Early Greek Hexameter Poetry

The selection includes most of what is worth reading in this field. The Odyssey is the perfect counterpoint to the Iliad, blending fantasy and realism in a broader view of the heroic world, and building up to the dramatic climax of Odysseus's revenge against the suitors of Penelope. Hesiod's Theogony describes how the Olympian order of things under Zeus's rule came into being. His Works and Days makes a powerful moral statement about the justice of the gods, combining this with practical advice on how to live. Hesiod's theology was a major influence on later Greek thought, and his Works and Days helped to inspire Virgil's Georgics. The Homeric Hymns praise the Olympian gods in shorter narrative poems, which chart their birth and exploits, and their impact on human society in myth and cult. Their style is a delightful blend of gravity and charm. The fragments of the Epic Cycle fill in the background to Homer and Hesiod, giving us a wider view of the early epic tradition. Major themes of this poetry are the moral and religious framework of the world, crime and punishment, the nature of the gods and man's relationship to them, and the limits of human achievement.

Preliminary reading: Odyssey: translation in verse by R. Fagles (New York 1996); translation in prose by E. V. and D. C. H. Rieu (Penguin 1991); Jasper Griffin, The Odyssey (Cambridge 1987). Hesiod: translations by M. L. West (Oxford 1988), or H. G. Evelyn-White (Loeb 1936). Homeric Hymns: translations by A. N. Athanassakis (Johns Hopkins 1976) or H. G. Evelyn-White (Loeb 1936). Malcolm Davies, The Epic Cycle (Bristol 1989).