Homer and Oral Tradition: The Formula, Part II1

This section deals with the usage and adaptation of individual formulae, and with the availability of formulae for particular concepts. It does not cover studies of the meaning of obscure words, or how much signifi cance a formulaic expression might retain in conventional usage (see §7), or the location of formulae within the verse (see §3). The discussion is arranged in four parts: name-epithet formulae; epithets; common-nouns and epithets; verbs. 1. Name-epithet formulae The fundamental work was Milman Parry’s fi rst monograph, published in 1928 (M. Parry 1971). Parry listed the commonest proper name and epithet formulae after the mid-verse caesura (10-13) and after the caesura in the fourth foot (15-16), and gave tables showing the formulae of different lengths for eleven major gods and heroes in the nominative case (39) and the genitive case (57). He also listed the proper name and epithet formulae for heroines (97f.), for the Greek race (101), for other peoples (99ff.), and for countries (106-9)