With Hesiod, we're carrying forward with
Greek epic poetry. So, we're in the same genre of work that
we were in with Homer. But there are some differences also in the
way Hesiod approaches this genre. He puts his own stamp on it and we want to
be attentive to those as we get started. In terms of similarities we can notice
several of them. First of all what we're talking about is
epic poetry. This is a certain kind of genre.
It is written in a certain kind of meter. Hesiod has that same dactylic hexameter
Homer used. They also used the same diction.
They have this special poetic epic poetic diction which draws on dialects from many
pieces around the Greek world and is not anything that any particular person would
have spoken. When it starts to come out of someone's
mouth, you'd think, well, gosh, they're trying to sound like an epic poet.
And it's a specialized kind of language that they both use.
The tone that would have been conveyed by the special diction and this dactylic
hexameter meter, in both cases, would have been very powerful very moving and quite
grand, in some cases, kind of hypnotic. You have line after line after line of
cadences that add up to a, a kind of other worldliness to the thing as a whole.
They both claimed to be inspired by the muses.
Hesiod is inspired by multiple muses, Homer only by one but both imagine
themselves as being a conduit for the muse to speak through them.
Also, we've got a, a potential function for both of them that lines up in an
interesting way. Each of these poets given their collective
sense of how the diction works. And given the different kinds of stories
they tell, which are drawn from lots of different parts of the Greek world.
Each of them has probably, a functional role to play in helping the Greek city
states to start thinking of themselves as one collective entity.
Mostly, what we're dealing with when we we're talking about Ancient Greece is a
lot of very desperate city states. They're at war with one another for
centuries before Homer and centuries after.
And if one thinks of one's identity, one is, first of all, a Spartan or an Athenian
but not a Greek. Eventually though, these Pan-Hellenic
notions of what a cultural identity is have a little bit more greater power over
time. Homer and Hesiod are really important in
this sense of, of a kind of communal Greek identity in which all Greek-speaking city
states could share. The other cult or links that makes, that
puts poetry in the same kind of rough cultural world as we see with famous games
like that centered at Olympia. And then, broader sometimes very certain
kinds of Greek of religious festivals bring people together and there a very
prominent oracular shrines that brings lots of different Greeks together.
So, the poets, the epic poems fit in that kind of a space of, of providing a
potential for a Pan-Hellenic identity overlaid on top of a lot of still, city by
city rivalry. Thirdly, we can look at a similarity in
terms of just raw themes. Both of them are interested in god and
heroes. Hesiod, a little bit more interested in
the hods. Homer more interested in heroes but for
each of them this is these two groups the gods on the one hand, heroes on the other,
that was one of the things they are most interested in and focus on.
There are also differences in these different epics and I wanted to spend some
time just pulling some of those out and highlighting them.
There are three that I'll just point out here in formal structure also, in addition
to these formal differences there are differences in content, where they
actually disagree on how the story goes. And then finally, there are differences in
overall purpose. And I'll spend some time looking at each
of those. In formal structure, Hesiod does not give
his story over to the flow of a lovely, elegant linear-narrative story.
Homer, I think it's fair enough to say, is a master of narrative.
He tells a story, and that's the thing that keeps us linked into his epic poem.
Hesiod does not focus on a narrative teleology.
There's something else that's pressing his story along.
And I'll just point to two things different kinds of anchoring mechanisms
that we see in, you see in the unfolding of Hesiod's story.
First of all, let's start with lists. Lists are very prominent in Hesiod.
They play some role in Homer and those of you who know the Iliad we haven't read it
for this class, but in Book two, there's a long catalog of ships which has a strong
place in the tradition, very important, very powerful.
Hesiod, the whole epic is kind of peppered with lists.
Short lists, long lists, complex lists, more simple lists.
And for some of us, as we're reading it, just sitting there on the page, we say to
ourselves, oh, my goodness, what am I supposed to make of something like this?
And here, we have the list of Nereid nymphs where you got just all of a sudden
50 proper names as you're reading along. You say to yourself, you know, how is this
advancing the story, it doesn't seem so fascinating?
Why would people have celebrated and had 50 proper names listed in their epic?
Well, there's a few things, I think we can pull out to try to get a fix on this.
Number one is something that's completely lost to us on a page, and that's the
performative potential built into a long list of proper names.
Remember, our poets are doing what they're doing in public, for an audience in a
performative way from memory. Hard enough to imagine memorizing hundreds
and thousands of lines of poetry. Even more hard, to imagine memorizing many
lines in, in succession that only have proper names.
There's nothing, there's no mnemonic device you can kind of, of lock into.
You can't kind of inhabit the character and remember what comes next in the
motivational structure or something like that.
Instead, you've just got a long list of proper names.
Try memorizing the phone book. It's pretty darn hard.
In Hesiod's case though that obviously, he's, he's representing a kind of poetry
that shows a, a performative virtuosity. Watch this oral poet just go and deliver a
long list of proper names from perfect memory.
He'll do it in perfect cadence according to the metrical constraints of the epic
poem and he'll do it, you can imagine, you know, drawing in some breath to get
through a long list of names. And, in the end, having drawn a little bit
more, and, and having people at each go wondering, is this person going to finish
this? Are we actually, is this poet actually
going to perform this well? You know, the guy last week only got
through 29 of these things. Can this one get through 50?
So, it would have been very hard would have been interesting to watch, and we
would have seen Rhapsodic poets from memory doing quite amazing things in front
of us. That's, of course, entirely lost to us on
the page, but it must have been in there in the case of Hesiod's performance.
Also, these lists remind us that what we are seeing in the form of this ancient
epic poetry is something much more than just a great story.
We are also seeing a cultural repository. All the stuff that's most important that
the culture is getting get contained inside the epic.
Short stories of great past, that's important we definitely see that in Homer.
But in Hesiod's case, we have more of a connection to what was surely a really
important function in all the ancient epic that was just a sheer record keeping,
memory. You got to remember the past, names are
important. We can all relate to this knowing the
names and of, of in, in, important people in the past, people who have been lost,
people who are killed or who, who lost in battle.
Keeping track of those names is something that groups of people like to do and
cultures like to do. So, there's a sense in, I think, these
names of Hesiod making sure that we keep track of all of the names of figures that
have been around in our past. This is, at a time, remember, before there
is ample record keeping Hesiod and Homer are performing during a time when the
alphabet is just arriving. Instead, we've got rather clunky lists
used before their time with this pictographic script which was not all that
efficient. So, oral poetry was really a, a, a, a main
source of preserving cultural memory and that had to include a list of specific
names. These list of names are also going to
perform a function of bringing desperate groups together.
So, when one local town has a water nymph near by them, another local town has a
different water nymph and so on and so on so on.
Well, look, Hesiod is going to string them altogether to tell us how they are related
and how they are connected. So, there is a connecting function that is
happening through these lists. May not be apparent to us, but it surely
would have be apparent to those that thought one of their nymphs was Thalia,
and another group that thought the other nymph was Doris.
Seeing them in the same list and seeing they're genealogically connected, would
have said well, maybe, I'll have something in common with you over there and the
feeling could then be mutual. So, a sense of making people feel like
they have something in common, I think is also an important aspect of these lists.
Then finally, with respect to lists, there's a strong sense of grandeur in an
epic. There's a sense of in these lists,
completeness and totality. We got to get at everything and make sure
its included. Stringing together whole bunches of stuff
says, don't worry, everything that's culturally important to remember is going
to get in here and we're just going to make it in make sure that it gets in.
It's conveys a sort of encyclopedic aspect to this epic poem saying, it is the most
important and most full repository of cultural information you can find.
In addition to lists Hesiod replaced this narrative thrust that drives Homer's epic
forward with genealogy. Genealogy, a huge part of Hesiod's story
contained right in his title as we already saw.
It is, his, its main structuring device for how poetry supposed to work.
It organizes the world for him. It surely organizes family trees that
introduces some order into the cast that surround us, there's no question about
that. But there's something, I think, even a
little bit more. Hesiod lets that genealogical template
expand, its not just talking about human genealogies and the connections of
ancestors, its talking about the genealogies of all the pieces of the
universe. So, there's now a genealogical connection
between gods and heroes, between abstract forces in the cosmos in and, and
themselves, or between those abstract forces in individual divinities.
So, all things that we see around us now, are made, to be orderly via this
genealogical template. It serves for him the main, as the main
way of, of anchoring all these stuff. And just as, a family tree, doesn't
necessarily have a single narrative to it. So also, Hesiod's story is not going to
have a single narrative to it. In addition to these formal differences we
looked at Odysseus' lack of narrative, teleology.
There are also differences in content. We've got, in the case of Hesiod and
Homer, different versions of the story. They disagree on things.
Hesiod clearly, really likes Hecate. He spends a lot of time talking about her.
Homer doesn't even know Hecate. He doesn't even mention her.
So, there's a difference instantly that's obvious just from first reading of the
story. We've got different versions of
Aphrodite's birth. Hesiod's is this violent strange one.
Homer's is a more kind of normal genealogical connection between Zeus and
Dione that brings about Aphrodite. We're going to see differences in the
births of the gods. Homer doesn't have a really long thought
out set of stories about how all the gods came into being.
Vaguely, the Homeric gods kind of grow out of the ocean, and then they come from
relations that the gods have with each other.
Homer doesn't set out to create a kind of, you know, grand narrative of where all the
gods come from. A very strong contrast with Hesiod.
There is a complex genealogical organization to everything.
Hesiod makes sure it all fits in and especially also the gods.
Now finally, in addition to these differences in formal structure and in
content, there are also going to be differences in overall purpose.
Homer wants to remember great deeds. Hesiod wants to peel back a veil that
overlays the secrets of the deep past and tell us about how the world works.
Two different approaches, two different purposes in mind.
Homer, a preserver of legends of the past. Hesiod, a revealer of, of hidden truths.
And these differences show through in their different temperaments and their
ways of approaching their material. Especially, when we get to the differences
in the content though, we may ask ourselves the question though, well, who's
right? If Hesiod or Homer disagree, well, what's
the true version of the myth? This brings us back to a point that we
made in one of our early lectures. Sad to say, there really isn't one single
true version of any of these myths. There's not a definitive version that you
can always just go to. Instead there are more or less
authoritative versions. What we are going to see in Hesiod is
deeply authoritative. It is as deeply authoritative as Homer is.
He was well feted in antiquity. But none of them can be appealed to as a
final story about any of the versions of the story that we're going to see.
All we have is more or less authoritative, multiple versions of many of these tales.
Sure we'll run into disagreements between the poets.
There are also disagreements that we'll find in local traditions reflected in folk
remembering of stories. We'll see it recorded in some of the
artistic representations that we've seen behind us at some of the points in, in our
stories. So, what we have is a, a collection of
desperate tales woven together. And on occasion, will have some grand
voice that comes along and makes a powerful stamp on the, on the tradition.
We'll see it later when we get to [unknown].
We've already seen it in the case of Homer.
And for our topic this week, we're surely going to see it in the case of Hesiod.