In the Western classical tradition Homer (; Ancient Greek: , ''Hómēros''), is the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.

When he lived is controversial. Herodotus estimates that Homer lived 400 years before Herodotus' own time, which would place him at around 850 BC; while other ancient sources claim that he lived much nearer to the supposed time of the Trojan War, in the early 12th century BC.

For modern scholars "the date of Homer" refers not to an individual, but to the period when the epics were created. The consensus is that "the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' date from around the 8th century BC, the ''Iliad'' being composed before the ''Odyssey'', perhaps by some decades," i.e. earlier than Hesiod, the ''Iliad'' being the oldest work of Western literature. Over the past few decades, some scholars have argued for a 7th century BC date. Some of those who argue that the Homeric poems developed gradually over a long period of time give an even later date for the composition of the poems; according to Gregory Nagy for example, they only became fixed texts in the 6th century BC. The question of the historicity of Homer the individual is known as the "Homeric question"; there is no reliable biographical information handed down from classical antiquity. The poems are generally seen as the culmination of many generations of oral story-telling, in a tradition with a well-developed formulaic system of poetic composition. Some scholars, such as Martin West, claim that "Homer" is "not the name of a historical poet, but a fictitious or constructed name."

The formative influence played by the Homeric epics in shaping Greek culture was widely recognized, and Homer was described as the teacher of Greece. Homer's works, which are about fifty percent speeches, provided models in persuasive speaking and writing that were emulated throughout the ancient and medieval Greek worlds. Fragments of Homer account for about half of all ancient Greek papyrus finds.

Life and legends

"Homer" is a Greek name, attested in Aeolic-speaking areas, and although nothing definite is known about him, traditions arose purporting to give details of his birthplace and background. The satirist Lucian, in his ''True History'', describes him as a Babylonian called Tigranes, who assumed the name Homer when taken "hostage" (''homeros'') by the Greeks. When the Emperor Hadrian asked the Oracle at Delphi about Homer, the Pythia proclaimed that he was Ithacan, the son of Epikaste and Telemachus, from the ''Odyssey''. These stories were incorporated into the various ''Lives of Homer'' compiled from the Alexandrian period onwards. Homer is most frequently said to be born in the Ionian region of Asia Minor, at Smyrna, or on the island of Chios, dying on the Cycladic island of Ios. A connection with Smyrna seems to be alluded to in a legend that his original name was ''Melesigenes'' ("born of Meles", a river which flowed by that city), with his mother the nymph Kretheis. Internal evidence from the poems gives evidence of familiarity with the topography and place-names of this area of Asia Minor, for example, Homer refers to meadow birds at the mouth of the Caystros (''Iliad'' 2.459ff.), a storm in the Icarian sea (''Iliad'' 2.144ff.), and mentions that women in Maeonia and Caria stain ivory with scarlet (''Iliad'' 4.142).

The association with Chios dates back to at least Semonides of Amorgos, who cited a famous line in the ''Iliad'' (6.146) as by "the man of Chios". An eponymous bardic guild, known as the Homeridae (sons of Homer), or ''Homeristae'' ('Homerizers') appears to have existed there, tracing descent from an ancestor of that name, or upholding their function as rhapsodes or "lay-stitchers" specialising in the recitation of Homeric poetry. Wilhelm Dörpfeld suggests that Homer had visited many of the places and regions which he describes in his epics, such as Mycenae, Troy, the palace of Odysseus at Ithaca and more. According to Diodorus Siculus, Homer had even visited Egypt.

The poet's name is homophonous with ὅμηρος (''hómēros''), "hostage" (or "surety"), which is interpreted as meaning "he who accompanies; he who is forced to follow", or, in some dialects, "blind". This led to many tales that he was a hostage or a blind man. Traditions which assert that he was blind may have arisen from the meaning of the word in both Ionic, where the verbal form ὁμηρεύω (''homēreúō'') has the specialized meaning of "guide the blind", and the Aeolian dialect of Cyme, where ὅμηρος (''hómēros'') is synonymous with the standard Greek τυφλός (''tuphlós''), meaning 'blind'. The characterization of Homer as a blind bard goes back to some verses in the Delian ''Hymn to Apollo,'' the third of the ''Homeric Hymns,'' verses later cited to support this notion by Thucydides. The Cumean historian Ephorus held the same view, and the idea gained support in antiquity on the strength of a false etymology which derived his name from ''ho mḕ horṓn'' (ὁ μὴ ὁρῶν: "he who does not see"). Critics have long taken as self-referential a passage in the ''Odyssey'' describing a blind bard, Demodocus, in the court of the Phaeacian king, who recounts stories of Troy to the shipwrecked Odysseus.

Many scholars take the name of the poet to be indicative of a generic function. Gregory Nagy takes it to mean "he who fits (the Song) together". ὁμηρέω (homēréō), another related verb, besides signifying "meet", can mean "(sing) in accord/tune". Some argue that "Homer" may have meant "he who puts the voice in tune" with dancing. Marcello Durante links "Homeros" to an epithet of Zeus as "god of the assemblies" and argues that behind the name lies the echo of an archaic word for "reunion", similar to the later Panegyris, denoting a formal assembly of competing minstrels.

Some ''Ancient Lives'' depict Homer as a wandering minstrel, like Thamyris or Hesiod, who walked as far as Chalkis to sing at the funeral games of Amphidamas. We are given the image of a "blind, begging singer who hangs around with little people: shoemakers, fisherman, potters, sailors, elderly men in the gathering places of harbour towns". The poems, on the other hand, give us evidence of singers at the courts of the nobility. There is a strong aristocratic bias in the poems demonstrated by the lack of any major protagonists of non-aristocratic stock, and by episodes such as the beating down of the commoner Thersites by the king Odysseus for daring to criticize his superiors. In spite of this scholars are divided as to which category, if any, the court singer or the wandering minstrel, the historic "Homer" belonged.

Works attributed to Homer

The Greeks of the sixth and early fifth centuries BC understood by "Homer", generally, "the whole body of heroic tradition as embodied in hexameter verse". Thus, in addition to the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey,'' there are "exceptional" epics which organize their respective themes on a "massive scale". Many other works were credited to Homer in antiquity, including the entire Epic Cycle. The genre included further poems on the Trojan War, such as the ''Little Iliad'', the ''Nostoi'', the ''Cypria,'' and the ''Epigoni'', as well as the Theban poems about Oedipus and his sons. Other works, such as the corpus of ''Homeric Hymns'', the comic mini-epic ''Batrachomyomachia'' ("The Frog-Mouse War"), and the ''Margites'' were also attributed to him, but this is now believed to be unlikely. Two other poems, the ''Capture of Oechalia'' and the ''Phocais'' were also assigned Homeric authorship, but the question of the identities of the authors of these various texts is even more problematic than that of the authorship of the two major epics.

Problems of authorship

The idea that Homer was responsible for just the two outstanding epics, the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', did not win consensus until 350 BC. While many find it unlikely that both epics were composed by the same person, others argue that the stylistic similarities are too consistent to support the theory of multiple authorship. One view which attempts to bridge the differences holds that the ''Iliad'' was composed by "Homer" in his maturity, while the ''Odyssey'' was a work of his old age. The ''Batrachomyomachia'', ''Homeric Hymns'' and cyclic epics are generally agreed to be later than the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey''.

Most scholars agree that the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'' underwent a process of standardisation and refinement out of older material beginning in the 8th century BC. An important role in this standardisation appears to have been played by the Athenian tyrant Hipparchus, who reformed the recitation of Homeric poetry at the Panathenaic festival. Many classicists hold that this reform must have involved the production of a canonical written text.

Other scholars still support the idea that Homer was a real person. Since nothing is known about the life of this Homer, the common joke—also recycled with regard to Shakespeare—has it that the poems "were not written by Homer, but by another man of the same name." Samuel Butler argues, based on literary observations, that a young Sicilian woman wrote the ''Odyssey'' (but not the ''Iliad''), an idea further pursued by Robert Graves in his novel ''Homer's Daughter'' and Andrew Dalby in ''Rediscovering Homer''.

Independent of the question of single authorship is the near-universal agreement, after the work of Milman Parry, that the Homeric poems are dependent on an oral tradition, a generations-old technique that was the collective inheritance of many singer-poets (''aoidoi''). An analysis of the structure and vocabulary of the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'' shows that the poems contain many formulaic phrases typical of extempore epic traditions; even entire verses are at times repeated. Parry and his student Albert Lord pointed out that such elaborate oral tradition, foreign to today's literate cultures, is typical of epic poetry in a predominantly oral cultural milieu, the key words being "oral" and "traditional". Parry started with "traditional": the repetitive chunks of language, he said, were inherited by the singer-poet from his predecessors, and were useful to him in composition. Parry called these repetitive chunks "formulas".

Exactly when these poems would have taken on a fixed written form is subject to debate. The traditional solution is the "transcription hypothesis", wherein a non-literate "Homer" dictates his poem to a literate scribe between the 8th and 6th centuries BC. The Greek alphabet was introduced in the early 8th century BC, so it is possible that Homer himself was of the first generation of authors who were also literate. The classicist Barry B. Powell suggests that the Greek alphabet was invented ca. 800 BC by one man, probably Homer, in order to write down oral epic poetry. More radical Homerists like Gregory Nagy contend that a canonical text of the Homeric poems as "scripture" did not exist until the Hellenistic period (3rd to 1st century BC).

Homeric studies

The study of Homer is one of the oldest topics in scholarship, dating back to antiquity. The aims and achievements of Homeric studies have changed over the course of the millennia. In the last few centuries, they have revolved around the process by which the Homeric poems came into existence and were transmitted over time to us, first orally and later in writing.

Some of the main trends in modern Homeric scholarship have been, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, ''Analysis'' and ''Unitarianism'' (see Homeric Question), schools of thought which emphasized on the one hand the inconsistencies in, and on the other the artistic unity of, Homer; and in the 20th century and later ''Oral Theory'', the study of the mechanisms and effects of oral transmission, and ''Neoanalysis'', the study of the relationship between Homer and other early epic material.

Homeric dialect

The language used by Homer 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.

Homeric style

Aristotle remarks in his ''Poetics'' that Homer was unique among the poets of his time, focusing on a single unified theme or action in the epic cycle.

The cardinal qualities of the style of Homer are well articulated by Matthew Arnold:

[T]he translator of Homer should above all be penetrated by a sense of four qualities of his author:—that he is eminently rapid; that he is eminently plain and direct, both in the evolution of his thought and in the expression of it, that is, both in his syntax and in his words; that he is eminently plain and direct in the substance of his thought, that is, in his matter and ideas; and finally, that he is eminently noble.

The peculiar rapidity of Homer is due in great measure to his use of hexameter verse. It is characteristic of early literature that the evolution of the thought, or the grammatical form of the sentence, is guided by the structure of the verse; and the correspondence which consequently obtains between the rhythm and the syntax—the thought being given out in lengths, as it were, and these again divided by tolerably uniform pauses—produces a swift flowing movement such as is rarely found when periods are constructed without direct reference to the metre. That Homer possesses this rapidity without falling into the corresponding faults, that is, without becoming either fluctuant or monotonous, is perhaps the best proof of his unequalled poetic skill. The plainness and directness of both thought and expression which characterise him were doubtless qualities of his age, but the author of the ''Iliad'' (similar to Voltaire, to whom Arnold happily compares him) must have possessed this gift in a surpassing degree. The ''Odyssey'' is in this respect perceptibly below the level of the ''Iliad''.

Rapidity or ease of movement, plainness of expression, and plainness of thought are not distinguishing qualities of the great epic poets Virgil, Dante, and Milton. On the contrary, they belong rather to the humbler epico-lyrical school for which Homer has been so often claimed. The proof that Homer does not belong to that school—and that his poetry is not in any true sense ballad poetry—is furnished by the higher artistic structure of his poems and, as regards style, by the fourth of the qualities distinguished by Arnold: the quality of nobleness. It is his noble and powerful style, sustained through every change of idea and subject, that finally separates Homer from all forms of ballad poetry and popular epic.

Like the French epics, such as the Chanson de Roland, Homeric poetry is indigenous and, by the ease of movement and its resultant simplicity, distinguishable from the works of Dante, Milton and Virgil. It is also distinguished from the works of these artists by the comparative absence of underlying motives or sentiment. In Virgil's poetry, a sense of the greatness of Rome and Italy is the leading motive of a passionate rhetoric, partly veiled by the considered delicacy of his language. Dante and Milton are still more faithful exponents of the religion and politics of their time. Even the French epics display sentiments of fear and hatred of the Saracens; but, in Homer's works, the interest is purely dramatic. There is no strong antipathy of race or religion; the war turns on no political events; the capture of Troy lies outside the range of the Iliad; and even the protagonists are not comparable to the chief national heroes of Greece. So far as can be seen, the chief interest in Homer's works is that of human feeling and emotion, and of drama; indeed, his works are often referred to as "dramas".

History and the Iliad

The excavations of Heinrich Schliemann at Hisarlik in the late 19th century provided initial evidence to scholars that there was an historical basis for the Trojan War. Research into oral epics in Serbo-Croatian and Turkic languages, pioneered by the aforementioned Parry and Lord, began convincing scholars that long poems could be preserved with consistency by oral cultures until they are written down. The decipherment of Linear B in the 1950s by Michael Ventris (and others) convinced many of a linguistic continuity between 13th century BC Mycenaean writings and the poems attributed to Homer.

It is probable, therefore, that the story of the Trojan War as reflected in the Homeric poems derives from a tradition of epic poetry founded on a war which actually took place. It is crucial, however, not to underestimate the creative and transforming power of subsequent tradition: for instance, Achilles, the most important character of the ''Iliad,'' is strongly associated with southern Thessaly, but his legendary figure is interwoven into a tale of war whose kings were from the Peloponnese. Tribal wanderings were frequent, and far-flung, ranging over much of Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean. The epic weaves brilliantly the '''' (scattered remains) of these distinct tribal narratives, exchanged among clan bards, into a monumental tale in which Greeks join collectively to do battle on the distant plains of Troy.

Hero cult

In the Hellenistic period, Homer was the subject of a hero cult in several cities. A shrine, the ''Homereion'', was devoted to him in Alexandria by Ptolemy IV Philopator in the late 3rd century BC. This shrine is described in Aelian's 3rd century AD work ''Varia Historia''. He tells how Ptolemy "placed in a circle around the statue [of Homer] all the cities who laid claim to Homer" and mentions a painting of the poet by the artist Galaton, which apparently depicted Homer in the aspect of Oceanus as the source of all poetry.

A marble relief, found in Italy but thought to have been sculpted in Egypt, depicts the apotheosis of Homer. It shows Ptolemy and his wife or sister Arsinoe III standing beside a seated poet, flanked by figures from the ''Odyssey'' and ''Iliad'', with the nine Muses standing above them and a procession of worshippers approaching an altar, believed to represent the Alexandrine Homereion. Apollo, the god of music and poetry, also appears, along with a female figure tentatively identified as Mnemosyne, the mother of the Muses. Zeus, the king of the gods, presides over the proceedings. The relief demonstrates vividly that the Greeks considered Homer not merely a great poet but the divinely inspired reservoir of all literature.

Homereia also stood at Chios, Ephesus, and Smyrna, which were among the city-states that claimed to be his birthplace. Strabo (14.1.37) records an Homeric temple in Smyrna with an ancient ''xoanon'' or cult statue of the poet. He also mentions sacrifices carried out to Homer by the inhabitants of Argos, presumably at another Homereion.

Transmission and publication

Though evincing many features characteristic of oral poetry, the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'' were at some point committed to writing. The Greek script, adapted from a Phoenician syllabary around 800 BC, made possible the notation of the complex rhythms and vowel clusters that make up hexameter verse. Homer's poems appear to have been recorded shortly after the alphabet's invention: an inscription from Ischia in the Bay of Naples, ca. 740 BC, appears to refer to a text of the ''Iliad''; likewise, illustrations seemingly inspired by the Polyphemus episode in the ''Odyssey'' are found on Samos, Mykonos and in Italy, dating from the first quarter of the seventh century BC. We have little information about the early condition of the Homeric poems, but in the second century BC, Alexandrian editors stabilized this text from which all modern texts descend.

In late antiquity, knowledge of Greek declined in Latin-speaking western Europe and, along with it, knowledge of Homer's poems. It was not until the fifteenth century AD that Homer's work began to be read once more in Italy. By contrast it was continually read and taught in the Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire where the majority of the classics also survived. The first printed edition appeared in 1488 (edited by Demetrios Chalkokondyles and published by Bernardus Nerlius, Nerius Nerlius, and Demetrius Damilas in Florence, Italy).

See also

Topics

Modern scholars

Richard Bentley

Ioannis Kakridis

Adolf Kirchhoff

Geoffrey Kirk

Karl Lachmann

Walter Leaf

Albert Lord

David Binning Monro

Karl Otfried Müller

Gilbert Murray

Gregory Nagy

Gregor Wilhelm Nitzsch

Milman Parry

Barry B. Powell

Heinrich Schliemann

William Bedell Stanford

Jean-Baptiste Gaspard d'Ansse de Villoison

Alan Wace

Martin Litchfield West

Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff

Friedrich August Wolf

Notes

Selected bibliography

Editions

(texts in Homeric Greek)

Demetrius Chalcondyles ''editio princeps'', Florence, 1488

the Aldine editions (1504 and 1517)

Th. Ridel, Strasbourg, ca. 1572, 1588 and 1592.

Wolf (Halle, 1794–1795; Leipzig, 1804 1807)

Spitzner (Gotha, 1832–1836)

Bekker (Berlin, 1843; Bonn, 1858)

La Roche (Odyssey, 1867–1868; Iliad, 1873–1876, both at Leipzig)

Ludwich (Odyssey, Leipzig, 1889–1891; Iliad, 2 vols., 1901 and 1907)

W. Leaf (Iliad, London, 1886–1888; 2nd ed. 1900-1902)

W. Walter Merry and James Riddell (Odyssey i.-xii., 2nd ed., Oxford, 1886)

Monro (Odyssey xiii.-xxiv. with appendices, Oxford, 1901)

Monro and Allen (Iliad), and Allen (Odyssey, 1908, Oxford).

D.B. Monro and T.W. Allen 1917-1920, ''Homeri Opera'' (5 volumes: ''Iliad'' = 3rd edition, ''Odyssey'' = 2nd edition), Oxford. ISBN 0-19-814528-4, ISBN 0-19-814529-2, ISBN 0-19-814531-4, ISBN 0-19-814532-2, ISBN 0-19-814534-9

H. van Thiel 1991, ''Homeri Odyssea'', Hildesheim. ISBN 3-487-09458-4, 1996, ''Homeri Ilias'', Hildesheim. ISBN 3-487-09459-2

M.L. West 1998-2000, ''Homeri Ilias'' (2 volumes), Munich/Leipzig. ISBN 3-598-71431-9, ISBN 3-598-71435-1

P. von der Mühll 1993, ''Homeri Odyssea'', Munich/Leipzig. ISBN 3-598-71432-7

Ilias in Wikisource

Interlinear translations

''The Iliad of Homer a Parsed Interlinear'', Handheldclassics.com (2008) Text ISBN 978-1607252986

English translations

This is a partial list of translations into English of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.

Augustus Taber Murray (1866–1940)

*''Homer: Iliad'', 2 vols., revised by William F. Wyatt, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press (1999).

*''Homer: Odyssey'', 2 vols., revised by George E. Dimock, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press (1995).

Robert Fitzgerald (1910–1985)

*''The Iliad'', Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2004) ISBN 0-374-52905-1

*''The Odyssey'', Farrar, Straus and Giroux (1998) ISBN 0-374-52574-9

Robert Fagles (1933–2008)

*''The Iliad'', Penguin Classics (1998) ISBN 0-14-027536-3

*''The Odyssey'', Penguin Classics (1999) ISBN 0-14-026886-3

Stanley Lombardo (b. 1943)

*''Iliad'', Hackett Publishing Company (1997) ISBN 0-87220-352-2

*''Odyssey'', Hackett Publishing Company (2000) ISBN 0-87220-484-7

*''Iliad'', (Audiobook) Parmenides (2006) ISBN 1-930972-08-3

*''Odyssey'', (Audiobook) Parmenides (2006) ISBN 1-930972-06-7

*''The Essential Homer'', (Audiobook) Parmenides (2006) ISBN 1-930972-12-1

*''The Essential Iliad'', (Audiobook) Parmenides (2006) ISBN 1-930972-10-5

Samuel Butler (novelist) (1835–1902)

*''The Iliad'', Red and Black Publishers (2008) ISBN 978-1-934941-04-1

*''The Odyssey'', Red and Black Publishers (2008) ISBN 978-1-934941-05-8

Herbert Jordan (b. 1938)

*"Iliad", University of Oklahoma Press (2008) ISBN 9780806139746 (soft cover); ISBN 9780806139425 (cloth bound)

General works on Homer

Pierre Carlier, ''Homère'', Fayard 1999. ISBN 2-213-60381-2

Pierre Vidal-Naquet, ''Le monde d'Homère'', Perrin 2000. ISBN 2-262-01181-8

Jacqueline de Romilly, ''Homère'', Presses Universitaire de France, 5th ed. 2005. ISBN 2-13-054830-X

J. Latacz 2004, ''Troy and Homer: Towards a Solution of an Old Mystery'', Oxford, ISBN 0-19-926308-6; 5th updated and expanded edition, Leipzig 2005 (in Spanish 2003 ISBN 84-233-3487-2, modern Greek 2005 ISBN 960-16-1557-1)

Robert Fowler (ed.), ''The Cambridge Companion to Homer'', Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2004. ISBN 0-521-01246-5

I. Morris and B. B. Powell 1997, ''A New Companion to Homer'', Leiden. ISBN 90-04-09989-1

B. B. Powell 2007, "Homer," 2nd edition. Oxford. ISBN 978-1-4051-5325-5

Influential readings and interpretations

E. Auerbach 1953, ''Mimesis'', Princeton (orig. publ. in German, 1946, Bern), chapter 1. ISBN 0-691-11336-X

M.W. Edwards 1987, ''Homer, Poet of the Iliad'', Baltimore. ISBN 0-8018-3329-9

B. Fenik 1974, ''Studies in the Odyssey'', Wiesbaden ('Hermes' Einzelschriften 30).

M.I. Finley, ''The World of Odysseus'' 1954, rev. ed. 1978.

I.J.F. de Jong 1987, ''Narrators and Focalizers'', Amsterdam/Bristol. ISBN 1-85399-658-0

G. Nagy 1980, "The Best of the Achaeans", Baltimore. ISBN 978-0801860157

Commentaries

''Iliad'':

*P.V. Jones (ed.) 2003, ''Homer's Iliad. A Commentary on Three Translations'', London. ISBN 1-85399-657-2

*G. S. Kirk (gen. ed.) 1985-1993, ''The Iliad: A Commentary'' (6 volumes), Cambridge. ISBN 0-521-28171-7, ISBN 0-521-28172-5, ISBN 0-521-28173-3, ISBN 0-521-28174-1, ISBN 0-521-31208-6, ISBN 0-521-31209-4

*J. Latacz (gen. ed.) 2002-, ''Homers Ilias. Gesamtkommentar. Auf der Grundlage der Ausgabe von Ameis-Hentze-Cauer (1868–1913)'' (6 volumes published so far, of an estimated 15), Munich/Leipzig. ISBN 3-598-74307-6, ISBN 3-598-74304-1

*N. Postlethwaite (ed.) 2000, ''Homer's Iliad: A Commentary on the Translation of Richmond Lattimore'', Exeter. ISBN 0-85989-684-6

*M.W. Willcock (ed.) 1976, ''A Companion to the Iliad'', Chicago. ISBN 0-226-89855-5

''Odyssey'':

*A. Heubeck (gen. ed.) 1990-1993, ''A Commentary on Homer's Odyssey'' (3 volumes; orig. publ. 1981-1987 in Italian), Oxford. ISBN 0-19-814747-3, ISBN 0-19-872144-7, ISBN 0-19-814953-0

*P. Jones (ed.) 1988, ''Homer's Odyssey: A Commentary based on the English Translation of Richmond Lattimore'', Bristol. ISBN 1-85399-038-8

*I.J.F. de Jong (ed.) 2001, ''A Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey'', Cambridge. ISBN 0-521-46844-2

Trends in Homeric scholarship

;"Classical" analysis

A. Heubeck 1974, ''Die homerische Frage'', Darmstadt. ISBN 3-534-03864-9

R. Merkelbach 1969, ''Untersuchungen zur Odyssee'' (2nd edition), Munich. ISBN 3-406-03242-7

D. Page 1955, ''The Homeric Odyssey'', Oxford.

U. von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff 1916, ''Die Ilias und Homer'', Berlin.

F.A. Wolf 1795, ''Prolegomena ad Homerum'', Halle. Published in English translation 1988, Princeton. ISBN 0-691-10247-3

;Neoanalysis

M.E. Clark 1986, "Neoanalysis: a bibliographical review," ''Classical World'' 79.6: 379-94.

J. Griffin 1977, "The epic cycle and the uniqueness of Homer," ''Journal of Hellenic Studies'' 97: 39-53.

J.T. Kakridis 1949, ''Homeric Researches'', London. ISBN 0-8240-7757-1

W. Kullmann 1960, ''Die Quellen der Ilias (Troischer Sagenkreis)'', Wiesbaden. ISBN 3-515-00235-9

;Homer and oral tradition

E. Bakker 1997, ''Poetry in Speech: Orality and Homeric Discourse'', Ithaca NY. ISBN 0-8014-3295-2

J.M. Foley 1999, ''Homer's Traditional Art'', University Park PA. ISBN 0-271-01870-4

G.S. Kirk 1976, ''Homer and the Oral Tradition'', Cambridge. ISBN 0-521-21309-6

A.B. Lord 1960, ''The Singer of Tales'', Cambridge MA. ISBN 0-674-00283-0

M. Parry 1971, ''The Making of Homeric Verse'', Oxford. ISBN 0-19-520560-X

B. B. Powell, 1991, ''Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet,'' ISBN 0-521-58907-X

Dating the Homeric poems

R. Janko 1982, ''Homer, Hesiod and the Hymns'', Cambridge. ISBN 0-521-23869-2

External links

Iliad by Homer

Works by Homer at Project Gutenberg.

Iliad bilingual edition bks 1-12 at archive.org

Collection of Homer-related links

Greek lessons based on Homer

Clyde Pharr, Homer and the study of Greek

Homer

SORGLL: Homer, Iliad, Bk I, 1-52; read by Stephen Daitz

Racing Odysseus: A College President Becomes a Freshman Again A former college president attended St. John's College and wrote a memoir about his experience reading Homer, rowing Crew, and examining the importance of a liberal arts education in today’s society.

Translation issues: Iliad translator Herbert Jordan (U. of Oklahoma Press 2008) describes translation issues including: how literal should it be; whether to call the besiegers Achaeans, Argives, Danaans, or Greeks; how—and whether—to translate "winged words"; what the wall by the ships looked like; whether the besiegers slept in tents, huts, camps—or nothing.

Category:Oral epic poets Category:Epic poets Category:Blind people * Category:Mythography Homer Homer Category:8th-century BC poets Category:Mycenaean Greece Category:Greek historical hero cult Category:Greek culture heroes Category:Ancient Chians Category:Ancient Smyrnaeans Category:Deified people

af:Homeros als:Homer am:ሆሜር ar:هوميروس an:Homero ast:Homero az:Homer bn:হোমার zh-min-nan:Homeros ba:Гомер be:Гамер be-x-old:Гамэр bar:Homer bo:ཧོ་མུར། bs:Homer br:Homeros bg:Омир ca:Homer cv:Гомер cs:Homér cy:Homeros da:Homer de:Homer et:Homeros el:Όμηρος es:Homero eo:Homero ext:Omeru eu:Homero fa:هومر hif:Homer fr:Homère fy:Homêros fur:Omêr ga:Hóiméar gd:Homer gl:Homero gan:荷馬 ko:호메로스 haw:Homer hy:Հոմերոս hi:होमर hr:Homer id:Homeros os:Гомер is:Hómer it:Omero he:הומרוס jv:Homeros pam:Homer ka:ჰომეროსი kk:Һомер sw:Homer ku:Homer la:Homerus lv:Homērs lb:Homer lt:Homeras li:Homeros hu:Homérosz mk:Хомер ml:ഹോമർ mt:Omeru mr:होमर arz:هوميروس ms:Homer mwl:Houmero mn:Хомер nl:Homerus new:होमर ja:ホメーロス no:Homer nn:Homer nov:Hómeros oc:Omèr uz:Homer pag:Homer pnb:ہومر ps:هومر pfl:Homer nds:Homer (Dichter) pl:Homer pt:Homero kaa:Homer ro:Homer qu:Omiros rue:Гомер ru:Гомер sah:Хомер sq:Homeri scn:Omeru simple:Homer sd:هومر sk:Homér sl:Homer szl:Hůmer ckb:ھۆمیرۆس sr:Хомер sh:Homer fi:Homeros sv:Homeros tl:Homer ta:ஓமர் kab:Homer tt:Гомер te:హోమర్ th:โฮเมอร์ tg:Ҳомер tr:Homeros uk:Гомер ur:ہومر za:Hozmaj vi:Homer vo:Homeros fiu-vro:Homeros war:Homeros yi:האמעראס yo:Homer zh-yue:荷馬 bat-smg:Huomers zh:荷马

Coordinates	53°24′38″N21°56′2″N
name	Dan Castellaneta
birth name	Daniel Louis Castellaneta
birth date	October 29, 1957
birth place	Oak Park, Illinois, U.S.
occupation	Voice actor, writer, actor, comedian, singer
years active	1986–present
spouse	Deb Lacusta (1987–present)
signature	Dan Castellaneta signature.svg }}

Daniel Louis "Dan" Castellaneta (born October 29, 1957) is an American actor, voice actor, comedian, singer and screenwriter. Noted for his long-running role as Homer Simpson on the animated television series ''The Simpsons'', he voices many other characters on ''The Simpsons'', including Abraham "Grampa" Simpson, Barney Gumble, Krusty the Clown, Groundskeeper Willie, Mayor Quimby and Hans Moleman.

Born in Chicago, Castellaneta started taking acting classes at a young age. He would listen to his father's comedy records and do impressions of the artists. After graduating from Northern Illinois University, Castellaneta joined Chicago's Second City in 1983, and performed with the troupe until 1987. He was cast in ''The Tracey Ullman Show'', which debuted in 1987. ''The Tracey Ullman Show'' included a series of animated shorts about a dysfunctional family. Voices were needed for the shorts, so the producers decided to ask Castellaneta to voice Homer. His voice for the character started out as a loose impression of Walter Matthau, but later evolved into a more robust voice. The shorts would eventually be spun off into ''The Simpsons''. Castellaneta has won four Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance for his work on the show as well as an Annie Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in the Field of Animation in 1993. Castellaneta has co-written four episodes of ''The Simpsons'' with his wife Deb Lacusta.

Castellaneta has also had roles in several other television programs, including the live-action sitcom ''Sibs'', ''The Adventures of Dynamo Duck'', and the animated series ''Darkwing Duck'', ''Back to the Future: The Animated Series'', ''Earthworm Jim'', ''Aladdin'' and ''Hey Arnold!''. In 1999, he appeared in the Christmas special ''Olive, the Other Reindeer'' and won an Annie Award for his portrayal of the Postman. Castellaneta has also released a comedy CD, ''I Am Not Homer'', and wrote and starred in a one man play titled ''Where Did Vincent van Gogh?''

Early life

Castellaneta was born in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, on October 29, 1957, to Elsie and Louis Castellaneta. His father was an amateur actor who worked for a printing company. Castellaneta became adept at impressions at a young age and his mother enrolled him in an acting class when he was sixteen years old. He would listen to his father's comedy records and do impressions of the artists. He was a "devotee" of the works of many performers, including Alan Arkin and Barbara Harris and directors Mike Nichols and Elaine May. He attended Oak Park and River Forest High School and upon graduation, started attending Northern Illinois University (NIU) in the fall of 1975. He studied art education, with the goal of becoming an art teacher. He became a student teacher and would entertain his students with his impressions. Castellaneta was also a regular participant in ''The Ron Petke and His Dead Uncle Show'', a radio show at NIU. The show helped Castellaneta hone his skills as a voice-over actor. He recalled "We did parodies and sketches, we would double up on (characters), so you learned to switch between voices. I got my feet wet doing voiceover. The show was just barely audible, but we didn't care. It was the fact that we got a chance to do it and write our own material." He took a play-writing class and auditioned for an improvisational show. A classmate first thought Castellaneta would "fall on his face with improvisation" but soon "was churning out material faster than [they] could make it work."

Career

Early career

Castellaneta started acting after his graduation from Northern Illinois University in 1979. He decided that if his career went nowhere he would still have a chance to try something else. He began taking improvisation classes, where he met his future wife Deb Lacusta. Castellaneta started to work at The Second City, an improvisational theatre in Chicago, in 1983 and continued to work there until 1987. During this period, he did voice-over work with his wife for various radio stations. He auditioned for a role in ''The Tracey Ullman Show'' and his first meeting underwhelmed Tracey Ullman and the other producers. Ullman decided to fly to Chicago to watch Castellaneta perform. His performance that night was about a blind man who tries to become a comedian and Ullman later recalled that although there were flashier performances that night, Castellaneta made her cry. She was impressed and Castellaneta was hired.

''The Simpsons''

Castellaneta is most famous for his role as Homer Simpson on the long-running animated television show ''The Simpsons''. ''The Tracey Ullman Show'' included a series of animated shorts about a dysfunctional family. Voices were needed for the shorts, so the producers decided to ask Castellaneta and fellow cast member Julie Kavner to voice Homer and Marge rather than hire more actors. Homer's voice began as a loose impression of Walter Matthau, but Castellaneta could not "get enough power behind that voice" and could not sustain his Matthau impression for the nine to ten hour long recording sessions. He tried to find something easier, so he "dropped the voice down", and developed it into a more versatile and humorous voice during the second and third season of the half-hour show. Castellaneta's normal speaking voice has no similarity to Homer's. To perform Homer's voice, Castellaneta lowers his chin to his chest, and is said to "let his IQ go." Castellaneta likes to stay in character during recording sessions, and tries to visualize a scene in his mind so that he can give the proper voice to it. Despite Homer's fame, Castellaneta claims he is rarely recognized in public, "except, maybe, by a die-hard fan."

Castellaneta also provides the voices for numerous other characters, including Abraham "Grampa" Simpson, Barney Gumble, Krusty the Clown, Groundskeeper Willie, Mayor Quimby, Hans Moleman, Sideshow Mel, Itchy, Kodos, the Squeaky Voiced Teen and Gil Gunderson. Krusty's voice is based on Chicago television's Bob Bell, who had a very raspy voice and portrayed WGN-TV's Bozo the Clown from 1960 to 1984. Barney Gumble's trademark is a loud belch. During early recording sessions for the show, he recorded a new version of the belch for every episode but discovered that it was not easy for him to do it every time a script called for it. Castellaneta chose a recording of what he believed was his best belch and told the producers to make that the standard. Groundskeeper Willie's first appearance was in the season two episode "Principal Charming". The character was written as an angry janitor and Castellaneta was assigned to perform the voice. He did not know what voice to use and Sam Simon, who was directing at the time, suggested he use an accent. Castellaneta first tried using a Hispanic voicing, which Simon felt was too clichéd. He then tried a "big dumb Swede", which was also rejected. For his third try, he used the voice of an angry Scotsman, which was deemed appropriate enough and was used in the episode. The voice was based partially on Angus Crock, a kilt-wearing chef from the sketch comedy show ''Second City Television'', who was portrayed by Dave Thomas. Mayor Quimby, who first appeared in "Bart Gets an F", is a parody of various members of the Kennedy family. The episode script did not call for Quimby to be a parody of them, and Castellaneta improvised the accent. Sideshow Mel's voice is Castellaneta's impression of Kelsey Grammer, the voice of Sideshow Bob. Gil Gunderson is a spoof of actor Jack Lemmon's portrayal of Shelley Levene in the 1992 film adaptation of the play ''Glengarry Glen Ross''. Show runner Mike Scully thought that Gil would be "a one-shot thing" but "Dan Castellaneta was so funny at the table read doing the character, we kept making up excuses in subsequent episodes to put him in." The Blue-Haired Lawyer's voice, as well as his demeanor, is based on lawyer Roy Cohn.

Castellaneta has won several awards for voicing Homer, including four Primetime Emmy Awards for "Outstanding Voice-Over Performance" in 1992 for "Lisa's Pony", 1993 for "Mr. Plow", 2004 for voicing several characters in "Today I Am a Clown", and 2009 for voicing Homer in "Father Knows Worst". In 1993, Castellaneta was given a special Annie Award, "Outstanding Individual Achievement in the Field of Animation", for his work as Homer on ''The Simpsons''. In 2004, Castellaneta and Julie Kavner (the voice of Marge) won a Young Artist Award for "Most Popular Mom & Dad in a TV Series". Homer was placed second on ''TV Guide'''s 2002 Top 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters, and in 2000, Homer and the rest of the Simpson family were awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard.

Until 1998, Castellaneta was paid $30,000 per episode. During a pay dispute in 1998, Fox threatened to replace the six main voice actors with new actors, going as far as preparing for casting of new voices. However, the dispute was soon resolved and he received $125,000 per episode until 2004 when the voice actors demanded that they be paid $360,000 an episode. The issue was resolved a month later, and Castellaneta earned $250,000 per episode. After salary re-negotiations in 2008, the voice actors receive approximately $400,000 per episode.

In the early 1990s, Castellaneta and Deb Lacusta wrote a script for an episode in which Barney becomes sober. They pitched their idea to show runner Al Jean. Jean liked the story, but turned it down because he felt that it was too similar to "Duffless", an episode that the writers were already working on. They waited several years and offered their script, which they updated, to then-show runner Mike Scully, who liked it and had them make a few changes. Their script became the eleventh season episode "Days of Wine and D'oh'ses", which first aired April 9, 2000. Castellaneta and his wife have also written the episodes "Gump Roast", "The Ziff Who Came to Dinner", "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore", and "The Fight Before Christmas". In 2007, they were nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for the episode "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore". Castellaneta is also credited as a consulting producer.

Further career

Castellaneta has been a regular cast member in several other television series. In 1991, he played Warren Morris in the short-lived ABC live-action sitcom ''Sibs''. Heide Perlman, creator of ''Sibs'', wrote the part with Castellaneta in mind. He also provided the voice of the eponymous character in ''The Adventures of Dynamo Duck'', Megavolt in ''Darkwing Duck'', "Doc" Emmett Brown in ''Back to the Future: The Animated Series'', the lead character in ''Earthworm Jim'' and several characters, including Grandpa Phil and the mentally unstable ice cream truck driver, on Nickelodeon's ''Hey Arnold!''. He guest starred as The Robot Devil in three episodes of ''Futurama'', as well as the film ''The Beast With a Billion Backs''.

Castellaneta has also made guest appearances in a number of television series episodes. In 1992, he guest-starred in an episode of the legal drama ''L.A. Law'', as a Homer Simpson meetable character at a California amusement park who is dismissed for inappropriate behavior while in costume. In 2005, he appeared in the episode "Sword of Destiny" in ''Arrested Development'' as Dr. Stein, a deadpan incompetent doctor. In 2005, Castellaneta guest-starred as Joe Spencer in the ''Stargate SG-1'' season eight episode "Citizen Joe". He also appeared in episodes of ''ALF'', ''Campus Ladies'', ''Entourage'', ''Everybody Loves Raymond'', ''Frasier'', ''Friends'', ''How I Met Your Mother'', ''Mad About You'', ''Married... with Children'', ''Murphy Brown'', ''NYPD Blue'', ''Reba'', ''Reno 911!'', ''That '70s Show'', ''Veronica Mars'', ''Yes, Dear'', and ''Desperate Housewives''.

He appeared as the Genie in the ''Aladdin'' sequel ''The Return of Jafar'' and on the 1994 ''Aladdin'' television series. The Genie had been voiced by Robin Williams in ''Aladdin'', and Castellaneta described replacing him as "sort of like stepping into ''Hamlet'' after Laurence Olivier did it, how can you win?" Castellaneta portrayed Aaron Spelling in the 2004 NBC film ''Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Charlie's Angels'', which followed the true story of how Spelling created the show. Other films in which Castellaneta has appeared include ''Nothing in Common'', ''Say Anything...'', ''Super Mario Bros.'', ''The Client'', ''Space Jam'', ''My Giant'', ''Rugrats in Paris: The Movie'', ''Recess: School's Out'', ''Hey Arnold!: The Movie'', ''The Cat in the Hat'' and ''The Pursuit of Happyness''. In 2000, he won an Annie Award for his portrayal of the Postman in the animated Christmas television special ''Olive, the Other Reindeer''. In 2006, he appeared in Jeff Garlin's independent film ''I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With'' along with several other Second City alumni.

On February 22, 2000, his first music CD ''Two Lips'' was published. It was followed on April 23, 2002 by his first comedy CD, ''I Am Not Homer'', in which he and his wife perform several comedy skits. The majority of the sketches had been written and performed before the CD was recorded, and Castellaneta thought that it would be a good idea to preserve them "since [he and Lacusta] don't perform them much anymore." Some came from their sketch series on a local radio station in Chicago and had to be lengthened from the "two-minute bits" that they were originally, while several others were stage sketches performed in a comedy club in Santa Monica. Additionally, "Citizen Kane", a sketch in which two people discuss the film ''Citizen Kane'' with different meanings, was something the pair had performed at an art gallery. Castellaneta noted that "we already knew that these skits were funny, [but] some of them we polished and tightened." The skits were principally written by improvising from a basic point, transcribing the results and then editing them to the finished scene. Castellaneta chose the title ''I Am Not Homer'' as a parody of Leonard Nimoy's famous first autobiography ''I Am Not Spock'', as well as to show that most of the comedy featured "is not the typical Homer comedy."

Alongside his television and film work, Castellaneta has appeared in a number of theatrical productions. In 1992, he starred in ''Deb & Dan's Show'' alongside his wife. In 1995, Castellaneta started writing ''Where Did Vincent van Gogh?'', a one man play in which he portrays a dozen different characters, including artist Vincent van Gogh. He first officially performed the play at the ACME Comedy Theatre in Los Angeles in 1999. In 2007, he appeared in ''The Bicycle Men'' at The King's Head Theatre in London.

Personal life

Castellaneta lives in Los Angeles with his wife Deb Lacusta. He is a vegetarian, teetotaler, and exercises regularly. Castellaneta also practices Tai Chi. His mother Elsie Castellaneta died in January 2008.

Filmography

Discography

{|class="wikitable" !Album !Released !Label !Notes |- | ''Two Lips'' | February 2000 |Oglio Records |all-music comedy album. |- | ''I Am Not Homer'' | April 23, 2002 | Oglio Records | Comedy album released with Deb Lacusta. |}

Also featured in:

''The Simpsons Sing the Blues'' (1990)

''Songs in the Key of Springfield'' (1997)

''The Yellow Album'' (1998)

''Go Simpsonic with The Simpsons'' (1999)

''The Simpsons: Testify'' (2007)

Awards

Year	Award	Category	Role	Series	Result
1992	Primetime Emmy Award	Outstanding Voice-Over Performance	Homer SimpsonGrampavarious others	''The Simpsons''
1993	Annie Award	Outstanding Individual Achievement in the Field of Animation	Various characters	''The Simpsons''
1993	Primetime Emmy Award	Outstanding Voice-Over Performance	Homer Simpson	''The Simpsons''
2000	Annie Award	Outstanding Voice Acting by a Male Performer in a Television Series	The Postman	''Olive, the Other Reindeer''
2004	Primetime Emmy Award	Outstanding Voice-Over Performance	Various characters	''The Simpsons''
2004	Young Artist Award	Most Popular Mom & Pop in a Television Series	Homer Simpson	''The Simpsons''
2007	WGA Award	Animation		''The Simpsons''
	Primetime Emmy Award	Outstanding Voice-Over Performance	Homer Simpson	''The Simpsons''
	Primetime Emmy Award	Outstanding Voice-Over Performance	Homer Simpson, Grampa Simpson	''The Simpsons''
	Primetime Emmy Award	Outstanding Voice-Over Performance	Homer Simpson, Barney Gumble, Krusty the Clown, Louie	''The Simpsons''

References

External links

Category:1957 births Category:Living people Category:Actors from Chicago, Illinois Category:American comedians Category:American film actors Category:American stage actors Category:American television actors Category:American vegetarians Category:American voice actors Category:Northern Illinois University alumni Category:Second City alumni Category:Annie Award winners

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Coordinates	53°24′38″N21°56′2″N
name	Matt Groening
alt	A man in glasses and a plaid shirt sits in front of a microphone.
birth date	February 15, 1954
birth place	Portland, Oregon, United States
| known for	''The Simpsons''''Futurama''''Life in Hell''Bongo Comics''
occupation	Cartoonist
spouse	Deborah Caplan (1986–1999)
children	Homer, Abe
religion	Agnostic| website MattGroening.com
signature	Matt Groening Signature.svg
footnotes	}}

Matthew Abram "Matt" Groening ( ; born February 15, 1954) is an American cartoonist, screenwriter, and producer. He is the creator of the comic strip ''Life in Hell'' as well as two successful television series, ''The Simpsons'' and ''Futurama''.

Groening made his first professional cartoon sale of ''Life in Hell'' to the avant-garde ''Wet'' magazine in 1978. The cartoon is still carried in 250 weekly newspapers. ''Life in Hell'' caught the attention of James L. Brooks. In 1985, Brooks contacted Groening with the proposition of working in animation for the Fox variety show ''The Tracey Ullman Show''. Originally, Brooks wanted Groening to adapt his ''Life in Hell'' characters for the show. Fearing the loss of ownership rights, Groening decided to create something new and came up with a cartoon family, The Simpsons, and named the members after his own parents and sisters — while Bart was an anagram of the word brat. The shorts would be spun off into their own series: ''The Simpsons'', which has since aired over 486 episodes. In 1997, Groening, along with former ''Simpsons'' writer David X. Cohen, developed ''Futurama'', an animated series about life in the year 3000, which premiered in 1999. After four years on the air, the show was canceled by Fox in 2003, but Comedy Central commissioned 16 new episodes from four direct-to-DVD movies in 2008. Then, in June 2009, Comedy Central ordered 26 new episodes of ''Futurama'', to be aired over two seasons.

Groening has won 11 Primetime Emmy Awards, ten for ''The Simpsons'' and one for ''Futurama'' as well as a British Comedy Award for "outstanding contribution to comedy" in 2004. In 2002, he won the National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award for his work on ''Life in Hell''. He will receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2012.

Early life

Groening was born on February 15, 1954 in Portland, Oregon, the middle of five children. His Norwegian American mother, Margaret Ruth (née Wiggum), was once a teacher, and his German American father, Homer Philip Groening (December 30, 1919 – March 15, 1996), was a filmmaker, advertiser, writer and cartoonist. Homer, born in Main Centre, Saskatchewan, Canada, grew up in a Mennonite, Plautdietsch-speaking family. He has Dutch Mennonite ancestors.

Matt's grandfather Abram Groening was a professor at Tabor College, a Mennonite Brethren liberal arts college in Hillsboro, Kansas before moving to Albany College (now known as Lewis and Clark College) in Oregon in 1930.

Groening grew up in Portland, and attended Ainsworth Elementary School and Lincoln High School. From 1972 to 1977, Groening attended The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, a liberal arts school that he described as "a hippie college, with no grades or required classes, that drew every weirdo in the Northwest." He served as the editor of the campus newspaper, ''The Cooper Point Journal'', for which he also wrote articles and drew cartoons. He befriended fellow cartoonist Lynda Barry after discovering that she had written a fan letter to Joseph Heller, one of Groening's favorite authors, and had received a reply. Groening has credited Barry with being "probably [his] biggest inspiration." He has also cited the Disney animated film ''One Hundred and One Dalmatians'' as what got him interested in cartoons, as well as ''Peanuts'' and its creator Charles M. Schulz as inspirations.

Career

Early career

In 1977, at the age of 23, Groening moved to Los Angeles to become a writer. He went through what he described as "a series of lousy jobs," including being an extra in the film ''When Every Day Was the Fourth of July'', bussing tables, washing dishes at a nursing home, landscaping in a sewage treatment plant, and chauffeuring and ghostwriting for a retired Western director.

''Life in Hell''

Groening described life in Los Angeles to his friends in the form of the self-published comic book ''Life in Hell'', which was loosely inspired by the chapter "How to Go to Hell" in Walter Kaufmann's book ''Critique of Religion and Philosophy''. Groening distributed the comic book in the book corner of Licorice Pizza, a record store in which he worked. He made his first professional cartoon sale to the avant-garde ''Wet'' magazine in 1978. The strip, titled "Forbidden Words," appeared in the September/October issue of that year.

Groening gained employment at the ''Los Angeles Reader'', a newly formed alternative newspaper, delivering papers, typesetting, editing and answering phones. He showed his cartoons to the editor, James Vowell, who was impressed and eventually gave him a spot in the paper. ''Life in Hell'' made its official debut as a comic strip in the ''Reader'' on April 25, 1980. Vowell also gave Groening his own weekly music column, "Sound Mix," in 1982. However, the column would rarely actually be about music, as he would often write about his "various enthusiasms, obsessions, pet peeves and problems" instead. In an effort to add more music to the column, he "just made stuff up," concocting and reviewing fictional bands and non-existent records. In the following week's column, he would confess to fabricating everything in the previous column and swear that everything in the new column was true. Eventually, he was finally asked to give up the "music" column. Amongst the fans of the column was Harry Shearer, who would later become a voice on ''The Simpsons''.

''Life in Hell'' became popular almost immediately. In November 1984, Deborah Caplan, Groening's then-girlfriend and co-worker at the ''Reader'', offered to publish "Love is Hell", a series of relationship-themed ''Life in Hell'' strips, in book form. Released a month later, the book was an underground success, selling 22,000 copies in its first two printings. ''Work is Hell'' soon followed, also published by Caplan. Soon afterward, Caplan and Groening left and put together the Life in Hell Co., which handled merchandising for ''Life in Hell''. Groening also started a syndicate, Acme Features Syndicate, which syndicated ''Life in Hell'', Lynda Barry and John Callahan, but now only syndicates ''Life in Hell''. ''Life in Hell'' is still carried in 250 weekly newspapers and has been anthologized in a series of books, including ''School is Hell'', ''Childhood is Hell'', ''The Big Book of Hell'' and ''The Huge Book of Hell''. Groening has stated, "I'll never give up the comic strip. It's my foundation."

''The Simpsons''

Creation

''Life in Hell'' caught the eye of Hollywood writer-producer and Gracie Films founder James L. Brooks, who had been shown the strip by fellow producer Polly Platt. In 1985, Brooks contacted Groening with the proposition of working in animation on an undefined future project, which would turn out to be developing a series of short animated skits, called "bumpers," for the Fox variety show ''The Tracey Ullman Show''. Originally, Brooks wanted Groening to adapt his ''Life in Hell'' characters for the show. Groening feared that he would have to give up his ownership rights, and that the show would fail and would take down his comic strip with it. Groening conceived of the idea for The Simpsons in the lobby of James L. Brooks's office and hurriedly sketched out his version of a dysfunctional family: Homer, the overweight father; Marge, the slim mother; Bart, the bratty oldest child; Lisa, the intelligent middle child; and Maggie, the baby. Groening famously named the main Simpson characters after members of his own family: his parents, Homer and Margaret (Marge or Marjorie in full), and his younger sisters, Lisa and Margaret (Maggie). Claiming that it was a bit too obvious to name a character after himself, he chose the name "Bart," an anagram of brat. However, he stresses that aside from some of the sibling rivalry, his family is nothing like the Simpsons. Groening also has an older brother and sister, Mark and Patty, and in a 1995 interview Groening divulged that Mark "is the actual inspiration for Bart."

Maggie Groening has co-written a few ''Simpsons'' books featuring her cartoon namesake.

''The Tracey Ullman Show''

The family was crudely drawn, because Groening had submitted basic sketches to the animators, assuming they would clean them up; instead, they just traced over his drawings. The entire Simpson family was designed so that they would be recognizable in silhouette. When Groening originally designed Homer, he put his own initials into the character's hairline and ear: the hairline resembled an 'M', and the right ear resembled a 'G'. Groening decided that this would be too distracting though, and redesigned the ear to look normal. He still draws the ear as a 'G' when he draws pictures of Homer for fans. Marge's distinct beehive hairstyle was inspired by ''The Bride of Frankenstein'' and the style that Margaret Groening wore during the 1960s, although her hair was never blue. Bart's original design, which appeared in the first shorts, had spikier hair, and the spikes were of different lengths. The number was later limited to nine spikes, all of the same size. At the time Groening was primarily drawing in black and "not thinking that [Bart] would eventually be drawn in color" gave him spikes that appear to be an extension of his head. Lisa's physical features are generally not used in other characters; for example, in the later seasons, no character other than Maggie shares her hairline. While designing Lisa, Groening "couldn't be bothered to even think about girls' hair styles". When designing Lisa and Maggie, he "just gave them this kind of spiky starfish hair style, not thinking that they would eventually be drawn in color". Groening storyboarded and scripted every short (now known as ''The Simpsons shorts''), which were then animated by a team including David Silverman and Wes Archer, both of whom would later become directors on the series.

The Simpsons shorts first appeared in ''The Tracey Ullman Show'' on April 19, 1987. Another family member, Grampa Simpson, was introduced in the later shorts. Years later, during the early seasons of ''The Simpsons'', when it came time to give Grampa a first name, Groening says he refused to name him after his own grandfather, Abraham Groening, leaving it to other writers to choose a name. By coincidence, they chose Abraham, unaware that it was the name of Groening's grandfather.

Half-hour

Although ''The Tracey Ullman Show'' was not a big hit, the popularity of the shorts led to a half-hour spin-off in 1989. A team of production companies adapted ''The Simpsons'' into a half-hour series for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The team included what is now the Klasky Csupo animation house. James L. Brooks negotiated a provision in the contract with the Fox network that prevented Fox from interfering with the show's content. Groening said his goal in creating the show was to offer the audience an alternative to what he called "the mainstream trash" that they were watching. The half-hour series premiered on December 17, 1989 with "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", a Christmas special. "Some Enchanted Evening" was the first full-length episode produced, but it did not broadcast until May 1990, as the last episode of the first season, because of animation problems.

The series quickly became a worldwide phenomenon, to the surprise of many. Groening said: "Nobody thought ''The Simpsons'' was going to be a big hit. It sneaked up on everybody." ''The Simpsons'' was co-developed by Groening, Brooks, and Sam Simon, a writer-producer with whom Brooks had worked on previous projects. Groening and Simon, however, did not get along and were often in conflict over the show; Groening once described their relationship as "very contentious." Simon eventually left the show in 1993 over creative differences.

Like the main family members, several characters from the show have names that were inspired by people, locations or films. The name "Wiggum" for police chief Clancy Wiggum is Groening's mother's maiden name. The names of a few other characters were taken from major street names in Groening's hometown of Portland, Oregon, including Flanders, Lovejoy, Powell, Quimby and Kearney. Despite common fan belief that Sideshow Bob Terwilliger was named after SW Terwilliger Boulevard in Portland, he was actually named after the character Dr. Terwilliker from the film ''The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T''.

Although Groening has pitched a number of spin-offs from ''The Simpsons'', those attempts have been unsuccessful. In 1994, Groening and other ''Simpsons'' producers pitched a live-action spin-off about Krusty the Clown (with Dan Castellaneta playing the lead role), but were unsuccessful in getting it off the ground. Groening has also pitched "Young Homer" and a spin-off about the non-Simpsons citizens of Springfield.

In 1995, Groening got into a major disagreement with Brooks and other ''Simpsons'' producers over "A Star Is Burns", a crossover episode with ''The Critic'', an animated show also produced by Brooks and staffed with many former ''Simpsons'' crew members. Groening claimed that he feared viewers would "see it as nothing but a pathetic attempt to advertise ''The Critic'' at the expense of ''The Simpsons''," and was concerned about the possible implication that he had created or produced ''The Critic''. He requested his name be taken off the episode.

Groening is credited with writing or co-writing the episodes "Some Enchanted Evening", "The Telltale Head", "Colonel Homer" and "22 Short Films About Springfield", as well as ''The Simpsons Movie'', released in 2007. He has had several cameo appearances in the show, with a speaking role in the episode "My Big Fat Geek Wedding". He currently serves at ''The Simpsons'' as an executive producer and creative consultant.

''Futurama''

After spending a few years researching science fiction, Groening got together with ''Simpsons'' writer/producer David X. Cohen (still known as David S. Cohen at the time) in 1997 and developed ''Futurama'', an animated series about life in the year 3000. By the time they pitched the series to Fox in April 1998, Groening and Cohen had composed many characters and storylines; Groening claimed they had gone "overboard" in their discussions. Groening described trying to get the show on the air as "by far the worst experience of [his] grown-up life." The show premiered on March 28, 1999. Groening's writing credits for the show are for the premiere episode, "Space Pilot 3000" (co-written with Cohen), "Rebirth" (story) and "In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela" (story).

After four years on the air, the show was canceled by Fox. In a similar situation as ''Family Guy'', however, strong DVD sales and very stable ratings on Adult Swim brought Futurama back to life. When Comedy Central began negotiating for the rights to air ''Futurama'' reruns, Fox suggested that there was a possibility of also creating new episodes. When Comedy Central committed to sixteen new episodes, it was decided that four straight-to-DVD films—''Bender's Big Score'' (2007), ''The Beast with a Billion Backs'' (2008), ''Bender's Game'' (2008) and ''Into the Wild Green Yonder'' (2009)—would be produced. Since no new ''Futurama'' projects were in production, the movie ''Into the Wild Green Yonder'' was designed to stand as the Futurama series finale. However, Groening had expressed a desire to continue the ''Futurama'' franchise in some form, including as a theatrical film. In an interview with CNN, Groening said that "we have a great relationship with Comedy Central and we would love to do more episodes for them, but I don't know...We're having discussions and there is some enthusiasm but I can't tell if it's just me." Comedy Central commissioned an initial 26 new episodes, and began airing them in 2010. They since renewed the show through to 2013.

Other pursuits

In 1994, Groening formed Bongo Comics Group (named after the character Bongo from ''Life in Hell'') with Steve Vance, Cindy Vance and Bill Morrison, which publishes comic books based on ''The Simpsons'' and ''Futurama'' (including ''Futurama Simpsons Infinitely Secret Crossover Crisis'', a crossover between the two), as well as a few original titles. According to Groening, the goal with Bongo is to "[try] to bring humor into the fairly grim comic book market." He also formed Zongo Comics in 1995, an imprint of Bongo that published comics for more mature readers, which included three issues of Mary Fleener's ''Fleener'' and seven issues of his close friend Gary Panter's ''Jimbo'' comics.

Groening is known for his eclectic taste in music. His favorite band is Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention and his favorite album is ''Trout Mask Replica'' by Captain Beefheart (which was produced by Zappa). He guest-edited Da Capo Press's ''Best Music Writing 2003'' and curated a US All Tomorrow's Parties music festival in 2003. In May 2010, he curated another edition of All Tomorrow's Parties in Minehead, England. He also plays the drums in the all-author rock and roll band The Rock Bottom Remainders (although he is listed as the cowbell player), whose other members include Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Scott Turow, Amy Tan, James McBride, Mitch Albom, Roy Blount Jr., Stephen King, Kathi Kamen Goldmark, Sam Barry and Greg Iles.

Awards

Groening has been nominated for 25 Emmy awards and has won eleven: ten for ''The Simpsons'' and one for ''Futurama'' in the "Outstanding Animated Program (for programming one hour or less)" category. Groening received the 2002 National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award, and had been nominated for the same award in 2000. He received a British Comedy Award for "outstanding contribution to comedy" in 2004. In 2007, he was ranked fourth (and highest American by birth) in a list of the "top 100 living geniuses", published by British newspaper ''The Daily Telegraph''. He will receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2012.

Personal life

Groening and Deborah Caplan married in 1986 and had two sons together, Homer (who goes by Will) and Abe, both of whom Groening occasionally portrays as rabbits in ''Life in Hell''. The couple divorced in 1999 after thirteen years of marriage. He is the brother-in-law of ''Hey Arnold!'' creator, Craig Bartlett, who is married to Groening's sister, Lisa. Arnold used to appear in Simpsons Illustrated.

Groening identifies himself as agnostic and a liberal and has often made campaign contributions to Democratic Party candidates. His first cousin, Laurie Monnes Anderson, is a member of the Oregon State Senate representing eastern Multnomah County.

Notes

References

External links

Incomplete list of Matt Groening appearances on ''The Simpsons'' at The Simpsons Archive

The Story (1969) – Matt Groening tells a story to his sisters Lisa & Maggie in this film by father, Homer

The Simpsons – a Norwegian/German success (in Norwegian)

Forvo: Matt Groening Pronunciation

Category:1954 births Category:Living people Category:American satirists Category:American television producers Category:American people of Dutch descent Category:Artists from Oregon Category:The Evergreen State College alumni Category:Comic strip cartoonists Category:American artists of German descent Category:American people of German descent Category:American people of Norwegian descent Category:American agnostics Category:People from Portland, Oregon Category:Reuben Award winners Category:Writers from Oregon Category:Futurama Category:Lincoln High School (Portland, Oregon) alumni Category:Rock Bottom Remainders members Category:Oregon Democrats

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