Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

Heinrich Düntzer. "Über den Einfluss des Metrums auf den homerischen Ausdruck." Jahrbücher für classische Philologie, 10:673-94. Rpt. in Homer: Tradition und Neuerung. Ed. Joachim Latacz. Wege der Forschung, Band 46 3. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesell-schaft, 1979. pp. 88-108.

Shows via numerous examples how Homer used poetic license and morphological variation to maintain the "flow" of verse in meter. Categorizes Homer's word forms by parts of speech ; different qualities of heroes; adjectives modifying people, the earth, the sea, swords, and so on. Work by Düntzer (see also 1872) and Ellendt (1876) greatly influenced Parry's developing notion of the formula.
Area: AG