Recognizing Differences: The Politics of Meaning in Hesiod’s Theogony

Abstract

The claim Greek poetry deserves attention in the history of political thought no longer needs justification. That the same poetry warrants interpretive scrutiny similar to more traditional philosophical texts, however, requires more evidence than currently exists. I attempt to justify such scrutiny in at least one case—Hesiod’s Theogony—based on an important point not otherwise recognized: the argument of Hesiod’s epic has a political dimension relevant not only to subsequent developments in classical political thought, but also to the practices, language, and ideas about politics still manifest in contemporary political discourse. Attending to Hesiod’s epic with greater interpretive scrutiny thus yields a pregnant possibility: not only was Greek poetry grounded in the formative political experiences from which it arose, but it in turn formulated those experiences in ways that altered the subsequent trajectories of the associated practices, thoughts, and ideas, including within classical political theory itself.