[01284a7e]

"Homer was not great literature at the time he his works were written".

They were not written at all. No written literature existed in the time of Homer.

[stronglikedan]

I can write a poem in my head without ever writing it down on paper. I still wrote a poem, even if I just pass it along orally.

If I write a song for my girl, I'm not going to hand her a piece of paper with sheet music and lyrics, I'm going to perform it for her. I may write it down, or I may not.

Of course, composed is a more precise word, but everyone still knows what I mean if I replace it with write.

[aforwardslash]

You can take note. Writing is a physical action, e.g. performing output.

Writing is an action. You can memorize, take a mental note, but you are not writing.

(Someone else mentioned Camōes, a portuguese who famously/allegedly saved his writings from a shipwreck by swimming with one arm and using the other to keep the book above water; your interpretation of "writing" is an insult)

[JumpCrisscross]

> I can write a poem in my head without ever writing it down on paper. I still wrote a poem, even if I just pass it along orally

This is generalising the term writing to the point of uselessness. In your example, you thought of a poem and spoke it. You didn't write it.

[ben_w]

Disagree, I think it's analogous to how we today use "fire" to describe the action of loosing an arrow or whatever the technical term is for a trebuchet, even though neither has gunpowder.

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

I don’t think so. The colloquial usage exists as grandparent commenter describes. I can be a “songwriter” without literally writing the lyrics to my song down.

[furyofantares]

Are you also calling it literature if it's not written down?

[agumonkey]

How long after were these put down as writings ?