Homer Day

The Greek Festival of Sydney and The Historic Houses Trust present HOMER DAY.

The Historic Houses Trust has offered an amazing venue, The Mint, for a presentation on Homer. Hosted by Associate Professor Vrasidas Karalis, Head of the Modern Greek Department at Sydney University, this presentation discusses who Homer was and what kind of world he lived in.

Through readings from his work and the performance of music from classical Greece, the world of Homer will come to life, providing the audience an insight into the father of culture, and a tribute to the work of the first European poet.

The afternoon includes a special performance featuring the Foundation Professor of Music at the University of Western Sydney, composer, performer and musicologist, Michael Atherton and his group "Melismos", playing music from ancient Greece with instruments modelled on ancient Greek originals.

Homer the father of European literature Homer is the father of European literature ad culture. His poems the Iliad and the Odyssey have nurtured generations of people for almost the last three thousand year and represent the basis of humanistic education during the last five hundred years. Homer is also a great poet who has influenced all great European writers and has established the literary tradition of the West.

The myths of Helen of Troy and of Ulysses are to this day the most powerful expressions of human beauty and human frailty. James Joyce, Ezra Pound, T.S Eliot, N. Kazantzakis and many modern writers have brought Homer's message to the late modernity and post modernity: from Homer Simpson to Brad Pitt, Hollywood represents Homer's world in a fascinating manner that reaches the wider audiences and creates a new Perception about his presence.