The editors have brought together a top team of international experts to create a complex and sophisticated collection of essays looking at the possible internal techniques for dating and its importance for understanding the different levels of interaction between texts and traditions. One of the best features of this collection is its demonstration of progression within Homeric Studies, with influential voices of the late twentieth century revising their work alongside the younger generation working in their wake. Of the thirteen contributions, those of G. Danek, M. Finkelberg, H., R. Janko, B. Jones and R. Wachter address relative chronology in the linguistic stratigraphy of early Greek epic, while the place of the extant poems and fragments in a wider circle of epic is addressed by A., J. Burgess, B. Currie, W. Kullmann, I. Rutherford, M. West and S. West.

The volume begins with Janko's summary and defence of his earlier work in statistical analysis in ‘πρῶτόν τε και ὕστατον αἰὲν ἀείδειν: Relative Chronology and the Literary History of the Early Greek Epos’. Jones uses the same method of statistical analysis in ‘Relative Chronology and an ‘Aeolic Phase’ of Epic' to counter Janko's proposed earlier Aeolic phase of epic. Jones points out the continuation of Aeolic forms instead of Ionic equivalents with the same metrical value alongside hybrid forms, a mixture better understood as continual diffusion over a long period of time rather than fossilised inheritance. Although positioned later in the volume, a similar approach comes in the discussion of ‘preferential hierarchy’ in tmesis by H. (‘Tmesis in the Epic Tradition’). After setting out the ways and means of tmesis, H. uses the quantitative strategy to compile a chart of frequency for the early epic corpus, supporting West's separation of the Catalogue from the rest of the Theogony and demonstrating the surprisingly higher frequency in the Odyssey than Iliad.

Statistical analysis on the micro-level leads to a larger scale investigation of formula in the chapters by Wachter and Finkleberg. Expanding the possible exchange between Ionic and Aeolic epic traditions described by Jones, Wachter proposes a North Ionian individual poet living in a place and time in which language was naturally dynamic and evolving (‘The Other View: Focus on Linguistic Innovations in the Homeric Epics’). His interesting proposal that the combination of recent with older forms decreases over the course of the poet's life as he composes the Iliad and Odyssey merges the statistical results of Janko with a practical point about the way speakers use language. Finkelberg, ‘Late Features in the Speeches of the Iliad’, discusses the well-known linguistic peculiarities of speeches made by Hector (Il. 18.288–96), Menelaos (Il. 13.620–5) and Diomedes (Il. 6.130–7), considering the themes expressed as well as the later, unusual or unique words used to express them: not only are the words used ‘later’ but also the ideas, a nice integration of the Parry–Lord theory of the thematic significance of traditional formulae and the analytic deconstruction of linguistic layering.

Further revision to the work of Parry and Lord comes in Danek's interesting update to his own conclusions in ‘The Doloneia Revisited’. With brief descriptions of linguistic and formulaic discrepancies, he details how the author of Book 10 of the Iliad violates ‘Zielínski's law’ on four occasions deliberately to highlight his mastery of Homeric language and style. This lack of stylistic cohesion is significant, since several ‘test cases’ in the recorded songs of Avdo Međedović do not exhibit such stylistic differences regardless of different modes of transmission of material to the singer: all songs become his own through adaptation to his characteristic ornate style. Danek concludes that a poet learned a written Iliad by heart and added a bit of his own material in the early sixth century, adopting an ‘ironic stance to his master text’ to showcase his mastery through deliberate differences (p. 121).

The volume takes a more literary turn with the contribution of S. West, ‘Odyssean Stratigraphy’. Picking up some threads of neo-analysis, she points out the merger of several different poetic topoi to create a grander, fuller heroic status for Odysseus in Book 11. West finds hints of movement of micro-episodes within the book, outlining a ‘stratigraphy’ of episodes building from an original Thesprotian nekuomanteion. Analytic reconstruction of the Odyssey continues in A.'s chapter, ‘Older Heroes and Earlier Poems: Heracles in the Odyssey’. A.'s subtle approach to the synopsised descriptions of Eurytus in Books 8 and 21 softens the bumpier results of strict neo-analysis by proposing that audiences are prepared to accept details and micro-episodes as they are presented and import significance based therein without necessary recourse to a larger picture outside the context, so that a possible Heracles cycle underlying these two descriptions need not be evidence of relative dating or hints towards an older tradition.

A nuanced discussion of the techniques of incorporation follows in the contributions of Rutherford, ‘The Catalogue of Women within the Greek Epic Tradition: Allusion, Intertextuality and Traditional Referentiality’ and Burgess, ‘Intertextuality without Text in Early Greek Epic’. Focusing on the adaptation of genealogy of Sarpedon in the Iliad and in the catalogue of women in Odyssey 11, Rutherford hypothesises an earlier and relatively stable, but not necessarily written, text of the Catalogue of Women, which would have been perceived as generically different from heroic epic. Burgess looks at phrases which have become integrally associated with specific contexts: rather than ‘quotation’ as reference to the authority of one text or poet, he describes allusions to ‘traditional stories’ about the deaths of Achilles and Astyanax, using as examples repetition of specific phrases and images. Burgess points out that the relative chronology in the context of early epic is a reflection of performance history: a ‘late’ text may be relatively younger in terms of the point of textualisation, but this may obscure a long period of performance.

In ‘Perspectives on Neoanalysis in the Archaic Hymns to Demeter’, Currie approaches the question of transference between works as a method of dating by looking at the relationship between the ‘Orphic’ Hymn to Demeter preserved in the Berlin papyrus and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. He finds the Orphic hymn to exhibit some primary features in both motif and word transference as well as in the contrast between ‘surface’ and ‘deep’ layers of narrative, suggesting self-conscious adaptation of traditional material in the Hym. Dem., for example the contradictions between the accounts of the rape given by Persephone and the narrator-text.

The final two contributions of Kullmann, ‘The Relative Chronology of the Homeric Catalogue of Ships and of the Lists of Heroes and Cities Within the Catalogue’ and M. West, ‘Towards a Chronology of Greek Epic’, showcase the current conclusions of two highly influential scholars in this area. Kullmann revises his earlier hypothesis on the insertion of the ‘Catalogue of Ships’ through consideration of other poetic accounts of a Greek expedition to Mysia and second sailing from Aulis which, he argues, was omitted from the Iliad so as to ignore the Aeolian colonisation of Asia Minor. West concludes the volume with an elegant synthesis of his work on the chronology of early Greek epic, prioritising ‘thematic dependence’ as a method of dating over linguistic development or verbal echo. His stemma of epic (p. 240) brings into view the early lyric poets and their role in the development of the corpus and concludes the volume with the hope that ‘a new overall chronology of early Greek epic founded on reason and observation rather than tradition and convention … will be welcomed’ (p. 241).

The editors have put together a collection of the highest academic standard to address the predominant cruces in the composition and date of early Greek epic, from the digamma to Heracles in the Odyssey. Despite technical specificity and complexity, the contributions are generally accessible to scholars less familiar with the status quo in Homeric linguistics while providing a valuable overview of the history of scholarship. The individual contributions are excellent, but many present opposing viewpoints to those expressed elsewhere in the volume, some (for example Janko and Jones) pointedly so. Although the editors point this out in their introduction as a sign of the lack of consensus in the field, a clearer organising principle in the arrangement of chapters and the way in which they relate would help correct the ‘chaos and confusion’ pointed to by Janko (p. 20). Ironically, the seemingly objective method of statistical analysis of Homeric language produces more debatable results than the generally harmonious conclusions drawn from literary features.