CLAS 203 Chapter 4: CLAS 203 Notes July 13 Part 1
14 Jul 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Greeks and romans had many myths about creation- their myths had many parallels in other mythologies (egyptian, babylonian, sumerian etc) Hesiod (700 bce) was the first to give literary expression to a systematic explanation of how the gods, the universe and the humankind came into being, in theogony: hesiod. He emphasizes their ability to inspire the infallible revelation of the poet, describes their dancing and singing to delight the gods on olympus. Hesiod asks the muses how first gods, earth, rivers and boundless sea came into being, this is what they say. First came chaos (suggests yawning void , difficult to establish exactly what it is), then came gaia (earth) our of chaos. Also from chaos came erebus and dark night. Tartarus is a place deep in the depths of the earth. Erebus is the gloomy darkness of tartarus: the primacy and mystery of eros. Love is a motif in the tales of creation and procreation (appears early in theogony)
