Hesiod’s cosmos

"Hesiod's Cosmos offers a comprehensive interpretation of both the Theogony and the Works and Days and demonstrates how the two Hesiodic poems must be read together as two halves of an integrated whole embracing both the divine and the human cosmos. After first offering a survey of the structure of both poems, Professor Clay reveals their mutually illuminating unity by offering detailed analyses of their respective poems, their teachings on the origins of the human race, and the two versions of the Prometheus myth. She then examines the role of human beings in the Theogony and the role of the gods in the Works and Days, as well as the position of the hybrid figures of monsters and heroes within the Hesiodic cosmos and in relation to the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women."--Jacket This study reveals the unity of Hesiod's vision of the Cosmos by reading both his poems as two complementary halves of a whole embracing the human and divine cosmos. In the Theogony and Works and Days, Hesiod, roughly contemporary with Homer, does not describe the deeds of the heroes. He provides instead the earliest comprehensive account of the genesis of the Greek gods and the nature of human life that became the foundation for later Greek literature and philosophy. In the Theogony and the Works and Days Hesiod provides the earliest systematic and comprehensive account of the genesis of the Greek gods and the nature of human life. Hesiod's Cosmos argues for reading the two poems as complementary halves of a whole embracing the divine and human cosmos. Content: Introduction 1. Orientations: the Theogony 2. Orientations: the Works and Days 3. Overtures 4. The origins of mankind 5. The two Prometheuses 6. Perspectives on gods and men 7. Hybrids Conclusion. Jenny Strauss Clay. Includes Bibliography (p. 183-198) And Indexes.