A looser definition of Neoanlysis would include the reconstruction of earlier forms of the epics based exclusively on "residue" in the surviving versions of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey," quite apart from any relationship to the material of the Epic Cycle. Steve Reece, for example, has proposed that anomalies of structure and detail in our surviving version of the "Odyssey" point to earlier versions of the tale in which Telemachus went in search of news of his father not to Menelaus in Sparta but to Idomeneus in Crete, in which Telemachus met up with his father in Crete and conspired with him to return to Ithaca disguised as the soothsayer Theoclymenus, and in which Penelope recognized Odysseus much earlier in the narrative and conspired with him in the destruction of the suitors. Similarly, Reece proposes, earlier versions of the "Iliad" can be detected in which Ajax played a more prominent role, in which the Achaean embassy to Achilles comprised different characters, and in which Patroclus was actually mistaken for Achilles by the Trojans. In this broader sense Neoanalysis can be defined as a form of Analysis informed by the principles of Oral Theory, recognizing as it does the existence and influence of previously existing tales and yet appreciating the technique of a single poet in adapting them to his "Iliad" and "Odyssey."