Harold Bloom proposed that a female composed sections of the bible, or was the redactor...or something along those lines. So, this argument, or idea, whatever you prefer, seems as stale as it is unenlightening. I dont understand why, after dismissing a male author, one would propose a single female author. Clearly, the Homeric epics, like the Bible, passed through thousands of authors and editors. I think that to propose a single coherent author is the mistake. Furthermore, the exercise of linking works of the imagination to historical occurence seems, to me at least, pure folly. This is not to say historical context should not be taken into account, but it should not be the primary concern. These are the same people who question Shakespeare's identity, and they still rather miss the point. Homer, the blind poet, that ancient archetype, is important, not the "maleness" of authorship.

Excellent article but you should have worked in a mention of the the truly fabulous, very readable translations by Robert Fagles of both of these works.

Interesting article Andrew however I agree with a previous letter that says to think of these works in terms of an original solo author/ess is not very useful.

The citing of the epic of Gilgamesh made me consider that the Indian epic the Mahabbarata is probably a more useful analogy certainly in terms of the number of people who have heard it recited, read it or more recently seen it performed or watched a video of it, I'm not sure how old the original story is reputed to be.

As for the "chick lit" reference. I undersand that the term refers to a genre of modern light literature, written by women for women ostensibly, often formulaic, not regarded as being serious great or even very good writing, in fact bordering on pulp. To refer to the Illiad or the Odyssey as Chick Lit seems to disregard the thousands of brilliant women writers past and contemporary whose fine works could never be labeled with this dismissive term.

I realise the title is used to attract attention but the usage of the term in the body of the article without the implied irony of its use in the title demeans and insults without amusing.

David Edler

Many writers want a new idea or slant because it gets better press, and scholarship is severly hurt by this. You have people claiming that Oxford wrote the works of Shakespeare, then silly claims that a women wrote the works of Homer, backed by logic such as this"might have realized that a new potential audience undreamed of by male singers -- an audience of women -- existed and could be reached with the help of writing." Because women of the time and place had so much money and time to spend on literature.

Really, it's just a sad commentary on what can get published these days.

Obviously, no one person wrote all of Homer's work, it passed through oral tradition for hundreds of years, each teller adding his and possibly her own flourish to each telling. Even our extant written copies do not match each other.

Sadly, Daby's book would get none real press without his childish claim that will show a women wrote it. It's the National Enquirer of scholarship.

It's certainly true that, as literary works are passed down from generation to generation, modifications to the original texts, and even to the original titles, are inevitable.

For example, by the time my mid-1970s high school English lit class encountered "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" by Homer, those two great epics of antiquity had come to be known as "The Idiot" and "The Oddity" by "Homo."

Books like Dalby's are just dumbed down, pasteurzied versions of real scholarship. Just because you're one of those famous educated laymen doesn't mean you have to be satisfied with second best, If you want to know what the score is about Homer, read a serious work like Gregory Nagy's the Best of the Achaians and eliminate the middleman.

Pages and pages about the possible historic veracity of the events described, references to Hittite kings of Anatolia who may have conquered Ilion or Ilium. Was Paris one person or two, whatever. The only evidence that this might be written down by a woman comes down to a threat of rape and murder from the Goddess Aphrodite to Helen for Helen's sassing the goddess. Is this our only evidence that our author is female? Because men would not understand the threat of rape? I don't think this is enough. And boys were routinely used as sex objects in the culture of the time. They would know fear of rape equally well as the abducted girls.

The author has not presented any evidence that women in general were taught to read and write in Ionia during those centuries. Sappho whose dates are not known knew how to read and write, but she is the rare exception. And she wrote her own original material.

I suspect a woman who could write down these long stories would have had written her own material also. We might have known her name had she existed.

Actually, I don't find it such a stretch of the imagination to see the potential of arguing that "Homer" might have been female. After all, the "world's first novel" was produced by a Japanese female aristocrat in the late 10th century, thanks in part to the combination of time, education, and systematic exclusion from "public" affairs that marked the lives of elite women of the era.

Yes, men really can sometimes figure out how women think and even *gasp* write about it.

I thought the fad of proclaiming historical male author X was really female had finally faded. Guess I was wrong.

Robert Graves' book, Homer's Daughter put this idea forward in 1956. It wasn't original with him: he said it was based on a minority view that the Naausica section--at least-- was composed by a woman (or women) in the bardic guild. Very sound thesis. So, why the hoopla? Surely, if Dalby did any kind of research, he would have come across this mass market book. So how is this book original? Everything hyped; everything new, new, new. How tiresome.