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What Trump and Homer’s Odyssey Have in Common
The Odyssey and the Iliad are two of the oldest and most influential works of Western literature. They are among the first texts written down in the Greek language, and two masterpieces whose timeless appeal has kept them popular even three thousand years after their conception.
So it might seem questionable at first glance to compare their literary value to that of the output of Donald Trump, current president of the United States.
Nevertheless, there are some striking similarities between some puzzling features of the works of Homer and the way Donald Trump gives speeches. These similarities can point us towards fundamental properties of our memories and provide insights into the art of philology and the origin of the Greek epics.
The Homeric Question
No one really knows whether a historical Homer ever existed. The question of the identity of Homer has occupied philologists (who study language in oral and written historical sources) for nearly as long as the works of Homer themselves exist. While scholars already pondered it during the Hellenistic period, it was more or less forgotten as interest in the Homerian Epics dwindled during the Middle Ages.
But the rediscovery of Greek culture in Europe at the end of the 18th century rekindled interest in…
