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It can be asked how one can be so confident in classing Homer himself as an oral singer, for if he differed from Phemius or Demodocus in terms of length, he may also have differed radically in his poetic techniques. The very nature of his verse may provide a substantial part of the answer. The style of the poems is “formulaic”; that is, they rely heavily on the use not only of stock epithets and repeated verses or groups of verses—which can also be found to a much lesser extent in a literate imitator like Virgil—but also on a multitude ...(100 of 4814 words)