Homer and the Epic: A Shortened Version of 'The Songs of Homer' Book

Preface;

Part I. The Oral Epic:

1. The Homeric poems are oral;
2. Homer and modern oral poetry;

Part II. The Historical Background:
3. The rise of Mycenae;
4. Life in a Late Bronze Age palace-state;
5. From the Achaean decline to the time of Homer;

Part III. The Prehistory of the Homeric Tradition:
6. Poetical possibilities of the Dark Age;
7. Was there Achaean epic poetry?;
8. Dark Age elements and Aeolic elements;

Part IV. The Iliad and Odyssey as Monumental Poems:
9. Some basic qualities;
10. The Iliad;
11. The Odyssey;

Part V. The Style, Language and Material Background of the Iliad and Odyssey:
12. Subjects and styles;
13. The criterion of language;
14. Differences of material culture;

Part VI. Diversity and Unity in the Large-Scale Plot:
15. Structural difficulties in the Iliad;
16. Structural difficulties in the Odyssey;
17. Unity, real and imaginary;

Part VII. How the Poems Developed:
18. The circumstances of monumental composition;
19. Two crucial phases of transmission;
20. The process of development; References; Index.