Homer was most likely a blind, Greek poet who lived around 700 BC.  Little is known about Homer, and whether he actually existed is also a mystery.  However, what is certain is that his name has been passed in tandem with the two works attributed to him--The Iliad and The Odyssey.  These poems were first created as lyrical, spoken poems, in the language of ancient Greece.  The poems have a metrical rhythm, which helped the oral storytellers to remember the stories and to teach the stories to the next generation.  At the time that the Iliad was composed, there was no writing system, and so this was the only way that information could be transmitted.  For many years the poems were added to, refined, and altered, in the way that a campfire story changes as each person puts his or her spin onto the story.  Finally, when a writing system developed, someone dictated his or her version to a scribe, and the first copy of The Iliad was born.  The current version has been translated from the original Greek language into English.