The Other Poet. The Ancient Reception of Hesiod

Abstract

The Other Poet is a doctoral thesis exploring the role of Hesiod in the ancient imagination. Its central question is concerned with the way that Hesiod was given shape in the collective memory of the Greeks. This study thus deals with the processes of remembering and forgetting that created his image, with its meaning and relevance to Greek identity, and more particularly with the different manifestations of his image in Greek literature. It is one of the main tenets of this book that Hesiod\'s image was to a large degree formed by the ancient picture of Homer: Hesiod is decidedly different when presented as allied with, opposed to or simply without Homer. Within this specific framework, this thesis conceives and investigates Hesiod as a concept in later literary-critical discourse, as a locus that was informed with values and qualities, and more generally as a cultural and panhellenic icon constructed and reconstructed by later Greek authors who employed and so re-created him in their own texts.