Homer and Oral Tradition: The Formula, Part I

Processing note: review needed on strange symbol in abstract.This survey of the formula in Homer is divided into ten sections; the first five follow, the remainder will appear in a later issue of Oral Tradition. The sections are arranged as follows: Bibliographies and surveys ; The structure of the Homeric hexameter ; The formula and the hexameter ; The history of Homeric formulae: Homer, Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and later poetry ; Enjambement ; Studies of specifi c formulae ; Formulae and meaning ; Analyses of formulae and tests for orality ; Homer and the criticism of oral poetry ; Future directions. Each of the first nine sections is followed by a list of references; a few items appear in more than one list. I have commented on most of the items, but for reasons of space a few are merely listed. Reviews are normally not included, and my knowledge of dissertations is usually limited to the synopses in Dissertation Abstracts. There must be omissions, for which I apologize; I will try to refer to them in later updates.--Page 171.Mark W. Edwards (Stanford University) is well known for his analyses of Homer's traditional style, having published papers that continue the kind of close philological scrutiny associated with Milman Parry's original work. He has written on aspects of phraseology, type-scenes, and the tension between convention and individuality in the Iliad