The Center for Hellenic Studies

Hesiod
Curated Books

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 sidelight into the local song traditions and general lore that… Read more

Curated Books

The Anger of Achilles: Mênis in Greek Epic

Leonard Muellner’s goal is to restore the Greek word for the anger of Achilles, menis, to its social, mythical, and poetic contexts. His point of departure is the anthropology of emotions. He believes that notions of anger vary between cultures and that the particular meaning of a word such as menis needs to emerge from a close study of Greek epic. Menis means more than an individual’s emotional response. On… Read more

Curated Articles

The meaning of homoios (ὁμοῖος) in verse 27 of the Hesiodic Theogony and elsewhere

[Originally printed in Allusion, Authority, and Truth: Critical Perspectives on Greek Poetic and Rhetorical Praxis (ed. Phillip Mitsis and Christos Tsagalis; Trends in Classics vol. 7; Berlin and New York 2010) 153-167. The page-numbers of the printed version are embedded within brackets in this electronic version: for example, {153|154} marks where p. 153 stops and p. 154 begins.] 01)     ποιμένες ἄγραυλοι, κάκ᾿ ἐλέγχεα, γαστέρες οἶον, ἴδμεν ψεύδεα… Read more

Curated Articles

The Delian Maidens and their Relevance to Choral Mimesis in Classical Drama

[Originally published as Chapter 10 in Choral Mediations in Greek Tragedy, ed. R. Gagné and M. G. Hopman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 227-256. In this online version, the original page-numbers of the printed version are indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{227|228}” indicates where p. 227 of the printed version ends and p. 228 begins.] Introduction My focus is on the Delian Maidens, as represented in the… Read more

Curated Articles

Hesiod and the Ancient Biographical Traditions

[[This essay is an online version of an original printed version that appeared in The Brill Companion to Hesiod, ed. F. Montanari, A. Rengakos, and Ch. Tsagalis (Leiden 2009) 271–311. In this online version, the original page-numbers of the printed version are indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{271|272}” indicates where p. 271 of the printed version ends and p. 272 begins.]] Introduction This presentation examines what is… Read more

Publications

Now Online | Heat and Lust: Hesiod's Midsummer Festival Scene Revisited, by J. C. B. Petropoulos

"Heat and Lust: Hesiod's Midsummer Festival Scene Revisited, by John Petropoulos, is an extraordinarily perceptive work of scholarship. This book compares the description of a festival in Hesiod's Works and Days with the traditions of songs that were actually sung at such festivals, ranging from a drinking song of Alcaeus all the way to the folksong traditions of latter-day Greece. No one before Petropoulos has ever noticed the interconnectedness of all these traditions." Read more

Publications

Now Online | Heat and Lust: Hesiod’s Midsummer Festival Scene Revisited, by J. C. B. Petropoulos

"Heat and Lust: Hesiod's Midsummer Festival Scene Revisited, by John Petropoulos, is an extraordinarily perceptive work of scholarship. This book compares the description of a festival in Hesiod's Works and Days with the traditions of songs that were actually sung at such festivals, ranging from a drinking song of Alcaeus all the way to the folksong traditions of latter-day Greece. No one before Petropoulos has ever noticed the interconnectedness of all these traditions." Read more

News, Publications

CHS Resources–Hesiod and Theognis: Bridge to the Polis

Concepts of the Hero in Greek Civilization, Video Proseminar on Hesiod Kevin McGrath, Gregory Nagy, and the Heroes Teaching Fellows discuss Hesiod as a bridge between the world of Homer and the polis of ancient Greek drama. Laura Slatkin, “Measuring Authority, Authoritative Measures: Hesiod’s Works and Days” in The Power of Thetis and Selected Essays. Slatkin shows that in early Greek thought and poetics, both values and… Read more

Publications

Gregory Nagy's Short Writings, Vol. 1 & 2

New in Online Publications Gregory Nagy is a renowned authority in the field of Homeric and related Greek studies and has written almost one hundred articles and reviews. In Short Writings, Volumes 1 and 2, we have collected together in digital form almost thirty of his most influential works. Many of these articles have been expanded or updated since their original publication. See below for contents and details. The links provided lead directly to the full text on the CHS website. Short Writings, Volume 1 "The Aeolic Component in Homeric Diction." Expanded online edition of an article originally published in 2011 in Proceedings of the 22nd Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference (ed. S. W. Jamison, H.C. Melchert, B. Vine) 133–179. Bremen: Ute Hempen Verlag. Copyright, Ute Hempen Verlag. "'Dream of a Shade': Refractions of Epic Vision in Pindar’s Pythian 8 and Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes." 2012 online version of an article that originally appeared in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 100 (2000) 97–118. Published here by permission of Harvard University Press. Copyright, Harvard University Press. "Epic." 2010 online version of an essay that originally appeared as Chapter 1 of The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Literature (ed. R. Eldridge; Oxford 2009) 19-44. Copyright, Oxford University Press. Read more