Author: HOMER
Biography:
HOMER (8th century BCE: OCD)
The very existence of “Homer” is controversial and has been so since antiquity. The name is traditionally attached to a body of work, the Greek epics The Iliad and The Odyssey, to which used to be added the short “Homeric Hymns.” All of these compositions were originally disseminated by recitation, in the oral tradition. By the fifth century BCE, however, the legend of a single author was well established; the works themselves date from about three centuries earlier. Of the English translators 1770-1835, twelve have separate headnotes: Richard Hole, Robert Lucas, William Cowper, Francis Howes, Alexander Geddes, William Tremenheere, Gilbert Thompson, Charles Lloyd, Charles Abraham Elton, William Sotheby, Columbus Conwell, and Marshall Tufts. The remaining four may be identified briefly. Isaac Ritson (1761-90), no relation of Joseph Ritson (q.v.), was born in Penrith in the Lake District. He became first a schoolmaster there and later a physician and writer in London, but he died young and was buried at Cockermouth on 28 Mar. 1790 (not 1789). The Welshman Peter Williams, DD (c. 1756-1837), educated at Christ Church, Oxford (BA 1780, MA 1783, BD and DD 1802), held various livings in Wales. At the time of his translation of Homer he was rector of Llanbedrog and archdeacon of Merioneth. On 28 Apr. 1806 he married Mary Roberts (d 1826), the daughter of the previous archdeacon. James Morrice (1739-1815), born at Betteshanger in Kent, was also a graduate of Christ Church (BA 1762, MA 1767) and a clergyman, vicar of Flore in Northamptonshire (1776-1815) and rector of Betteshanger (1793-1815). He married Marie Coltee Ducarel in 1778 and they had at least five children. His translation of Homer is his only known publication. The son of Sarah and William Blew, William John Blew (1808-94) was born in London and educated at Wadham College, Oxford (BA 1830, MA 1831), before embarking on a clerical career. In 1846 he married Mary Anne Read Walker at Gravesend, Kent, where he was the incumbent of St. John’s 1842-50. They had three children. He retired to London, a clergyman “without cure,” and died there on 27 Dec. 1894. (OCD 24 Apr. 2025; A. Grafton et al., eds, The Classical Tradition [2010]; findmypast.com 25 Apr. 2025; ancestry.com 25 Apr. 2025; ODNB [Isaac Ritson, under Joseph Ritson; Peter Williams, under Peter Williams 1723-96] 24 Apr. 2025; Watkins; Alumni Oxonienses) HJ