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The Theogony details the genealogy of ancient Greek gods, from the beginning of the universe through the Olympian gods and various monsters and heroes descended from them. The poem begins with an invocation to the Muses typical of epic poetry, but with a twist: Hesiod claims that the Muses themselves once descended to visit him and taught him ...
- Summary & Analysis
Hesiod’s description of Hecate emphasizes the intimate...
- Theogony
Hesiod wrote in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., a...
- Summary & Analysis
Hesiod’s description of Hecate emphasizes the intimate connection between the human, the divine, and the natural. In favoring her devout worshippers, Hecate blesses them with natural bounty and agricultural good fortune, illustrating the inextricable connections between nature, humans, and the gods.
Learn about the origins of the cosmos and the gods in Hesiod's didactic poem, Theogony. Read a brief synopsis of the main characters, events and themes, and explore the resources for further study.
The Theogony is an epic poem by the archaic Greek poet Hesiod. It is both a theogony—or account of the origins of the gods—and a cosmogony, an explanation of the origins of the universe.
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. It is the first known Greek mythical cosmogony.
Hesiod begins the Theogony with the epic convention of invoking the Muses: he, the poet, is merely the mouthpiece through which the Muses, daughters of Memory and goddesses of song, speak. Great emphasis is placed on the power of the Muses to sing and inspire poetry.
Hesiod wrote in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., a time poised between the peaks of the semi-mythical Mycenaean age that much epic poetry takes as its subject matter, and the widespread cultural and political achievements of fifth-century B.C. Athens.
