Homer, the Teacher

Year 2018, Volume: 8 Issue: 1, 319 - 338, 21.07.2018

Esra Çağrı Mutlu

https://doi.org/10.18491/beytulhikme.446509

Abstract

From earliest times, Homer
was regarded as an authority in education, and in shaping social and
political life. For Homer in Iliad and Odyssey describes the dominant
values, moral virtues of the Greek culture via its heroes. In fact, this
narration has opened the way for him to be regarded as the first
teacher of the Greeks. His most famous students are Achilles and
Telemachus. He talks about Achilles’ education in Iliad, Telemachus’ in
Odyssey through his teachers. But the education of these two heroes is
both similar and different in some ways. From the moment Achilles was
born, he knows the values of the class he belongs to, who he is. On the
contrary, Telemachus as a child without a father does not know who he
is. Yet, their education which is centered around not only words but
also deeds, makes these two heroes know what to say and what to do. In
the end, they gain the honor of becoming a Homeric hero. So the aim of
this paper is to elaborate both different and similar educations of
these heroes.

Keywords

Homer, the Homeric education, virtue, Kleos

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