"...to show how the text and language of Homer derive from a system, an oral poetic system. That is my deduction." Gregory Nagy in 'Homer's Text and Language' achieve a long and thorough analysis of how we as modern readers understand and read Homer taking into account that Homeric poetry was oral, was performed and later transmitted in written form. Since the begging Nagy defend and explain that we always need to think about Homer as oral poetry, as a system that was subsequently written, but that this writing comes from memory, from collective memory and cultural heritage.

To explain this, to defend this, he cites several academics, some who agree with him, others who have totally different ideas, and through debates and questions he leads us to understand his position. The Vulgate Iliad and its “origin” if we can even speak of an origin are the central theme of this study as well as the important participation and work of Aristarchus and his work on the Iliad and Odyssey, which are basically those that have been transmitted until today. One of the most significant ideas that Nagy defends is that we can't really talk about an original text of Iliad or Odyssey based on our vulgata, we can't find an original manuscript since all the medieval text, all the Alexandrian text, were works of copy, edition and transition of what in a first place was already manipulated and altered orally and by each aedo, but he indeed believes in some point there most have been a text with the original work from Homer.

Then, how to find Homer's words? As Nagy explains, and Aristarchus understood in his moment, there are always going to be coincidences, huge and significant parts of both poems that are immovable and can talk us about an original, although at the same time each variation, represents itself a unique original, from each aedo. Surely this is one of the most complicated and wonderful texts I have read, it not only analyzes Homer, but also the editions, the very process of editing from Alexandria and how this leads us to our versions of Homer. Nagy is just brilliant and this book is the best example