ABSTRACT
The Greeks attributed the origins of poetry to two mythical poets endowed with magical powers, Musaeus and Orpheus; for us however, Greek literature, and with it Western literature as a whole, begins with the Iliad and the Odyssey. The name of Homer, under which these poems have come down to us, has symbolised poetry for more than twenty-five centuries. All of Antiquity, from Xenophanes (sixth century BC) to Lucian (second century AD) believed that Homer was a real person who recounted real events: the great deeds of the Trojan War, traditionally dated at around 1200 BC.
