is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest of ancient Greek epic poets. Homer's works, which are about fifty percent speeches, provided models in persuasive speaking and writing that were emulated throughout the ancient and medieval Greek worlds. Homer and His Age by Andrew Lang was written in 1906. Lang was highly regarded as a Homeric scholar and Homer and His Age is one of the works he contributed to this area of study. Andrew Lang (1844–1912) was a Scottish poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew