Richard P. Martin is the Antony and Isabelle Raubitschek Professor of Classics at Stanford University. Among his many books are Classical Mythology and The Language of Heroes.

• IntroductionPart I: Epic Genre and Technique1. Epic as Genre2. Similes and Performance3. Formulas and Speeches: The Usefulness of Parry's Method4. Wrapping Homer Up: Cohesion, Discourse, and Deviation in the IliadPart II: Mythic Hymnists, Historical Performers5. Apollo's Kithara and Poseidon's Crash-Test: Ritual and Contest in the Evolution of Greek Aesthetics6. The Senses of an Ending: Myth, Ritual, and Poetic Exodia in Performance7. Synchronic Aspects of Homeric Performance: The Evidence of the Hymn to Apollo8. Rhapsodizing Orpheus9. Golden Verses: Voice and Authority in the TabletsPart III: Hesiodic Constructions10. Hesiod and the Didactic Double11. Hesiod's Metanastic Poetics12. Hesiod, Odysseus, and the Instruction of Princes13. Pulp Epic: The Catalogue and the ShieldPart IV: The Backward Look14. Keens from the Absent Chorus: Troy to Ulster15. Telemachus and the Last Hero Song16. Until It Ends: Varieties of Iliadic Anticipation17. Distant Landmarks: Homer and Hesiod

"Martin’s book is a major collection from one of the most significant scholars of archaic poetry working in the past several decades. In this richly synoptic and synthetic meditation on the complex workings of archaic poetry, Martin builds on and brilliantly transfigures the implications of oral poetics for any study of archaic (and Hellenistic) poetry—and indeed for poetics as a whole."

Richard P. Martin is the Antony and Isabelle Raubitschek Professor of Classics at Stanford University. Among his many books are Classical Mythology and The Language of Heroes.

• IntroductionPart I: Epic Genre and Technique1. Epic as Genre2. Similes and Performance3. Formulas and Speeches: The Usefulness of Parry's Method4. Wrapping Homer Up: Cohesion, Discourse, and Deviation in the IliadPart II: Mythic Hymnists, Historical Performers5. Apollo's Kithara and Poseidon's Crash-Test: Ritual and Contest in the Evolution of Greek Aesthetics6. The Senses of an Ending: Myth, Ritual, and Poetic Exodia in Performance7. Synchronic Aspects of Homeric Performance: The Evidence of the Hymn to Apollo8. Rhapsodizing Orpheus9. Golden Verses: Voice and Authority in the TabletsPart III: Hesiodic Constructions10. Hesiod and the Didactic Double11. Hesiod's Metanastic Poetics12. Hesiod, Odysseus, and the Instruction of Princes13. Pulp Epic: The Catalogue and the ShieldPart IV: The Backward Look14. Keens from the Absent Chorus: Troy to Ulster15. Telemachus and the Last Hero Song16. Until It Ends: Varieties of Iliadic Anticipation17. Distant Landmarks: Homer and Hesiod

"Martin’s book is a major collection from one of the most significant scholars of archaic poetry working in the past several decades. In this richly synoptic and synthetic meditation on the complex workings of archaic poetry, Martin builds on and brilliantly transfigures the implications of oral poetics for any study of archaic (and Hellenistic) poetry—and indeed for poetics as a whole."

Richard P. Martin is the Antony and Isabelle Raubitschek Professor of Classics at Stanford University. Among his many books are Classical Mythology and The Language of Heroes.

• IntroductionPart I: Epic Genre and Technique1. Epic as Genre2. Similes and Performance3. Formulas and Speeches: The Usefulness of Parry's Method4. Wrapping Homer Up: Cohesion, Discourse, and Deviation in the IliadPart II: Mythic Hymnists, Historical Performers5. Apollo's Kithara and Poseidon's Crash-Test: Ritual and Contest in the Evolution of Greek Aesthetics6. The Senses of an Ending: Myth, Ritual, and Poetic Exodia in Performance7. Synchronic Aspects of Homeric Performance: The Evidence of the Hymn to Apollo8. Rhapsodizing Orpheus9. Golden Verses: Voice and Authority in the TabletsPart III: Hesiodic Constructions10. Hesiod and the Didactic Double11. Hesiod's Metanastic Poetics12. Hesiod, Odysseus, and the Instruction of Princes13. Pulp Epic: The Catalogue and the ShieldPart IV: The Backward Look14. Keens from the Absent Chorus: Troy to Ulster15. Telemachus and the Last Hero Song16. Until It Ends: Varieties of Iliadic Anticipation17. Distant Landmarks: Homer and Hesiod

"Martin’s book is a major collection from one of the most significant scholars of archaic poetry working in the past several decades. In this richly synoptic and synthetic meditation on the complex workings of archaic poetry, Martin builds on and brilliantly transfigures the implications of oral poetics for any study of archaic (and Hellenistic) poetry—and indeed for poetics as a whole."