The Epics of Hesiod: From Chaos to Cosmos

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This is an advanced course on Hesiod, the “other” epic bard of Ancient 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 and the account of Prometheus’s theft of fire, Pandora’s jar, and the Ages of Man. Although the focus of this class will be on the language and poetics of Hesiod, we will also examine the poems both as seminal works of the archaic Greek literary tradition and as interlocutors with a broader epic tradition, considering Hesiod alongside Homer and the Near Eastern background of the poems.