Homeric Greek is the form of the Greek language that was used by Homer in the Iliad and Odyssey. It is an archaic version of Ionic Greek, with admixtures from certain other dialects, such as Aeolic Greek. It later served as the basis of Epic Greek, the language of epic poetry, typically in dactylic hexameter, of poets such as Hesiod. Unlike later forms of the language, Homeric Greek did not have available in most circumstances a true definite article. Compositions in Epic Greek may date from as late as the 3rd century AD, though its decline was inevitable with the rise of Koine Greek.
Read more about Homeric Greek: Main Features, Vocabulary, Sample
Famous quotes containing the words homeric and/or greek:
“Carlyle has not the simple Homeric health of Wordsworth, nor the deliberate philosophic turn of Coleridge, nor the scholastic taste of Landor, but, though sick and under restraint, the constitutional vigor of one of his old Norse heroes.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I am not a Catholic; but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots in Greek thought and in the course of the centuries has nourished all of our European civilization, as something that one cannot renounce without becoming degraded.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)