Archaic literature is a major model and a source of inspiration for the Greek novelists. That in late Hellenistic and Roman period the novel plays a role not so different from that of Homeric poetry in ancient times, is a common knowledge: the romance is in fact the ‘new epic’. In my contribution to the Blackwell’s Companion I deal in particular with archaic epic and lyric, proceeding in two directions. I discuss the presence of epic and lyric suggestions in the literary texture of the Greek novels. I give a general survey of this problem, discussing in details the presence of epic and lyric materials in each of the novels of the corpus.