The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women
Constructions and Reconstructions

This collection of essays offers an exploration of the meaning and significance of the Catalogue of Women, attributed to Hesiod.

Richard Hunter (Edited by)

9780521069823, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 31 July 2008

360 pages
23 x 15 x 2 cm, 0.538 kg

Review of the hardback: '… invaluable … The collection of essays offers numerous intelligent ways of reading a fragmentary and influential poem …' Journal of Hellenic Studies

The Catalogue of Women, ascribed to Hesiod, one of the greatest figures of early hexameter poetry, maps the Greek world, its evolution and its heroic myths through the mortal women who bore children to the gods. In this collection a team of international scholars offers an attempt to explore the poem's meaning, significance and reception. Individual chapters examine the organization and structure of the poem, its social and political context, its relation to other early epic and Hesiodic poetry, its place in the development of a pan-Hellenic consciousness, and attitudes to women. The wider influence of the Catalogue is considered in chapters on Pindar and the lyric tradition, on Hellenistic poetry, and on the poem's reception at Rome. This collection provides a significant approach to the study of the Catalogue.

Notes on contributors
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Introduction
1. Ordering women in Hesiod's Catalogue Robin Osborne
2. The beginning and end of the Catalogue of Women and its relation to Hesiod Jenny Strauss Clay
3. Gods among men? The social and political dynamics of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women Elizabeth Irwin
4. Heracles in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women Johannes Haubold
5. Mestra at Athens: Hesiod fr. 43 and the poetics of panhellenism Ian Rutherford
6. A catalogue within a catalogue: Helen's suitors in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women (frr. 196–204) Ettore Cingano
7. Pulp epic: the Catalogue and the Shield Richard P. Martin
8. The Megalai Ehoiai: a survey of the fragments Giovan Battista D'Alessio
9. Ordered from the Catalogue: Pindar, Bacchylides and Hesiodic genealogical poetry Giovan Battista D'Alessio
10. The Hesiodic Catalogue and Hellenistic poetry Richard Hunter
11. From genealogy to Catalogue: the Hellenistic adaptation of the Hesiodic catalogue form Helen Asquith
12. The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women and Latin poetry Philip Hardie
13. Or such as Ovid's Metamorphoses … Richard Fletcher
Bibliography
Index of passages discussed
General index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]