Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

Minna S. Jensen. The Homeric Question and the Oral-Formulaic Theory. Opuscula Graeco-Latina. Supplementa Musei Tusculani, vol. 20. Copenhagen: Museum Tuscularum Press.

Argues that "the Iliad and the Odyssey were orally composed, and that their composition took place in the sixth century B.C. on the initiative of Pisistratus" (p. 9). Considers the comparative methodology, the case against orality on the bases of quantity and quality, and the questions of oral poetics and oral dictated texts. Also describes the evidence for sixth-century Athens as the possible time and place for composition, arriving at 650 B.C. as the terminus post quem. Many comparative references to SC and AF oral tradition, especially on ethnographic points.
Area: AG, SC, AF, CP