![]() ![]() Rather, the point is that the authority of kingship now belongs to the poetic voice, the voice that is declaiming the Theogony.Īfter the classical period, when divinely-appointed kingship is brought into Greece once more, it will come in from outside, from Macedonia and imported from the royal traditions of Persia.Īlthough it is often used as a sourcebook for Greek mythology, the Theogony is both more and less than that. It is not that this gesture is meant to make Hesiod a king. The poet declares that it is he, where we might have expected some king instead, upon whom the Muses have bestowed the two gifts of a scepter and an authoritative voice (Hesiod, Theogony 30-3), which are the visible signs of kingship. Rather, the Theogony affirms the kingship of the god Zeus himself over all the other gods and over the whole cosmos.įurther, Hesiod appropriates to himself the authority usually reserved to sacred kingship. ![]() Such a gesture would have cited the Theogony in one time and one place. What makes the Theogony of Hesiod unique is that it affirms no historical royal line. Specifically, theogonies tend to affirm kingship as the natural embodiment of society. In many cultures, narratives about the cosmos and about the gods that shaped it are a way for society to reaffirm its native cultural traditions. Hesiod's Theogony is a large-scale synthesis of a vast variety of local Greek traditions concerning the gods, organized as a narrative that tells how they came to be and how they established permanent control over the cosmos. Theogony is a poem by Hesiod describing the origins of the gods of Greek mythology. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |