Short answers, pulled from the story.
Homer was an ancient Greek poet widely credited as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two foundational works of ancient Greek literature. He was possibly born around the 8th century BC, though his life and authorship remain obscure. Ancient Greek society revered him as one of the most influential authors in history.
Homer is associated today with the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Iliad centers on a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles during the last year of the Trojan War. The Odyssey chronicles the ten-year journey of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, back home after the fall of Troy.
The Homeric Question is the ongoing academic debate over Homer's authorship and the origins, composition, and transmission of the poems attributed to him. By around 1830 it had acquired that name, covering whether Homer existed, when and how the poems originated, and how they were finally written down.
Scholars think the poems were composed around the late eighth or early seventh century BC. Barry B. Powell dates them between 800 and 750 BC. Martin Litchfield West argues the Iliad was composed around 660 to 650 BC at the earliest, with the Odyssey up to a generation later.
The most widespread ancient account described Homer as a blind bard from Ionia, a region on the western coast of Anatolia in present-day Turkey, along with the islands of Chios and Samos. Modern scholars regard these accounts as legendary. No single account of his origin became mainstream, though most traditions place his death on Ios.
The orally transmitted poems were put into written form between the eighth and sixth centuries BC, and each was divided into 24 books labelled with Greek letters. Antiquity held they were organised in Athens by Pisistratus, who died in 528 or 527 BC. The first printed edition was produced in 1488 in Milan by Demetrios Chalkokondyles.