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A review by herm333s
Works and Days/Theogony by Hesiod
4.0
Thoroughly enjoyed this.
The notes and the glossary add a layer of understanding that made the reading experience better compared to my attempted approach back in freshman year.
I was looking to read only the Theogony, but Works and Days offers-- I might say-- a human perspective to a life in ancient Greece. A lost time where we went about our labors by taking guidance in the elements, the planets and the gods.
I found particularly interesting the subject of Justice and its actual absence (!) in nature, as well as other pieces of wisdom that still hold in spite of their presence in a rather misogynistic and patriarchal poem.
In Theogony, the imagery works wonders to showcase the epic resurgence and destruction of celestial bodies and entities. Which makes the poem first a theogony but simultaneously a cosmogony.
Already it being a misogynistic narrative, it was surprising to witness the clear intent of this in the creation of Pandora, based on Zeus's wrath and revenge.
Some highlights for me were Prometheus's story, which feeds my interest in the role of the trickster in cultures. As well as the visit to Tartarus and how it mirrors Olympus. The descriptions of the layering of the universe, its limits and sources, and the variety of gods and entities that reside there.
The story of Styx and her role as the gods' oath was remarkable and a subject I'm interested on researching in the future.
Both the translator and scholar of this particular edition underline two important details that I very much appreciated and that help understand the context and use of such poems.
It is through Hesiod that the poetic voice is born. It seems that here we encounter for the first time a narrator with its own characteristics and a role in the story, thereby changing poetry as a genre.
There is also an explanation on how Theogony, which already carries a prologue, functions itself as a prologue or introduction to what is known as the Catalogue of Women, a supposedly lost text that detailed the mating of mortal women with gods.
Implying that works such as the Theogony and other epic poems were collectively used as proof of godly lineage to the different aristocrats and families that held power. Here lay the evidence to justify their heavenly--or hellish-- ancestry.
The notes and the glossary add a layer of understanding that made the reading experience better compared to my attempted approach back in freshman year.
I was looking to read only the Theogony, but Works and Days offers-- I might say-- a human perspective to a life in ancient Greece. A lost time where we went about our labors by taking guidance in the elements, the planets and the gods.
I found particularly interesting the subject of Justice and its actual absence (!) in nature, as well as other pieces of wisdom that still hold in spite of their presence in a rather misogynistic and patriarchal poem.
In Theogony, the imagery works wonders to showcase the epic resurgence and destruction of celestial bodies and entities. Which makes the poem first a theogony but simultaneously a cosmogony.
Already it being a misogynistic narrative, it was surprising to witness the clear intent of this in the creation of Pandora, based on Zeus's wrath and revenge.
Some highlights for me were Prometheus's story, which feeds my interest in the role of the trickster in cultures. As well as the visit to Tartarus and how it mirrors Olympus. The descriptions of the layering of the universe, its limits and sources, and the variety of gods and entities that reside there.
The story of Styx and her role as the gods' oath was remarkable and a subject I'm interested on researching in the future.
Both the translator and scholar of this particular edition underline two important details that I very much appreciated and that help understand the context and use of such poems.
It is through Hesiod that the poetic voice is born. It seems that here we encounter for the first time a narrator with its own characteristics and a role in the story, thereby changing poetry as a genre.
There is also an explanation on how Theogony, which already carries a prologue, functions itself as a prologue or introduction to what is known as the Catalogue of Women, a supposedly lost text that detailed the mating of mortal women with gods.
Implying that works such as the Theogony and other epic poems were collectively used as proof of godly lineage to the different aristocrats and families that held power. Here lay the evidence to justify their heavenly--or hellish-- ancestry.