Oral-formulaic composition

Oral-formulaic composition is a theory that originated in the scholarly study of epic poetry and developed in the second quarter of the twentieth century.

In Homeric verse, a phrase like rhododaktylos eos ("rosy fingered dawn") or oinopa ponton ("winedark sea") occupies a certain metrical pattern that fits, in modular fashion, into the six-foot Greek hexameter, which aids the aoidos or bard in extemporaneous composition.

Moreover, such phrases would be subject to internal substitutions and adaptations, permitting flexibility in response to narrative and grammatical needs: podas okus Akhilleus ("swift footed Achilles") is metrically equivalent to koruthaiolos Ektor ("glancing-helmed Hector").

Formulas can also be combined into type-scenes, longer, conventionalised depictions of generic actions in epic like the steps taken to arm oneself or to prepare a ship for sea.

Oral-formulaic theory was originally developed, principally by Parry in the 1920s, to explain how the Homeric epics could have been passed down through many generations purely through word of mouth and why its formulas appeared as they did.