Did Homer write?
Bernard Knox, author of the Fagles translation Iliad foreword, says he did but I've read elsewhere (Greek history books etc.) that such was impossible since, during Homer's life, there was no alphabet and Greeks were utterly illiterate.
I have a mixed opinion. Evidence for Homer having written the Iliad include the facts that the Iliad is incredibly long, rigidly structured, and poetically sensitive (e.g. repetition for affect rather than mere description). He also wrote in the Homeric Greek syllabary which would have made it nigh impossible to impart by purely oratory means.
Aristarchus posited that Homer lived about 140 years after the Trojan war which, if I understand correctly, would have made it impossible for him to be literate. There are also the numerous historically inaccurate references within the poem to account for.
At best, Bernard Knox shows that writing likely played a part in the development of the Iliad we know today. This is not to say that Homer himself wrote. I am inclined to believe the theory of George Grote that the Iliad began as a much shorter poem -- one that could be condensed to one or two papyrus scrolls -- which were later elaborated upon by bards who had the ability to read and write. Thus, the Iliad is a result of bother Homer, the individual and Homer, the Greek collective -- a vindication of Giambattista Vico's assertion. Either this is the case or Milman Parry's theory of Homer being an oral bard of immense talent using his syllabary married with metre-minded epithets is.
So tell me Veeky Forums, did Homer write?