Part I. The Historical Background of the Homeric Poems: 1. The rise of Mycenae; 2. The Linear B tablets and life in a late Mycenaean palace-state; 3. From the Mycenaean decline to the time of Homer; Part II. The Oral Poet and his Methods: 4. Introductory,
I, Heroic Age and heroic poetry;
2, The language of formulas in Homer;
3, The oral tradition and the advent of writing;
4, The oral poet's use of established themes;
5, Originality and the formular method;
6, The comparative study of the oral epic in Yugoslavia;
7, The life-cycle of an oral tradition;
8, Oral dictated texts; Part III. The Growth of the Oral Epic in Greece: 5. The evidence for Mycenaean epic; 6. The poetical possibilities of the Dark Age; 7. Dark Age elements and Aeolic elements; Part IV. Plurality and Unity in Homer: 8. Subjects and styles; 9. The cultural and linguistic amalgam;
1, The archaeological criterion;
2, The criterion of language; 10. Structural anomalies in the Iliad; 11. Structural anomalies in the Odyssey; 12. The overriding unity; Part V. The Development and Transmission of the Great Poems: 13. The circumstances of Homeric composition;
1, 'Homer' and his region;
2, Audiences and occasions;
3, The date of the poems;
4, The relationship of the Iliad and Odyssey; 14. The crucial phases of transmission; 15. Stages of development; Part VI. The Songs and their Qualities: 16. The Iliad; 17. The Odyssey; 18. Man, fate and action: some special qualities of the Homeric poems.