The World of Homer

"The World of Homer" by Andrew Lang is a deep investigation into ancient Greece's epic stories and civilization, particularly concentrating on the poems credited to Homer. Authored in the early 1900s, this piece of writing attempts to determine the actual history behind the Homeric epics, the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey," and to oppose specific critical ideas that propose these works are simply collections from different historical periods, instead of a unified result of a single cultural time. Lang's study includes thinking about the archeological discoveries and the social, political, and economic situations that shape the world drawn by Homer. The beginning of the book lays out the basic idea that Homer's society was not just a creative fantasy, but shows a real place and time in ancient history. Lang talks about the historical backgrounds—the four separate periods that molded the world as shown by Homer—starting with the Late Minoan period and moving to the Achaean setting of the Homeric epics. He presents a detailed review of the common ideas among reviewers that suggest conflicting cultural parts within the epics, arguing for a connected understanding of the Homeric world as grounded in the historical Achaean society. Lang uses this journey to question the idea that the storytelling and style aspects of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" are outdated or are just a mix of many eras, presenting his work as a defense of the completeness and honesty of Homer's artistic view.