Starting from the demonstration by Milman Parry and Albert Lord that a complex traditional system developed over centuries for the composition in performance of epic song by deeply experienced poets is the engine of Homeric poetry, this essay describes the way that meaning is generated and can be identified within such a system. In all of the elements of the poem, from the smallest compositional unit (the line and its components) to the largest (the overall song consisting of many scroll-length songs each of which consists of concatenated themes), the experienced interpreter must grasp both its horizontal and vertical aspects ‒ in other words, an element’s place within the hierarchy of the whole as well as what differentiates any given element from its likes elsewhere in the tradition.

The term “immanence” or “traditional referentiality” denotes the ability of formulaic components in oral poetry ‒ such as epithets, formulaic phrases, and type-scenes ‒ to convey meaning that they acquire from traditional usage rather than from the definitions of the words they comprise. When oral poets repeatedly use a formulaic structure in contexts that bear some thematic resemblance to each other, the formula comes to be associated with that unifying theme and can then evoke it when redeployed in a new context.