Realism

Abstract

Almost everybody admits that there are dreams, stones, rainbows, fleas, sunrises, murders, planets - and many other things. For the authors of the Homeric epics these entities were real in the sense that they occurred, had distinctive properties and affected their surroundings. They formed a rich pattern of interactions of varying nature and strength. The effects of dreams, for example, easily surpassed those of trees and stones (the dreams of kings might lead to war and multiple murder). There was no grand dichotomy such as the dichotomy real/apparent and events did not conceal or hint at a hidden and perhaps inaccessible world.