The Epics of Hesiod: From Chaos to Cosmos

(2.5 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This is an advanced course on Hesiod, the “other” epic bard of Archaic Greece. Through close reading and in-depth analysis of Hesiod’s Theogony and Works and Days, we will trace the genealogy of the Greek pantheon from Chaos to the creation and organization of the Cosmos under the Olympian god Zeus and finally to the cycle of seasons in the mortal realm. Over the course of the semester we will read some of the most famous myths in the Greek tradition, including the succession stories of Kronos and Zeus, Prometheus’s theft of fire, Pandora’s jar, and the Ages of Man. Although the focus of this class will be on Hesiod’s language and questions of poetics, we will also examine the poems in light of the early poetic tradition of Greek literature and of the broader epic tradition, considering Hesiod alongside Homer and the Near Eastern background of the poems.