Homer (Eighth Century BC)

Greek epic poet

The earliest surviving Greek epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey (dated around the eighth century BC) have traditionally been attributed to Homer, even though his existence has been questioned by many since antiquity. He was believed to have been born blind or to have lost his sight from an eye disease early in life, before completing the Iliad or beginning the Odyssey. His blindness was accepted by such ancient authors as Herodotus, Theopompus, Plutarch, Cicero, Pausanias, Silius Italicus, Hesychius, and Suidas. It is also represented in several ancient portraits of the poet, whereas others depict him with a piercing gaze. His account, in the eighth book of the Odyssey, of Demodocus the blind bard of the Phaeacians (with its implicit notion of the gift of song as a compensation for loss of sight) has been taken as a self-portrait of the poet. The Greek historian Thucydides (fifth century BC) regarded as a genuine work of Homer the “Hymn to the Delian Apollo” in which the author describes himself as a “blind man living in harsh Chios.”

Several ancient biographers of Homer mention his blindness, but all of them are late. In the Phaedrus (Section 243a), Plato draws a strange parallel between Homer and the poet Stesichorus, who was said to have been punished with blindness for his attack on Helen.

Many modern scholars contend that Homer's blindness is apocryphal, being the result of a misattribution projected from one of the characters of the Odyssey. Rejection of Homer's blindness is implied by authors who stress the importance of visual memory for description, such as Velleius Paterculus (AD first century) among the ancients and Minchin (2001) in modern times. Similarly, although Homeric references to eyes and vision are formulaic, Homeric facial gestures may reflect aspects of character and reveal psychological situations, thus standing in for acts and, especially, words (Soteroula 1994). The idea, suggested by Schumann in 1955, that the peculiar structure of Homeric dreams is a proof of their author's blindness has been rejected by scholars such as Mirko Grmek in 1989.

The picture of the blind Homer has left its profound impact on the notion of the blind singer, although the notion itself is not confined to classical Greece. Some recent scholars have endeavored to understand the role of the blind characters in the Homeric poems (such as Tiresias, Demodocus, and Polyphemus) in connection with the legendary blindness of the poet himself.