HESIOD, FROM THEOGONY AND WORKS AND DAYS (through the literary criticism: Queer Theory)

Hesiod, From Theogony and Works and Days are two short poems composed into one big story. These two poems were written in the same manner and they come from the same time period as the Homeric epics – which was from the late eighth century B.C.E. The poem of Theogony (this means “birth of the gods”) basically tells of how this poem itself came into being by the Muses inspiring the poet Hesiod on Mount Helicon. This specific text tells of how the Olympic Gods came about, or in simpler words; how the Olympic Gods were created, “The Olympic Gods emerged out of the earlier generations: Earth and Sky (Gaia and Ouranos) gave birth to the Titans”. In this poem, Hesiod also includes many stories that tell the prehistory of humanity, which in turn addresses how technology, sin, and suffering also came about with humanity’s presence. In the second poem created by Hesiod, Works and Days, it basically tells of how to live, work, farm, and sail in a mythical story type of way. This poem also tells of how evil was “accidentally” brought into the world, and of how suffering came into the world without invoking gender at all for the reason behind it. Hesiod writes this poem in a way that shows how humans just gradually degenerated over time and they basically went from having it all and living the good life, to having nothing but a life of suffering and pain.

Looking at these two poems through the Queer Theory literary criticism point of view is very relevant and fits perfectly to the way these poems were written. These two poems were basically written to describe the creation of the Olympic Gods and of humanity, however, these poems also tell the readers of the author’s view point on what GODS are and what HUMANS are. Basically what is meant by this is that the author of these two poems wrote them in a way that it shows how he perceives the Olympic Gods to be the high rulers of the universe and of the whole world, and how they should be praised/worshiped/and honored forever and always; while the author’s perception on humans is a bit different. The author perceives humans and writes about them in the poems as creations of the Gods and how they are responsible for bringing evil and sin into the world. Humans are nothing more than “fuel” for the Olympic Gods to keep being in power. The Gods need their human creations in order to feed off of their praise and worship to keep them powerful. So basically these two stories are portraying the Olympic Gods as these high beings of power who rule everything while humans are being portrayed as weak individuals who cannot possible go on existing without the Gods to guide/bless them. There is also a part in the story where it tells of the creation of the woman and what a woman actually IS. The text states, “Zeus punished humanity by creating woman as a tempting snare from which men cannot escape”. This text from the story just proves how the author perceives what women ARE. In this story written by Hesiod woman are basically perceived as sexual beings for men and only that. A woman’s body is apparently a tempting snare that men cannot deny and it is so wrong and bad of women to be perceived in that way, it is almost as saying that women are good for nothing more than sexual relations and nothing more. To conclude, looking at this story of two poems through the Queer Theory literary criticism point of view does in fact help to understand the author’s thoughts and viewpoints on what Gods are and what humans are and why they are important to each other. Both the Olympic gods and the humans of earth have very important roles to play towards each other and it is nice to see that through this literary criticism.

Athanassakis, N. Apostolos. “Hesiod, From Theogony And Works And Days.” The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin Puchner. 3^rd ed. Vol. A. New York: W. W. Norton, 2012. 39-48. Print.