Hesiod's Theogony (Focus Classical Library) Review
This is a review of Richard S. Caldwell's translation of "Hesiod's Theogony". One of the other reviewers referred to this translation as being a verse translation as opposed to a prose translation. That does not imply the translation is made to rhyme! It means only the verse structure and numbering is maintained. I hope everyone knows that any poem that rhymes in the original language, very rarely rhymes when translated into English unless a lot of artistic license is used. (e.g. Alexander Pope's translation of the Iliad has more to say of Pope's skills as a poet than Homer's.) But, Caldwell does not use any artistic license (although sometimes I wished he had - Hesiod can be a bit cryptic at times). Instead, he has made a very assiduous and close translation, which is extensively (and at times thankfully) annotated.
In my reading I consider Hesiod, alongside Homer, to be a fountainhead from which all later Greek writers flow. It's not a Greek Bible, but it is the earliest full exposition of Greek creation mythology we have today. There are competing versions of some myths, but more often than not, this is the antecedent of many later Greek elaborations.
It's certainly a great work to cut your teeth on because if you can master the full panoply of gods and the tangled network of their relationships as sketched out by Hesiod, then you can hold your own when reading almost any other ancient Greek text. To this end, Caldwell is a very generous guide for leading novices down all those tricky paths. His copious footnotes leave few stones unturned.
Moreover, what I found to be a very gratifying addition to Hesiod was Caldwell's interpretive essay, "The Psychology of the Succession Myth". One reviewer referred to it as "rather simplistically Freudian, but interesting". I read Hesiod and Caldwell's essay before reading this review and I must admit I was worried myself, at first, that Caldwell was plunging into cheap Freudian psychology; but I was pleasantly surprised that he took it into another direction. I personally found the essay to be a very thoughtful and thought-provoking analysis.
The Theogony is full of incest, as most ancient myths are (e.g. the children of Adam and Eve); but Caldwell does not make the Freudian misstep in assuming that that is the natural desire of children. Instead Caldwell treats it as the logical fallacy people would naturally arrive at by extrapolating lines of familial descent, viz. if all cousins can trace their origins to one set of great grandparents, and so on, eventually there is a primordial set of first parents - and inherent in such a situation would be the necessity of incest for the race to multiply. (And also, because incest is a universal and natural taboo, which is always assumed to be negative in some manner for the resulting children, the only way incest is permissible is if the first generations are somehow superior to humans today - be they gods or superhuman like Methuselah.)
Unfortunately for the field of psychology, Freud might have gotten it half right, but he got the other half so terribly wrong that everything he touched is now taken with great suspicion. However, if one does try to think about the human mind at the beginning of its consciousness - for both the individual and for the species - one cannot not help but conclude that humans, _in part_, have little recourse but to metaphorically extrapolate their understanding of their own bodies out onto the world; and Caldwell is very conscious of those constraints, so I would not dismiss his analysis so easily as simplistic Freudianism.
In conclusion, if you are wondering which translation of Hesiod to get, I enthusiastically recommend Caldwell's. His will serve as an excellent resource if you plan on expanding your knowledge of ancient Greek writing because it is a constant source of clarity and illumination when walking the labyrinth of Greek myth.
Hesiod's Theogony (Focus Classical Library) Feature
- ISBN13: 9780941051002
- Condition: New
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Hesiod's Theogony (Focus Classical Library) Overview
Hesiod's Theogony, written by legendary author Hesiod, is widely considered to be one of the greatest classic texts of all time. This great classic will surely attract a whole new generation of readers. For many, Hesiod's Theogony is required reading for various courses and curriculums. And for others who simply enjoy reading timeless pieces of classic literature, this gem by Hesiod is highly recommended. Published by Classic Books International and beautifully produced, Hesiod's Theogony by Hesiod would make an ideal gift and it should be a part of everyone's personal library.
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Update Post: Nov 07, 2010 20:50:12
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