Homer's Universe: Heaven, Earth and the Underworld

Yamagata, Naoko (2025). Homer's Universe: Heaven, Earth and the Underworld. In: de Freitas, António José Gonçalves and Cordeiro, Adriano Milho eds. Jornadas Transculturais do Antigo Próximo-Oriente. Vila Nova de Famalicão: Edições Húmus, pp. 11–35.

Abstract

As a divinely inspired poet, Homer has access to the gods’ eye view of the world. While the human drama of war and death is taking place on the earth, there are glimpses of other parts of the world across the Iliad, including heaven and the underworld, as the narrator follows the locations and movements of the gods as well as the dead. By tracking the movements and locations of the gods, especially Zeus, and the movement of the mortals towards the underworld, this essay attempts to sketch the structure of the Homeric universe and how it relates to the plot of the poem. It also looks at Zeus and other divine names found in Mycenaean Greek documents in Linear B to consider if we can relate them to their Homeric counterparts in any way.

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