© 1996 by Association for Literary & Linguistic Computing
If Homer is the poet of the Iliad, then he may not be the poet of the Odyssey
A Department of Psychology, University of Maine, USA A2 Department of Classics, University of Adelaide, Australia
The pattern of usage of frequent and infrequent words in the Iliad and the Odyssey was examined. Discriminant analyses indicated highly significant differences between the two poems. In contrast, word usage in early and late plays by Sophocles does not differ. This makes it unlikely that the Iliad and Odyssey are early and late works by the same author. Word usage in poems with very differnt subject matter ascribed to Hesiod does not differ. This makes it unlikely that differences between the Iliad and the Odyssey can be attributed to the differing subject matter of the two poems. Further support for the contention that the Iliad and Odyssey are the works of different poets comes from the finding that word usage in the two poems is much more different than word usage in plays known to be by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Discriminant analyses of putatively early and late segments of the Iliad and Odyssey generally yielded insignificant results, thus implying that each could well be the work of a single poet.