CLA 2323 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Boeotia, Theogony, Iliad
24 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
750 BC: p. 31-35 !
-the poet homer composes the epic poems in Western culture— “the iliad” and “the
odyssey”!
-more than 27,000 lines!
-iliad = the story of troy!
-odyssey = the story of odysseus!
-the iliad doesn't recount the whole trojan war but does recount some of the dramatic
events from the war's last year, before the fall of Troy !
-it centres on the Greek hero Achilles!
-according to tradition, homer was blind and may (we don’t know for sure) be
illiterate. !
700 BC: p. 44-48!
- the poet hesiod composes the poems "theogony" and "works and days" !
-hesiod lived in the cental mainland greek region called "boetia" !
-he was a grumpy, middle-class farmer!
-theogony = birth of the gods — was an important source of greek myths about the
beginning of the world!
-works and days = a glorified farming calendar w/ some added ethical musing, social
comment, and mythology!
What are our sources for Greek mythology? — how do we know these stories?
1. writings of the ancient Greeks !
-Homer— 750 BC!
-Aeshylus, Sophacles— 400s BC!
-Appollodorus — wrote something “the library”!
-Romans not Greeks: — Ovid wrote “metamorphoses” "
— Vergil wrote “the Aeneid” !
2. “Material” evidence !
-stuff that is not writing but is visual, aka visual evidence!
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
