Tags:: #🌱 Links:: [[Before the invention of writing we communicated entirely orally]] # The Iliad and Oddysey were likely transmitted entirely orally before being written down In terms of both structure and theme, the Odyssey and Iliad were oddly formulaic, to the point of predictability. The same narrative units—gathering armies, heroic shields, challenges between rivals—pop up again and again, only with different characters and different circumstances. In the context of such finely spun, deliberate masterpieces, these quirks seemed hard to explain. Even the sentences themselves have a sort of rhythm and meter to them which would presumably aid in memory.