Heat and Lust: Hesiod’s Midsummer Festival Scene Revisited
J.C.B. Petropoulos examines the description of midsummer in Hesiod’s Works and Days, explores modern Greek agrarian practices and relevant folk beliefs, proverbs, symbols, and songs, and cautiously attempts a ‘backward extrapolation’. With the help of comparative ethnographic models, readers will not only better appreciate the seasonal settings of Hesiod’s harvest and its midsummer aftermath, but also will obtain a provocative…
J.C.B. Petropoulos examines the description of midsummer in Hesiod’s Works and Days, explores modern Greek agrarian practices and relevant folk beliefs, proverbs, symbols, and songs, and cautiously attempts a ‘backward extrapolation’. With the help of comparative ethnographic models, readers will not only better appreciate the seasonal settings of Hesiod’s harvest and its midsummer aftermath, but also will obtain a provocative sidelight into the local song traditions and general lore that underlie the famous passage and Alcaeus’s poem.
Originally published in 1994 by Rowman & Littlefield.
Use the following persistent identifier: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Petropoulos.Heat_and_Lust.1994.
Copyright, Lexington Books. Published here with permission.