The essays in this collection addresses questions of intense interest in Homeric studies today: the questions of performance and poet-audience interaction, especially as depicted in idealized performances within the Iliad and the Odyssey; the ways in which epic incorporates material of diverse genres, such as women's laments, blame poetry, or folk tales; how the ideological balance of epic can change and be influenced by "alternative ideologies" introduced through the incorporation of new material; the implications of the continuity of tradition for etymological studies; and how the traditional nature of epic affects textual criticism.

The essays differ in focus and method, but all share one fundamental approach to Homer: an understanding of the Homeric tradition as a poetic system that expresses and preserves what is culturally important and a view of the Homeric epics as instances of a cultural tradition which they attempt to explore through the epics themselves and through the comparative, anthropological, and linguistic evidence they bring to bear on these texts.

A unique collection that explores Homeric poetry through a variety of tools and approaches-linguistics, philology, cultural anthropology, sociology, textual criticism, and archeology-this volume will be of interest to all scholars and students of oral poetry and Classical literature.