The bridge between the Greek and other traditions is provided by various Indo-European poetic formulas which appear in more than one language family. Through comparison of the Indic, Avestan, Greek, and Latin contexts in which such formulas are found, I show that one cannot always rely on simple chronological considerations in determining what is innovative or conservative in poetry.
Homer, for example, though chronologically one of the earliest authors attested in Greek, is often more imaginative than post-Homeric Greek writers in his usage of a given formula. Moreover, an awareness of the interplay of tradition and innovation in Homer is important for understanding many passages in the Iliad and Odyssey. Penelope's opening address to the Stranger (the disguised Odysseus) at Odyssey 19.105 (τίς πόθεν εἰς ἀνδρῶν; ''Who and whence among men are you?''), for example, parallels a formula found in Sanskrit, Avestan, and later Greek, as well as (in modified form) in Latin. Comparison of the various extra-Homeric contexts with that found in the Odyssey indicates a nascent recognition of Odysseus by Penelope in the scene in Book 19. More generally, an understanding of Homeric innovation, vis-à-vis traditional formulas, can lead to a better understanding of Homer generally, as for example in the ostensibly definitive recognition scene between Odysseus and Penelope in Odyssey, Book 23.
Other early Greek poets, such as Sappho, Pindar, Sophocles, and Parmenides also display considerable innovation in their use of tradition, while some of their contemporaries, such as Alcaeus, Bacchylides, Euripides, and Empedocles are more conservative. (I am using the term "conservative" strictly vis-à-vis these authors' use of inherited formulas; from such a perspective, Pindar and Sophocles are distinctly more innovative than their contemporaries Bacchylides and Euripides.)
Still later authors from the 4th and 5th century A.D., although writing from a different perspective, also display considerable sophistication in their handling of inherited collocations of words. Examples are Gregory of Nazianzus, Nonnus, and Quintus of Smyrna. Even Cometas (9th century A.D.) fits into this pattern. Of course, the ''late'' Greek writers should not be viewed as mysteriously harking back to Indo-European, without any intermediaries; rather, Gregory, Nonnus, et al., will have been drawing on their own Greek tradition, available to them through Homer, Hesiod, the Epic Cycle, etc., for archaic patterns which they then reused.
On the Indic side, a similar interplay of tradition and innovation is evident in Vedic hymns such as Rig-Veda 1.114, in which the development of Siva from the earlier Rudra is adumbrated through a sensitive reuse of traditional formulas. Both Avestan and Latin likewise show such a pattern. Zarathustra, for example, expresses an innovative religious message in traditional language. The maintenance of traditional Indo-European formulas is also evident in Latin authors (both prose and verse), such as Cicero, Livy, and Vergil. As late as the fourth century A.D., the inscription on the Arch of Constantine draws on traditional language to express the idea of a religious conflict.