Represents the first systematic attempt to treat all Greek poems composed in dactylic hexameter from the eighth to the sixth centuries B. C. As a homogeneous and coherent body of poetry. Thalmann argues that there is a fundamental kinship among the Iliad and the Odyssey, Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days, the Homeric Hymns and other early epics of which only fragments survive. Table of Contents are: 1. The Organization of Thought 2. Design of the Poem 3. Gifts of the Gods 4. Poets on their art I and II 6. Poetry in the Odyssey.