The Homeric Method of Composing Epic Poetry

Literature is the art of lying in order to tell the truth. All fiction is constructed from lies; it becomes literature when the lies are arranged to reveal the truth.

It is a peculiarity of literature that its leading exponent (Homer) has been dead for nearly three thousand years. In reflecting on the possible reasons for this extended drought in literary production, the most obvious difference between Homer and later writers is that they were writers and Homer was not. Living near the end of an illiterate period in the Greek world, Homer's epic poems had to be composed and transmitted through memorization.

Given the relative quality of Homer's composition, this raises the suspicion that Homer's results were at least partially due to his technique itself. That memorization contributed significantly to smoothing Homer's poems into a highly polished form.

It is my belief that literature can be fully understood only by repeating the Homeric method of composing epic poetry entirely through memorization. I have written an essay, The Principles of Literature, describing this process from personal experience.