Table of Contents

Part I. The Historical Background of the Homeric Poems: 1. The rise of Mycenae; 2. The Linear B tablets and life in a late Mycenaean palace-state; 3. From the Mycenaean decline to the time of Homer; Part II. The Oral Poet and his Methods: 4. Introductory, §I, Heroic Age and heroic poetry; §2, The language of formulas in Homer; §3, The oral tradition and the advent of writing; §4, The oral poet's use of established themes; §5, Originality and the formular method; §6, The comparative study of the oral epic in Yugoslavia; §7, The life-cycle of an oral tradition; §8, Oral dictated texts; Part III. The Growth of the Oral Epic in Greece: 5. The evidence for Mycenaean epic; 6. The poetical possibilities of the Dark Age; 7. Dark Age elements and Aeolic elements; Part IV. Plurality and Unity in Homer: 8. Subjects and styles; 9. The cultural and linguistic amalgam; §1, The archaeological criterion; §2, The criterion of language; 10. Structural anomalies in the Iliad; 11. Structural anomalies in the Odyssey; 12. The overriding unity; Part V. The Development and Transmission of the Great Poems: 13. The circumstances of Homeric composition; §1, 'Homer' and his region; §2, Audiences and occasions; §3, The date of the poems; §4, The relationship of the Iliad and Odyssey; 14. The crucial phases of transmission; 15. Stages of development; Part VI. The Songs and their Qualities: 16. The Iliad; 17. The Odyssey; 18. Man, fate and action: some special qualities of the Homeric poems.

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A vivid and comprehensive account of the Homeric poems and their quality as literature.