Surplus Violence: Erides and Meta-Epic in Works and Days
By Ben Radcliffe, Loyola Marymount University
Works and Days posits a famous distinction between two kinds of Erides (“Strifes”), one destructive and the other productive (11-26). This paper argues that Works uses the distinction to trace how violence is shaped and disseminated by the distribution of “surplus”—goods produced in excess of what is needed to sustain a specific, socially defined mode of life (Marx, Harvey).
Parmenides’ Proem and the pseudo-Hesiodic Shield of Heracles
By Victoria Hsu, CUNY Graduate Center
The poet of Elea has drawn renewed attention in recent years not only for his philosophy but also his poetics, especially the enigmatic proem: here, an anonymous narrator is carried by mares and escorted by Heliades to the gates of the paths of Night and Day, where he is greeted by a goddess who will proclaim the remainder of the poem. In this paper, I argue for the presence of a previously underrecognized intertext of the pseudo-Hesiodic Shield of Heracles throughout Parmenides’ proem (B1.1-32).
Pandora’s Pithos and the Hope of Fools
By Keyne Cheshire, Davidson College
This paper proposes that the arrangement of the account of Pandora’s pithos (Hesiod, Works and Days, 94-105) has a parallel in a regular narrative sequence in the Iliad and Odyssey that suggests Ἐλπίς (96) and her enclosure in the pithos hold no positive connotation for Hesiod’s episode.
The Contest of Homer and Hesiod: Poets as Literary Critics
By Matthieu Real, Cornell University
According to an ancient tale, Homer and Hesiod once fought for the title of best poet: despite Homer being the crowd’s favorite, the victory went to Hesiod. The Contest of Homer and Hesiod narrates how the competition came to be and what happened during it. Long celebrated as a manifesto of rhapsodic skill (Ritook 1962; Collins 2004: 179-191), the Contest depicts, instead, two Archaic authors anachronistically posing as fifth-century literary critics.