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.