Yes, I’ve read quite a lot about academic theories by which the oral traditions that were collected into the epics of ‘Homer’ came down from the post-Mycenaean, illiterate dark ages of the ancient Greek world. With the collapse of literary, storytelling took on poetic form.

The strict meter of the Iliad –or so the thinking goes– was supposed to help traditional storytellers memorize their lines.

Later, after the renaissance of literacy, poetry was elevated to an art form in its own right. Some c

Classical writers used it, but many didn’t.

Very interesting to study how it all came about!