The emphatic an in the last part of my formulation was meant to contrast with the emphatic the in “the authentic reading.”
If Janko supposes that this thought of Parry amounts to the formulation of a theory—let alone a unique explanation for “the origin of the Homeric texts”—he should read on: Parry’s linked thoughts, extending through the rest of the paragraph, need to be considered in their entirety. Parry’s next sentence, for example, reads: “The reasons I have for such an opinion are many, some of them still very vague, some very exact.” [28] I stand by what I said in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 1997: Milman Parry never formulated a “dictation theory.” [29]
This methodology is Parry’s incipient answer to the Homeric questions that he says the “scholars of our time” are unable to answer. He describes these scholars as neo-unitarians who have succeeded in refuting the analysts—but who fail to give satisfactory answers to his questions, which he formulates as follows: