Theognis

Hesiod has a reputation: chauvinist, misogynist, and an all-around Mr. Bitter grumpy pants. At least, this is easily what one takes away at face value from 'Works and Days'. The text leaves us, twenty-first century readers, to wonder to what degree the author represents the mainline, prevalent attitudes of his day, or to what extent he himself is an outlier. In many of Hesiod's exposes on the merit of hard work, efficiency, and the value of competition, it is not difficult to find many other frequencies of resonance.

In the Introduction to this translation, Dorothea Wender makes the argument that the Hesiod who wrote 'Works and Days' is an altogether different person than the writer of 'Theogony' -- a soaring poem about the creation of the gods and the ascendancy of Zeus. As a recreational reader of the classics, it is easy to accept her arguments given the difference between the texts, although there are many scholars who disagree and propose the same 'Hesiod' wrote both.

Authorship aside, the most compelling aspect of 'Theogony' and 'Works and Days' is, to me, the virtual, mental teleportation to ancient Greece. Thought to be contemporary with the Iliad and the Odyssey, the works of Hesiod (or 'Hesiods', as the case may be) are some of only a few literary threads we have from the 8th-7th century BCE Greek world.… (mehr)