Homer

Semi-legendary Greek poet credited with composing the Iliad and the Odyssey — the foundational texts of Western literature — whose epics about the Trojan War and its aftermath established the heroic code, the interplay of divine and human agency, and the narrative conventions that all subsequent Western epic has drawn on.

Created the texts that constitute the foundation of Western literary culture — the Iliad's exploration of wrath, honor, mortality, and the pathos of war, and the Odyssey's exploration of cunning, homecoming, and loyalty, provide the archetypes that Western literature has returned to for 2,800 years.