J oseph R usso

THE FORMULA

In fact the 350 species [of sharks] found in the world vary immensely,
so much so as to stretch the definition of the very word shark,
E. O. Wilson, The Diversity o f Life, p. 113

Prologue: The Current Situation

Writing on the Homeric formula in 1996 allows us to review the

major ‘paradigm shift’ that Milman Parry brought to the interpreta­
tion of the earliest Greek poetry, and to evaluate it with the advan­
tages of hindsight. There are many features of style and content that
suggest that the Homeric epics are products of a long oral tradition,
but the cornerstone of Parry’s edifice has always been the formula.
I shall not attempt to survey all that has been said on this subject,1
but to focus on some key issues and problems that have been with
us from Parry to the present. Scholars’ attempts to define the for­
mula have been frequently beset with ambiguities that often derive
from Parry’s own words. And yet, paradoxically, it is the very open-
endedness of the concept that has given it much of its force.
Investigations of the formulaic dem ent that characterizes Homeric
style have always embodied, at least implicitly, a search for the mys­
terious chemistry whereby gifted poets transmute mere words into
verbal a r t In Homer’s case the mystery is especially compelling,
because his words are largely conventional. The controlling force of
tradition, with its constant pressure toward use of familiar-sounding

1 That was well done by M. W. Edwards (1986b; 1988) in two surveys that are
close to annotated bibliographies. Among other reviews of the development of for­
mula studies since Parry, the most important among European scholars are Latacz,
cd., (1979) 1-44, an attempt to reconcile the German and the Parryist traditions;
Fantuzzi (1980), with good bibliography and critical assessment of problems; Cantilena
(1982), 19-103, who comments insightfully on some serious questions of theory,
definition and methodology that have characterized formula studies since Parry; and
Holoka's admirable survey (1991). Hainsworth (1993) 1-31 offers a fine and detailed
discussion of the important problems in the relation between Homeric diction and
composition.
 T H E FORMULA 239

diction and typical thematic structure, to modem taste seems an

obstacle to attainment of the highest poetic excellence, especially of
originality of any kind. Therefore Parry’s theory o f an oral Homer
who composed only through formulaic diction—a mixture o f verba­
tim formulas and related expressions derived by analogy or modifica­
tion—initially met with strong resistance in America from would-be
defenders of the ‘literary’ excellence of the Iliad and Odyssey, and was
virtually ignored by most European Homerists.
The reverse of this situation eventually came about: the oral view
of Homer became the prevailing orthodoxy, and is now the position
against which dissenters must aigue. This orthodoxy, however, has
considerably diminished its claims. There has been constant revision
o f Parry’s more extreme judgements, e.g. that Homer’s diction is
essentially all formulaic and traditional.2 Also, adherents of the oral
theory speak less often of ‘proof’ of Homer’s orality (whether by
formula-count or other indices), and more cautiously refer to a prob­
able oral genesis or to the epics as oral-derived texts.3 The para­
mount role supposedly played by Parry’s relatively fixed formulaic
phrases and systems has been significantly reduced from his estima­
tion of their omnipresence, and replaced by a hierarchy of linguistic
levels at which ‘something formulaic’ may exist. In addition, the poet’s
ability to incorporate rare single words that occur only once (termed
hapex legomena) is now freely admitted by scholars who consider them­
selves within the oralist tradition.4
After a comparative lull in formula studies, recent years have shown
renewed interest in the significance o f Parry’s work and the re-
conceptualization of the formula. This is an opportune juncture, then,
at which to review critically the main issues in formula studies,
with the intention of re-ftaming some of the difficulties and contro­
versies they have inspired in the hope of a better understanding of
Homer’s verbal art. But first, as preparation for some considerations
o f formal structure, we need a brief look at the internal structure of
the Homeric hexameter.

* As Parry (1971) 324, 335, put it: ‘At no time is [the poet] seeking words for an
idea which has never before found expression . . . his poetry remains throughout the
sum of longer and shorter passages which he has heard.’
3 J. M. Foley (1990); (1991) has coined the useful term ‘oral-derived text.’
4 See Hainsworth (1993) 6-7; M. W. Edwards (1991) 53-55.
240 JO SEPH RUSSO

Formula, Meter, and Colon

A new era in the colometry of the hexameter began with H. Fränkel’s

famous 1926 study.5 His four-colon conception of hexametric struc­
ture, while subjected to challenges and revisions, is still persuasive to
most metricians.6 But the analyses of Fränkel and his successors re­
vealed some disagreement over crucial questions: the degree to which
cola were sense-units, the exact length allowable for each colon, and
whether a significant minority of verses were better analyzed as having
two or three cola. Nevertheless, after several thorough re-evaluations,
there is general agreement that the four-colon verse is the ‘norm’
and that cola often provide the metrical structures into which formu­
las conveniently fit. A flexible model of hexameter colon-structure,
incorporating the preferences of Rossi and Porter with those of Fränkel,
would be as follows:
A A A AAA BB C CC
I —I -4»I- I —-

Broken verticals indicate the less frequent caesural positions. The

significant detail is the great variability of the A caesura compared
to the restriction of B and C.7
Given the highly formulaic nature of Homeric verse, it is undeni­
able that formular shape and colon shape have been mutually inter­
dependent for a long period in the history of the hexameter. Assigning

1 Fränkel (1926), most accessible in a concise version in Fränkel (1975) 30-34.

6 Η. N. Porter (1951) made modifications in Fiänkel’s A and C caesural positions
and tried to shift emphasis from cola as sense units to cola as defined by statistically
prominent word-ends. Rossi (1965) accepted Fränkel’s view generally but argued for
greater prominence of longer (3 '/«to 4-morae) first cola and short single-word third
cola. Kirk (1966b); (1985) 17-37, believed two- and three-colon verses to be far
more common than Fränkel allowed. Ingalls (1972), Barnes (1986), and Beck (1972)
essentially re-afiirm Fränkel’s four cola. Beekes (1972) seems an anachronistic
attempt to go back to the earlier conception of negative rules of word-end inhibition
instead of Fränkel’s more positive and organically cohesive approach. Sec the prag­
matic approach of Kahane (1994) 17-42, who reconciles the metrical and semantic
concepts of cola at a functional level by allowing for a wide range of possible caesural
positions, identified neither as ‘correct’ nor ‘irregular’ but rather ranked in sequence
by higher or lower audience expectation of word-end.
1 If one favors the sheer statistics of word-end over the sense-unit, more A cae­
suras at 2 and 3 can be counted and fewer (or none, according to Porter) at the
alternative positions. Conversely, more acceptance of purely semantic boundaries
leads to more A caesuras at 1, 1 Vs, 3 '/a, and 4. See Kahane (1994) for a judicious
evaluation of the differences.
 T H E FORMULA 241

priority to either formula or meter seems pointless, since metricians*

speculations about the antiquity and evolution o f the hexameter vary
and can never be conclusive. Whether theme generates formula which
then generates meter as G. Nagy believes, or metrical structures have
diachronic priority according to the diverse theories o f hexameter
evolution offered by B. Gentili and G. Giannini, A. Hoekstra, M. L.
West, and others, it is clear that the articulation of the epic verse
into cola is a manifestation, on what O ’Neil] (below, n. 23) called
the inner-metrical level, of an accumulation of specific realities on
the verbal level.8
Parry was well aware of this interdependence of formula and verse-
segment (although the four-colon theory as such was unknown to
him). He explicitly described (1971:9) formulas as characteristically
filling the spaces between what we nowadays call Fränkel’s B and C
caesuras and the end of the verse, or the first half of the verse up to
the B caesura. Regarding the A caesura, by far the most problematic
of the three because of its extreme fluidity of placement and its fre­
quent bridging, we may see some acknowledgment of this structural
feature in Parry’s study of the runover word in the enjambment
characteristic of orally-derived hexameter verse (1971: 251-65); and
also in his specific illustration of the schematization o f Homeric dic­
tion with the series οΰλομένην ή, νήπιοι di, δυσμορος ος, σχέτλιος ος,
νηλεέςδς, etc., all of which are verse-initial.9
The formula studies of most of Parry’s successors have retained
this connection between formula and colometry, and proceeded to
amplify it both theoretically and empirically. As we shall see, both
Lord and Notopoulos conceived of their analogical formulas as fill­
ing characteristic slots in the verse, and the concept of the structural
formula consisted of joining this approach more specifically to the

" G. Nagy (1976); Gentili and Giannini (1977); Hoekstra (1981) 33-53; M. L
West (1973a); (1973b) 161 87. Gentili and Giannini’s argument is especially attrac­
tive, offering an important place to both formula and meter and placing special
emphasis on their interaction to yield, over time, the finished product that is the
hexameter as we know it. Gentili views the hexameter as a relatively late creation,
whose constituent units are essentially those filled by many of Parry’s formulas: adonic,
alcmanian, enoplian, reizianum, and hemiepes. These formula shapes made avail­
able ‘preferred’ structural units which were joined to make the eventually polished
hexameter.
9 In principle Parry never considers single words as complete formulas, but in
practice he occasionally does. See his comments on όλοόφρονος (1971) 71, Homer’s
regular use of ήρώων and Άμγείων to begin the verse, (1971) 313, and the middle
participle plus enclitic περ, (1971) 314.
242 JO SEPH RUSSO

O ’Neül-Porter-Fränkel tradition of emphasizing favored localization

for words and colon-length phrases. Even in the most recent reconsider­
ations of the identity of the formula and its possible relation to more
variable, less formulaic diction, we see a continuation of the view
that formula and meter are inextricably bound up with one another.

Finding the Formula: 1928 to 1980

It has become an inaccurate commonplace to assert that the series

o f formula studies inspired in the sixties and seventies by Milman
Parry’s research led to a deadlock or a blind alley. A better formu­
lation would be that the impossibility of finding consensus on a
definition of the formula, and any agreement on whether formula
density was a true index o f orally composed texts, brought into clar­
ity for the first time the full complexity of the verbal phenomena
that scholars were attempting to pursue with inadequate conceptual
and methodological tools. Such clarification could only be a good
thing. As I argue below, there need be no unitary, accepted definition
of the formula for the concept of formularity to be a productive one,
with a stimulating effect on our reading of Homer and our apprecia­
tion of why his style succeeds so well both functionally and aestheti­
cally. But first a review of the definitions and expanding concepts of
the formula, from Parry to the present.
In 1928 and 1930 Milman Parry offered a virtually identical defi­
nition of the formula: ‘a group of words which is regularly employed
under the same metrical conditions to express a given essential idea.’
He added the further stipulation that a formula be ‘made up of at
least four words or five syllables, with the exception of noun-epithet
phrases, which may be shorter, such as φίλον ήτορ,10*Such formulas
were the most distinctive mark of orally composed epic poetry, which
he saw as essentially formula-dependent and entirely traditional in
thought.11 He went on, however, to say there was more to the for­
mula than his strict definitions allowed: analogical construction played

IC Parry (1971) 272 (cf. 13), 275 η. 1,

" He does allow for an individual poet to add a new epithet, phrase, or verse to
the traditional diction, but asserts there could be only ‘a few’ such creations for any
one singer, and they would have to blend in perfectly with the traditional style in
order to enter the diction and keep a place there: (1971) 324, 330.
 TH E FORMULA 243

a significant role in· Homer’s creation of formulas.12 When these

modifications kept some identical wording they were accorded for­
mulaic status and included in Parry’s formal textual analyses as phrases
marked with broken underlining. Others, constructed on identity of
grammar, rhythm and location within the verse, were more infor­
mally suggested as possibilities still to be explored. ‘But there are
more general types of formulas, and one could make no greater
mistake than to limit formulaic material to what is underlined,’ he
says ([1971] 313), and goes on to note such similarities as Άχαιοΐς
αλγε’ έθηκε and έπ' αύτφ κΰδος εθηκε, πολλας δ* ΐφθίμους ψυχας and
πολλας δέ δρυς αζαλέας, τεΰχε κΰνεσσιν and δωκεν έταίρφ, and even
the tendency to use the single words ηρώων and Άργείων at the
beginning of a verse, followed by a new clause.
Parry’s followers saw the usefulness of this more broadly defined
formula, which moved beyond mechanical-seeming repetition and
allowed the freedom of substitution that characterizes the flexibility
of living language itself. Hence a series of definitions that moved
quickly to the level of analogical constructions via syntactic patterns
with substitutable elements, which required less strict dependence on
specific words and word order than did Parry’s original definition.
T he prime articulation of analogical formula construction is that
o f A. B. Lord in The Singer o f Tales. Because he was studying a tradi­
tional, oral, and formulaic diction that was still alive and creatively
functioning, Lord was aware, perhaps even more than Parry, of the
realities of what he calls ‘basic formula patterns’ that the skilled singer
manipulates by substitution of words and the adjustment of phrases so
created to fit the metrical and musical requirements to produce suc­
cessful verse.13 The flexibility inherent in Lord’s conception contains
the kernel of all important theorizing about the formula that has
since appeared. In essence, he says that more basic than the formu­
las themselves are the syntactic patterns that underlie them and give
the singer the capacity to generate new formulaic phrasing according
to a poetic ‘grammar’ analogous to the grammar used by the speaker
of ordinary language. Here we may see an embryonic version of
Μ. N. Nagler’s Gestalt theory of formulaic production (discussed below).
Lord even anticipates the later attempts of scholars to identify formula

13 Parry (1971) 68: ‘Analogy is perhaps the single most important factor for us to
grasp if we are to arrive at a real understanding of Homeric diction.'
13 A. B. Lord (1960) Ch. 2, and especially pp. 35-45.
244 JO SEPH RUSSO

shape and length with colometric units of the hexameter, although

Lord is o f course making the observation specifically about Serbo-
Croatian decasyllabic verse: ‘Closely allied to the word-boundary
patterns, and to no small extent helping to form them, are the syn­
tactic patterns o f the formulas.’14
Lord’s emphasis on the importance of analogical phrase formation
was followed by J . Notopoulos (1962), who applied the tracing of
syntactic patterns to Greek hexameter diction, specifically that of the
four major Homeric Hymns. Notopoulos called attention to the fre­
quent use of analogical syntax, in such phrases as Κύνθιον δχθον,
καμπύλα κύκλα, θούριδος άλκης, οϊνοπα πόντον, όβριμον εγχος, etc., all
metrically identical and localized at the end o f the line. But his analysis
also contains many unsupported claims of formular analogy accord­
ing to ‘similar’ patterns whose resemblance is clearly inadequate. For
example, he underlines τρομέουσιν (όντα, indicating that ιόντα in
its verbatim repetition is a formula and τρομέουσιν is substitutable
by analogical formation. Yet the parallels he cites for τρομέουσιν15
exhibit neither the same metrical form nor the same grammar, and
do not even have the kind of similarity of sound upon which some
plausible formulaic relationship may be built. Whether ιόντα by itself
in end-line position is formulaic is a point that would need some
argument, not simple assertion.16 Notopoulos’ other supporting evi­
dence for analogical patterns is similarly uneven, as will be evident
to anyone who follows up all his references. The resulting set of
statistics he gives for formular density are therefore unreliable, and
not adequate proof of the oral genesis of these texts. It is important
to note, however, that his intuition of wide-ranging formularity in
the Hymns seems accurate. In an impressively thorough formula-
analysis of the entire corpus of Hymns, applying the more stringent

14 A. B. Lord (I960) 41. This is precisely the point demonstrated in detail for the
hexameter in Russo (1966) (especially pp. 236-40); Ingalls (1972); and Gentili and
Giannini (1977).
15 θδσσον R 17.654, έπ’ άλλήλοισιν 3x, κολοσυρτσν R 12.147, κλισίηθεν //. 12.336,
and Οίχολίηθεν in verse-initial instead of verse end combination, //. 2.596.
16 I myself have argued for single words and word-types as formulaic when they
are heavily localized (1963); (1966), but recognize that such a claim can cover too
broad a range of phenomena to be illuminating. I would now say that single-word
formularity becomes significant in certain words and forms whose metrical shape
ideally fills one of the verse-cola. C. J. Ruijgh (1957) 29-55, 87 has suggested single
word formularity for the heavily localized αύτάρ and μερμηρίζω, and Kirk (1962)
67-68 for ήτορ and θάμα, and in (1966b) 104 for γενέσβαι, γένηται, γένοντο, and
γένοιτο.
 T H E FORMULA 245

criteria developed by W. M. Minton (1975), M. Cantilena also came

up with a high formula content that would seem to strengthen
Notopoulos’ and Lord’s arguments that orality may be inferred from
fbrmular density (although he disagrees with their high percentages).17
Homerists continued to develop conceptions of the formula that
might offer some escape from the constraints of Parry’s ‘official’
definition and thus answer his critics’ charges that ‘mechanistic’ verse
production had replaced poetic creativity for Parry’s Homer. To
this end three significant new definitions of formula were conceived
during the 1960s: the ‘structural’ formula, the ‘flexible’ formula, and
the formula as variable manifestation of a pre-verbal Gestalt.
M y conception of the structural formula was an attempt to carry
the analogical constructions seen by Lord and Notopoulos one step
further, by grounding them in syntactic-metrical patterns inherent in
the hexameter itself. I attempted to locate formular generativity in
the localization of word-types with clear grammatical identities, whose
combination into phrases often created familiar metrical cola o f the
type documented by Fränkel and Porter. The impressively patterned
word-type localizations had been demonstrated by E. G. O ’Neill, Jr.
(1942), but with no data as to what kinds of words filled in the
abstract metrical shapes. Porter’s revision of Fränkel’s four-colon theory
was unsuccessful in some details, but had the great advantage, through
building on O ’Neill’s work, of showing exactly what word-type com­
binations most characteristically constituted each of the four cola. It
seemed opportune to me, as Porter’s student, to investigate the gram­
matical nature and syntactic relationship of the word-types that entered
into the most frequent or characteristic colon-filling combinations,
i.e., a synthesis of the O ’Neill-Porter patterns of localized word-types
and the Parry-Lord suggestion that epic diction was pervaded by
syntactic patterns generating new formulaic phrases by analogy.
In this view of Homeric diction, the long series or ‘system’ docu-
mentable by juxtaposing the phrases δλγε’ ε&ηκε, κϋδος εθηκε, κΰδος
εδωκε, εΰχος εδωκε, εύχος άπηΰρα, etc., could be understood as the
structural formula - - 1- -x localized at 12, the verse-end. The middle-
passive verse-initial participial form seen in οΰλομένην, ευχόμενος,
άχνύμενος, λισσόμενοι, έρχόμενος, etc., and the verse-ending form seen

17 Cantilena (1982) 82-89 finds a formular density of around 50% for the Hymns,
dose to the approximately 54% he calculates for the Homeric epics. See p. 83 n. 70
for a generous appreciation of Notopoulos’ contributions to oral studies.
246 JO SEPH RUSSO

in έρχομένοιο, έρχομενάων, κηδομένη περ (τε), άχνύμενός περ, περθομένη

τε, etc. would be the single-word stru c tu re --'? - localized at 3 or in
the combination - £ T - x at 12.
These localized combinations (and occasional significantly used
single word-types) may be seen as abstract linguistic structures or
matrices from which new epic formulas are generated.18 As a piece
of theory synthesizing current ideas in Homeric studies and seeing
how far they might be taken, this was attractive, and remains so in
my judgment. Applied to the analysis of Homeric texts, the ‘structu­
ral’ approach had the virtue of exposing more regularities of diction
than were previously apparent, and of suggesting how new phrases
could be created on the model of existing ones. But it is clear in
retrospect that my structural formulas were too loosely defined, and
their suggested all-pervasiveness deprived them of value as decisive
indicators of the orality of hexametric texts.19
At this point the inability of even the most inclusive conceptions
of analogy and syntactic-metrical structure to define clearly the
parameters of the formulaic led to two new and opposite-seeming
approaches. The first was that of J. B. Hainsworth (1964); (1968)
and A. Hoekstra (1965), who saw the poet’s formula-generating ca­
pacity in his ability to improvise new formulaic phrases out of exist­
ing ones by significantly altering their structure but preserving their
content. This was a radical departure from Parry’s conception o f a
phrase regularly employed under the same metrical conditions: these
scholars offered evidence to support a conception of the formula as

10 Russo (1963); (1966). Some unease about giving the name ‘formula’ to what
were conceived as formula-generating potentialities is seen in the suggesdon that the
structural patterns should perhaps be thought of as ‘shadows of formulas’ ([1963]
239), a phrase that even to a severe critic of the structural approach is, ‘however
misleading, still the most illuminating and suggestive’ (Minton [1973] 253.)
19 See the appropriate warnings of Hainsworth (1964) and Minton (1965) about
the dangers of using high percentages of loosely defined analogical/struclural for­
mulas to argue for oral composition. It should noted that, unlike Lord and Notopoulos,
I never calculated percentages of formulas to prove oral composition, well aware
that their boundaries were too fluid to allow strict quantification. I simply assumed
oral composition as the likeliest hypothesis (as I still do), and claimed that structural
patterns were one sign of such a style. One part of Minton’s argument (repeated by
Packard [1976]) that the presence of structural formulas in Apollonios’ Argonautka
invalidates any claim that their presence in Homer points to oral composition, fails
to allow for the historical precedence of Homer as die poet who established norms
of hexameter dictional patterns that later poets were bound to fallow. As I have
argued (Russo [1976]), frequency of structural formulas may fairly be considered a
necessary but not sufficient condition for an oral hexameter style.
 THE FORMULA 247

eminently ‘flexible,’ while denying significance to structural or ana­

logical substitution-systems as formula generating matrices.20 The
second new approach was that of Μ. N. Nagler (1967); (1974), who
saw the basic formula-generating mechanism as an abstract, pre­
verbal Gestatl or template in the poet’s mind. This was a radical
departure from the attempt to see formulas phenomenologically as
concrete and measurable phenomena related by either structure or con­
tent: it denied the possibility of precisely identifying and counting
formulas, while offering as consolation an intellectually appealing basis
for this impasse. Let us consider each of these approaches in detail.
Hainsworth’s 1968 monograph was the most influential of this group
of post-Parry reconceptualizations of the formula. It opened a range of
new possibilities by departing radically from Parry’s requirement of
‘the same metrical conditions’ and replacing it with the simpler one
that there be bonds of mutual expectancy between two or more words
for them to be treated by the poet as formulas. These bonds would
keep the words connected even when their metrical shape and posi­
tion changed. The processes of change include (1) mobility (2) expan­
sion, (3) separation, including (3a) splitting a word group over two
lines o f verse, and modification through such ‘adjustments’ as (4) in­
verted word order, (5) use of an alternate case-form or suflix. Any of
these may be combined, and the results further altered through eli­
sion, Each category may be illustrated by the following examples: (1)
ξίφος όξύ, φίλος (-ον, -οι) υιός (-όν, -α, -ες), et al. are mobile between
three different positions in the verse; (2) (φόνον και) κηρα μελαινον
(simple addition); or the even simpler addition of adverbs like μέγα,
πολύ or μάλα to existing formulas; or άλλοι (μάκαρες) θεοί as a con­
flation of θεοί άλλοι and μάκαρες θεοί; (3) αϊγεον άσκον and άσκφ έν
αΐγείφ, κακά πολλά and πολλ’ (έπι τοΐς πάθομεν) κακά, (3a) δεξιόν
ώμον and ώμον/δεξιόν, (4) χεΐρας άάπτους and άάπτους χεΐρας, (5) πασι
δόλοισι and πάντεσσι δόλοισι.
Some modifications of this type had been described by A. Severyns,
and were certainly present in Parry’s view of formular behavior.21
They were developed within a diachronic linguistic perspective in
Hoekstra’s 1965 study, where conjugation and declension of formulas,

so Hoekstra (1965) 11-20 and Hainsworth (1968) 14—19 explicitly reject the use
of analogical substitution systems as indices of ora) style.
31 Severyns (1946) 49-61. Parry’s Homeric Formulas and M etre ([1971] 191-239) is
entirely concerned with modification, juxtaposition, conflation, etc. of formulas, ap­
proached from the perspective of the metrical anomalies caused by these adaptations.
248 JO SEPH RUSSO

splitting by the introduction of another word, replacement of archaic

forms by newer ones, and the removal of formulas from traditional
positions arc studied in detail. Hoekstra shows the loosening effect
exerted upon the diction by historical innovations like quantitative
metathesis, loss of diagamma, introduction of movable nu, and the
emergence of newer versions of archaic forms generally.
Hoekstra’s was in fact the first book-length treatment of the Homeric
formula since Parry and the first serious critique of the oral hypoth­
esis. Neither a ‘true believer’ nor a debunker, the Dutch scholar keeps
an open-minded view of the possibility that Homeric poems were
composed orally, but with deliberate rehearsal and memorization as
opposed to the ‘improvisation’ theory he (mistakenly but understand­
ably) attributes to Lord.22 His review on pp. 8-20 of the develop­
ment of Parry’s theory and methodology from the French theses to
the subsequent American articles, and of its further extension by Lord
and Notopoulos, is full of cautions about over-extension of definitions
of the ‘formulaic’ element and the automatic assumption that formu-
larity equals orality. Hoekstra equates formularity with traditional style
but not necessarily with oral style. This monograph, together with
Hainsworth’s, significantly broadened our vision o f how Homer and
his predecessors could innovate within the confines of their tradi­
tional style.
Hainsworth, however, is a convinced oralist, and presents the
abundant evidence for formular flexibility as exemplifying the supple­
ness and adaptability of the technique of improvisational composi­
tion. Focusing his argument specifically to challenge a key element
of Parry’s definition of formula, that it is always used under the same
metrical conditions, he concentrates on the behavior of two word
groups, shaped - - - - x a n d ----- x. The first is a staple of Parryist
formulaic studies, providing the frame for numerous end-line formulas,
particularly epithet-noun combinations. When its final syllable is short,
however, Hainsworth shows that it exhibits great mobility, with a
‘scatter’ over four positions within the verse. The second is a relatively
neglected phase shape, allowed by Parry as an exception (when it
was epithet-plus-noun) to his requirement that a formula have at least

Ώ Hoekstra (1965) 18-20. Lord repeatedly rejected the term improvisation be­
cause of its suggestion of ad hoc creation, and preferred instead to call the oral
creative process ‘(re-)composition in performance.’ See mast recently A. B. Lord
(1991) 76.
 TH E FORMULA 249

four words or five syllables, which was meant to exclude brief and
trivial word combinations. The brevity o f ----- x limits it to rather
humble formulaic phrases like the familiar φίλος υιός μέγα αστυ, βροτός
άνήρ, βροτόν άνδρα, μέγα δώμα, δύο δούρε, θεοί άλλοι, κακά πολλά,
πρόπαν ήμαρ, κλέος εύρύ, etc. Some of these do not ideally meet Parry’s
criterion of epithet-noun combination, and can seem rather trivial
compared to formulas that afford the composing poet more significant
cola as building blocks for his hexameter line. This shorter phrase-
type also gains considerable mobility when its final syllable is short,
as Hainsworth points out, because of the ease with which it can
avoid limitations of placement imposed by the internal bridges of
hexameter structure (p. 47).
O ne limitation of Hainsworth’s illuminating study is that in his
emphasis on the role of flexibility in generating new formular vari­
ants, he believes it necessary to minimize the importance of other
sources of formula creation and extension. His original purpose,
acknowledged in his Preface, is ‘to correct an emphasis on certain
structuralist standpoints which seemed mistaken.’ A previous study of
his revealed the conviction that ‘pattern and structure of the phrases,
interpreted strictly, do not play a predominant part in the creation
of new diction.’23 And as a consequence o f his avoidance o f struc-
tural/analogical considerations, he ends up with a high number of
‘unique expressions,’ many of which could easily be seen as struc­
tural or analogical variants of familiar existing formulas. These phrases
are ‘unique’ in the literal sense, but remain such close kin to other
phrases similarly constructed that it seems obdurate not to classify
them all within one formular substitution system.24
Hainsworth’s approach leaves some questions of detail perhaps

29 Hainsworth (1964) 164. His 1962 article contains the more moderate judgment
that ‘formula-types. . . are not the sole technique used in composition by formulae’
(p. 59). This study shows the origins of Hainsworth’s conviction that schematization
represents tradition whereas flexibility means invention (pp. 64-65), which makes
understandable his emphasis on the latter for an appreciation of the oral poet’s
creativity.
24 At (1968) 132-33 νηλέι θυμφ and νηλέι χαλκφ are listed as ‘regular formulae’
while the obviously kindred νηλέι δεσμψ and νηλέι νκνφ, because they occur only
once, are classified as ‘unique expressions.’ The same is true of the ‘unique’ δείελσν
ήμαρ despite the well-established system νηλεές (ιερόν, δούλιον, αΐσιμον. μόρσιμον,
νόστιμου) ήμαρ (ρρ. 136-8); and the ‘unique’ σήματα λυγρά and έχθεα λυγρά despite
κήδεα (άλγεα) λυγρά (3x, 2χ) and the έλκεα λυγρά classed with ‘possible formulas and
derivative expressions’ (pp. 136-7). Many other ‘unique expressions’ may be simi­
larly reconsidered.
250 JO SEPH RUSSO

disputable. Among minor modifications, for example, ‘expansion’ in

some cases demonstrates no more than that H om er could place
another word next to his formula. Viewing this new combination as
an ‘extended formula’ begs the question of formular identity: it is
simply a formula plus another word, often a weak word like μήλα or
the definite/demonstrative article. Among major modifications, one
could criticize those examples of separation which create such a
different pattern that the new configuration seems not so much a
formula as a new word group composed of the elements of a some­
time formula. Thus one recent scholar worries that the concept of
the flexible formula may carry ‘the seeds of its own destruction.’25
The problem again is nomenclature: it seems imprecise to describe
both the many Homeric regularities and their several degrees of varia­
tion and deviation as all ‘formulas’ of one kind or another.
By the late 1960s, then, the concept o f formula seemed in a con­
fused state, with no agreed upon definition but a shared uncritical
assumption that the term must refer to a single phenomenon of dic­
tion. The conceptual expansion of the formula had taken essentially
two opposite directions: either holding on to meter, order, and syn­
tax and loosening requirements of close word repetition, or keeping
dose word repetition but loosening the other requirements. Each of
these criteria permitted an analysis that could find new formulaic
expressions related to existing ones; but each also allowed ambiguous
boundaries between clearly accepted formulas and possibly related
expressions.
A thoroughly new approach was offered by Μ. N. Nagger’s con­
ception of the ‘generative’ nature of the formula. Nagler (1974) begins
from the impasse to which various conflicting theories of the formula
had led. In an opening chapter called ‘The Traditional Phrase,’ he
demonstrates that for any set o f phrases that seem to be variants of
the same formula, it is always possible to add still other phrases that
share some resemblance, so as to form a continuous chain of dimin­
ishing connectedness. He illustrates this principle by juxtaposing the
following phrases, of which the first two were cited by Parry ([1971]
72) as having what he called a punning relationship:

25 Higbie (1990) 166-68 shows how formulas like εϊπον + μύθον and βάλλω +
δουρί can be ‘altered almost beyond recognition,’ citing instances where ‘a flexible
formula carries the seeds of its own destruction’ and is mote plausibly ‘construed as
individual words and not as a formula.’
 TH E FORMULA 251

άμφήλυθεν θήλυς άυτμή [Od. 12.369]

άμφήλυθε θήλυς άυτή [Od. 6.1221
θείη δέ μνν άμφέχυτ’ όμφή [//. 2.41]
δεινή δέ θεείον γίγνεται όδμή [//. 14.415]
. . . θήλυς έέρση [Od. 5.467]
βοών δ' ως γίγνετο φωνή [Od. 12.396]
περί φρένας ήλυθ’ ίωή [//. 10.139]
άκούετο λαός αυτής [//. 4.331]
έκαθεν δέ τε γίγνετ’ άκουή [//. 16.634]
O f the seven phrases he has added to Parry’s original two, Nagler
claims that ‘two have the same commonly found noun-epithet com­
bination after the bucolic diaeresis [although this is not really true or
λαός αυτής], while the remaining five share another, but not unre­
lated, syntactic pattem ’ ([1974] 3). He further suggests that there are
still more phrases that might be incorporated into this sequence, and
proceeds to construct other sequences even more elaborately difiuse.
The resemblances, he claims, are ‘more than coincidental’; they may
not be groups of formulas according to definitions hitherto accepted,
but ‘one is justified in feeling th a t . . . they are groups of something’
(p. 11). Here the fact that Nagler has titled his chapter ‘The Tradi­
tional Phrase’ may take on added significance: we may infer that
‘traditional phrase’ would be a more useful term than ‘formula’ to
name these fluctuating phenomena.
With such subtle and varied grounds for group coherence, it would
seem arbitrary to declare a firm cut-off point where membership in
the group might be denied. These observations lead the author to
introduce into formula studies the concept of the ‘open-ended fam­
ily’ (pp. 11-13). Such open-endedness is not merely descriptive but
has a theoretical center, an abstract, pre-verbal mental template for
which no English term exists and which may be called a Gestalt. It
is closely similar to the concept called spkola by Sanskrit grammar­
ians and has looser resemblances to the Platonic idea, the Jungian
archetype, and the Levi-Straussian structural model of myth. It is at
this level of phenomena that the true formula exists, as a mental
potentiality; all the actual verbalizations made by the reciter are called
‘allomorphs’ of this one entity.
Nagler has offered an ingenious solution to the problem of relating
similar-seeming expressions under one unifying identity. His empha­
sis on resemblances that are more subde than those commonly docu­
mented by formula-hunters must appeal to the intuitions of every
252 JO SEPH RUSSO

reader of Homer. O n the other hand, several of his assertions of

similarity must strike most readers as subjective and unconvincing
(e.g., he adduces II. 16.634 for its supposed similarity to 14.415). A
more serious theoretical problem raised by this approach is that it
removes the formula from the manifest realm where we can observe
and measure its forms, and transposes it to a realm where it is potential
rather than actual and thus no longer anaiyzable. So while the for­
mulation makes elegant theory, it renders our concordance-compiled
repetitions o f limited use in finding the allomorphs of any Gestalt,
leaving us with no investigative tool as a replacement except for each
individual researcher’s ‘nose’ for formulas.
We have reviewed a constant shifting of definitions that allowed
formulas to look less and less like those o f Parry. Although some­
times deplored, I believe that the development of multiple competing
definitions has helped broaden our understanding o f the aesthetics of
Homeric style. Anyone who reads Homer in Greek becomes eventu­
ally aware that repetition is constantly at play, some of its forms
being more immediately evident than others. The uniquely satisfying
effect that Homeric style has upon us derives from our perception,
at different levels ranging from fully conscious to subliminal in vary­
ing degrees, that patterns of sentence, phrase, word, rhythm, and
sound are repeatedly returning, and recalling one another with
a subtlety that defies precise definition and classification. It is this
refusal of the formulaic to be defined and classified, and its increas­
ing identification with the organized functioning of language on
multiple levels simultaneously, that the studies of the sixties and sev­
enties successfully, even if sometimes unintentionally, brought to light.
Milman Parry’s definition was a good beginning, but only a first
attempt to capture the infinite variety o f verbal patterning within
Homeric diction. Parry saw and defined with clarity the ‘tip of the
iceberg,’ and clearly intuited the existence o f much of the supporting
sub-structure. The subsequent expansions should not be seen as the
abandonment o f rigor or the ‘debasement’ of some primeval gold,
but as extensions outward to capture some of the less manifest (but
no less poetically, rhetorically, and psychologically effective) patterns
through which Homer imposes poetic form on hexametric language.
 TH E FORMULA 253

Recent Directions (Since 1980)

The epithet reconsidered

In 1982, Paolo Vivante published a book-length study of Homeric
epithets that took a position direcdy opposite to Parry’s: epithets are
never simply functional or ornamental, but always evoke the ‘fullest
materialization’ and ‘visual focus’ ([1982J 14) of the person or thing
named, giving them a ‘fresh sense of reality’ (p. 173). Vivante is
probably correct to some degree, but it remains difficult to estimate
just how much fullness and focus πόδας ώκυς adds to Άχιλλεύς or
πολυμήτις to Όδυσσευς, and whether it is the same in all contexts.26
And for all his desire to challenge Parry’s vision, it may be that
Vivante’s position was to some extent anticipated by Parry, whose
judgments, as already noted, sometimes carry the seeds of their own
revision and correction. We tend to think of Parry’s view of epithets
in terms of his more absolute pronouncements, such as 'the use of
the ornamental epithet in Homer is entirely dependent on its power
to facilitate versification’ ([1971] 23). But he also says that the orna­
mental fixed epithet ‘adds to the combination of substantive and epi­
thet an element of nobility and grandeur’ ([1971] 127), a conception
that is surprisingly close to Vivante’s.
Vivante also reminds us ([1982] 22-26, 94-100) that there are
many instances where the epithet may have been used but was
omitted, and invites us to look beyond the more mechanical needs
of verse-construction to possible semantic factors, such as the poet’s
wish not to dwell on the full presence of the person but to focus
attention elsewhere. This is an attractive idea, and seems supported
by the examples the author has collected. But then again, it is inher­
ently problematical to collect passages where it may be safely claimed
that the poet chose not to use a traditional epithet because he wished
to shift his focus elsewhere. The most important contribution of
Vivante’s study remains his insistence on the possibility that function
and poetic value need not be seen as constantly opposed to one
another, which was the rigid view that could be extracted, perhaps

86 In an earlier challenge to the Parry orthodoxy, Whallon ([19611, expanded in

Whallon [1969]) argued that epithets arc so true to character that they in fact influ­
ence characterization, and in specific contexts assume vivid semantic presence. This
approach, like Vivante’s, must contain a kernel of truth, and similarly runs the risk
of subjective interpretation.
254 JO SEPH RUSSO

unavoidably, from Parry’s writings, but need not be the only posi­
tion for an oralist aesthetic.

The formula reconsidered

After an apparent moratorium in the struggle to find acceptable defi­
nitions of the formula, a new impulse has come from two recent
attempts to reconsider its essential nature. Both share the interesting
idea that not all members of a formulaic phrase need be equally
stable or essential: there is semantic nucleus surrounded by more
peripheral or variable elements. E. Visser proposed this approach in
his 1987 German dissertation, summarized in 1988 as an English
article. He acknowledges the seed of this important difference in Parry’s
original distinction between the fixity of the noun and the variability
(lexical and prosodic) of the modifier in the intensely studied noun­
epithet combinations. Visser develops this idea into a major principle
for discriminating between semantically ‘nuclear’ words, necessary for
the poet to use to express his ‘essential idea,’ and the more optional
and variable words and phrases which adapt that idea to the exigen­
cies of hexameter versification.
A good example is found in the frequently used whole lines within
‘killing scenes’ in which Homer says the equivalent of ‘A killed B.’
From a collection of many such single verses—which allow a control
on the data through similarity of idea and form—Visser draws sev­
eral conclusions. The names of killer and victims can take a wide
range of metrical shapes, so they must be positioned first; then the
verb of killing must be fitted into whatever metrical s!ot(s) is (are)
most typical for localization of that type (following O ’Neill). Thus
the nuclear material is placed according to semantic needs, and the
remaining ‘fillers,’ which do not convey crucial sense but function­
ally complete the verse, are fitted in wherever possible. The example
afforded by II. 5.43 is analyzed in the 1988 article, with the assump­
tion that we can dissect its components to reconstruct Homer’s ver­
sification technique.
Ίδομενεΰς δ'&ρα Φαιστόν ένήρατο, Μήονος υιόν.

The subject Idomeneus is localized in the place commonest for

choriambs, — - - , perhaps a plausible claim, though it scants O ’Neill’s
evidence ([1942] 144) for approximately equal use in position 5 and
some use in 9 and 11. Then when ‘Phaiston,’ in Visser’s explana-
 TH E FORMULA 255

tion, ‘a trochee or spondee, is set in relation to the choriambic and

when we consider die structure of the caesurae in the hexameter
[here a ref. to Fränkel’s colometry, discussed above], we get the fol­
lowing most natural disposition: Ίδομενευς - - Φαιστόν----- - I - - - - x//.’
Here the argument grows less compelling, because it is not explained
by what principles ‘Phaiston’ is bound to be placed where it is by
FrankePs scheme of caesurae, since as a trochee or spondee it can
have, according to O'Neill, five or six favored positions. (Five if we
count 20% or more of occurrences as constituting a ‘favored’ posi­
tion, six if we accept 14% as our threshold, according to O ’Neill’s
data on pp, 141-42.)
For the other nuclear element, the verb ένήρατο, it is perfecdy
true that this sh a p e ------- localizes strongly before the bucolic cae­
sura; but Visser omits the possibility that the poet could use many
of the 27 verb forms Visser himself lists to express the idea ‘killed.’
Not all would fit equally well into a verse that had to contain the
words Idomeneus and Phaiston, but the poet’s choices seem far less
mechanically restricted than Visser claims. Aiso doubtful is the claim
that the two shorts after Idomeneus are ‘usually filled by t h e . . .
connective element,’ therefore ‘the only possible completion can
be δ ’αρα (Visser [1988] 35-36). T he concordances show seven
Iliadic uses of the metrically equivalent έλε in this position, of which
four are descriptions of killing. This verse therefore could have been
constructed
Ιδομενείς δ’ έλε Φαιστόν άμύμονα, Μήανος υιόν
or
Ίδομενευς Φαιστόν μέν ένήρατο. . .

leaving it to the poet to complete the verse in a manner compatible

with the needs of meter and sense. And still other possibilities exist
Even keeping δ ’αρα in the second metron we could haw
Ίδομενευς δ ’ αρα Φαιστόν άμύμονα θυμόν άπηΰρεν.

Visser’s theory is an interesting expansion of Parry’s conception of

the formula, and certainly redirects needed attention to the fact, oddly
under-appreciated, that some members o fformulaic combinations are more
fomudaic>than others. Thus it suggests a useful corrective—at least in
some cases— to Hainsworth’s conception of the ‘mutual bond of
expectancy’ between members of a formulaic word-group, which had
implied an equal status for each member.
256 JO SEPH RUSSO

But it is not a major challenge to oral theory. Moreover, Visser’s

argument is weakened by the all-or-nothing form in which he casts
his conclusions: ‘Homer obviously thought in categories of single words
and not in formulaic word-blocks’ ([1988] 36). This is a monolithic
vision as overstated as Parry’s oft-regretted claim that the poet com­
poses entirely in pre-existing formulas. One wonders what prevents
Visser from seeing the evident truth that Homer thinks and com­
poses sometimes in formulaic phrases (the evidence of the Concordances
and Schmidt’s ParaUel-Homer is mighty) and sometimes in single words.
Visser’s ‘nuclear semantics’ approach has been recently adapted
by E. J. Bakker and F. Fabbricotti (1991) and developed further
on the theoretical plane. They view Homer’s diction as oral and
spontaneous, consisting regularly of nuclear words with associated
‘peripheral’ elements, and differing importantly from written versi­
fication ‘in the degree to which it makes systematic use of flexible,
metrically adaptable material.’ As an application of the theory, they
offer a close analysis of Homer’s use of dative expressions centering
on the words for ‘spear’ δόρυ and εγχος. lik e Visser, they analyze
battle scenes where these phrases normally constitute material that
the poet treats as peripheral, i.e., ‘reactive,’ to his more important
main ideas, the names of slayer and slain and the verb of killing,
which are called ‘determinative.’ The variability of this material is
dear evidence of the poet’s technique for adapting what he wants to
say to the metrical constraints that bind him; whereas the selecdon
and placement of nudear words shows him operating in a sphere of
relatively free choice.
lik e Visser, the authors are concerned to show that Homer com­
poses far less through pre-made formulaic blocks than ‘hard Parryists’
have tended to believe. But they differ from Visser in that they use
the nuclear-peripheral distinction to support the likelihood of oral
composition. With an essentially Parryistic vision, they see the poet
as an oral bard who used peripheral material to improvise comple­
tions to verses centered on the placement of the more determinative
nudear material. Visser, on the other hand, follows Latacz (whose
student he is) in imagining a poet who had recently left behind the
old style but can still utilize it, while also having recourse to writing
to achieve the ‘excellence’ of his poetry.
An important question left unanswered by these recent investiga­
tions is whether Homeric diction consists entirely of nuclear words
deliberately and relatively freely selected and placed within the verse
 THE FORMULA 257

in combination with relevant peripheral phraseology, or whether

this phenomenon is concentrated in the more stereotypical subject
matter. All the verses analyzed represent the relatively simple struc­
tures and ideas found in battie passages. To echo Chantraine’s one
reservation about Parry’s work ([1929] 299), they have chosen the
most favorable material for their thesis. Since Bakker and Fabbri-
cotti view peripherality as recursive—that is, every peripheral element
may itself have a nuclear and a peripheral part—one imagines that
attempts to view less stereotypical passages in nuclear-peripheral terms
may yield analyses of increasing complexity and diminished clarity.
Nonetheless, Bakker here and in other publications has brought a
new dimension of linguistic sophistication to the study o f Homeric
diction, relating it to oral discourse through a variety of shared
rhetorical features exclusive of formular phraseology as traditionally
conceived (see below).
Two other recent studies have had some success in a project analo­
gous and complementary to those just discussed: distinguishing the
formulaic from the non-formulaic component in order to show that
Homer could be both an oral poet and a composer o f some original­
ity. Both M. Finkelberg (1989) and W. M. Sale (1989) have shown
admirable methodological rigor and freedom from bias toward an
oral or a literate Homer. Letting themselves be led by the evidence,
both authors arrive at a similar evaluation of different areas of Homeric
diction, Finkelberg studying the verbal expressions for joy and Sale
the epithets for Trojans. Each author sees approximately 70% for­
mulaic diction, with the remaining 30% an indeterminable mixture
of free expression and under-represen ted formulas. This seems con­
sistent with the general judgement passed a generation ago by G. M.
Bowra ([1952] 230-31, 252-53), who said that while the oral poet
must rely greatly on formular expressions there is also a part o f his
diction in which he chooses words freely, and in the better poets this
part increases.

Discourse theory

M ost recendy, applying a linguistic approach based on contem­

porary discourse theory, E. J . Bakker raises an interesting challenge
to the fundamental assumption that formulas are a unique char­
acteristic of oral poetic style. He argues that formulas, along with
other distinctive features of Homeric discourse, are not so much the
258 JOSEPH RUSSO

differentia between oral and written literary style as phenomena of

spoken language itself. ‘Homeric discourse,’ he says, ‘is stylistically
and metrically a stylization o f the cognitive production of ordinary
speech.’ Any oral speech-production is characterized by composition
through intonation units rather than the clauses and sentences defined
by traditional grammar, which was developed to analyze written style.
The other key feature of oral style is the use ‘discourse markers,’
which in Homer sure primarily αρα and δέ, and to a lesser extent μεν
and δ η /7 Bakker’s approach offers an original re-conceptualization
of our approach to Homeric style, inviting us to re-locate what we
have understood as a formulaic and paratactic style within a larger
conceptual scheme which sees speech production as close to the act
of cognition and therefore obeying some of its constraints and habits
of organization.
A Homerist might worry that Bakker’s emphasis undervalues the
fundamental importance of metrical form, if such form were to be
viewed as a kind of second-level phenomenon whose role is essen­
tially to support ‘regularization’ or ‘stylization’ of the discourse flow
rather than to create it. But Bakker says,
Far from minimizing the difference between Homeric metrical discourse
and ordinary speech, I contend that the specific nature of Homeric
diction is not so much a matter of simply being removed from the
realm of ordinary speech with its dysfluencies and hesitations, as, para­
doxically, an age-old strategy precisely to prevent those hesitations and
dysfluencies. By putting metrical constraints on the flow of discourse,
Homeric diction is able to obviate the cognitive constraints that are
inherent in speech production. (Bakker [1993] 8)
This is a promising beginning to acknowledging the complexities
involved in such an approach. Given the intrinsically deep connec­
tion of many formulas and formulaic substitution systems to firm
metrical structures (usually colometric units), the discourse-centered
approach to Homeric style should proceed next to more detailled
consideration of the role of meter, which is in fact Bakker’s intention
in a work in progress.27

27 Bakker (1993a); quotations from pp. 3, 8. See also Bakker (1990); (this vol.), for
analyses o f Homeric text according to ‘intonation units' rather than the traditional
ones of formula, colon, and verse.
 THE FORMULA 259

Conclusion

We arrive, then, at a vision of Homeric diction as an amalgam of

elements covering a spectrum from highly formulaic to nonformulaic,
a view that may be considered both unsurprising and uncontroversial.
W hat readers of Homer will still debate are die proportions allo­
cated to different components of the amalgam, the location of the
boundaries that separate them, and the literary or aesthetic effects
achieved by the poet’s strategies of choice and combination. A useful
scheme for envisioning this picture is that of M. Cantilena ([1982]
70), to which I have added a few details in brackets.28

Metrical Identity Non-metrical Identity

tradition
traditional formula

traditional phrase
formulaic expression
[flexible formula]

structural formula

[localized single word] free phrase [or word]

V non-traditional formula
individuality [hapax?] [hapax?]

It should now be more than clear that much of the disagreement

over how best to define formulas was created by a limitation in ter­
minology. The word formula proved to be a poor thing, hopelessly
inadequate to cover the different kinds of formulaic realities in Homeric

28 If ‘traditional phrase’ is to refer to all members of Nagler’s formular ‘family,’

it m ight be moved to the margin o f metrical identity, closer to the Hainsworthian
flexible formula. My suggestion o f the flexible formula’s ‘liminal’ status comes from
its frequent appearance in identical metrical shape but transposed to a less usual
place in the verse (there is some ambiguity in whether ‘the same metrical condi­
tions’ covers only metrical shape or location as well). T he uncertainty of where to
locate the hapax reflects the possibility of a pull towards localisation according to its
metrical word-type, following O ’Neill’s evidence.
260 JOSEPH RUSSO

diction. And it is reasonable to assume that the talented traditional

poet would always have been capable of some non-formulaic, origi­
nal language, including the strategic handling of individual words.
Creation on all these levels is essential to the total epic diction.
Parry’s theory remains impressive for its durability in the face of
so many challenges and revisions on particular points. Like other
theoretical revolutions in this century that required us to re-think the
nature of well-studied but partially misunderstood phenomena, Parry’s
vision continues to shape our thinking even as we continually alter
its details. It is inevitable that today no reader of Homer can fail to
be in some sense a Parryist.