By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
In the world of classical Greek epic poetry, two poems are universally renowned: The Iliad and The Odyssey. Both, of course, are attributed to Homer. But there is another classical epic poem, written a few centuries later, which has been largely forgotten – although the story it tells is one of the most celebrated tales from Greek mythology.
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle reads Hesiod’s classical poem full of ancient wisdom
Two ancient Greek poets stand at the beginning of Western literature. One of them, Homer, is well-known, and his Iliad and Odyssey are both regarded as founding texts of the European literary tradition. The other, Hesiod, is much more obscure. Many people who have heard his name perhaps would struggle to name what he wrote, whereas ‘Homer’s Odyssey’ is a phrase that rolls off the tongue.
Yet Hesiod was writing at roughly the same time as Homer, and his legacy is, if not as great as Homer’s, then more sizeable than his (relative) neglect would suggest.