Homer is the name given to the purported author of the early Greek poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. It is now believed by classicists (especially after the studies by Milman Parry) that they were composed by illiterate aoidoi (rhapsodes) in an oral tradition in the 8th or 7th century BC. However, there remains much argument between analysts and unitarians over whether the Iliad and the Odyssey were the product of one man or of many. Homer's works begin the Western Canon and are universally praised for their poetic genius. By convention, the compositions are also often taken to initiate the period of Classical Antiquity. Identity and authorship (1825?1905)]] The Emperor Hadrian asked the Oracle at Delphi who Homer really was, and the Pythia proclaimed that he was Ithacan, the son of Epikaste and Telemachus, from the Odyssey.H.W.Parke, Greek

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