Greek and Roman Mythology

Greek and Roman Mythology

28 June 2013

Response Paper # 1

Hesiod's Theogony, is a story first and foremost. It is written in a poetic form and is about the god's like the Homeric hymns, but unlike the Homeric hymns it isn't for the praise of any individual god. The Theogony is a story about the creation. It goes from the time of chaos to the time of the gods and describes how the world got there. This is unlike the Homeric hymns because while some of the hymns give stories they is only one story while the Hesiod's works are long and give many. Both works are centered on the gods, but Hesiod's writings are not about one specific god they it's about all of the gods. It talks of how Athena came into the world and Aphrodite and what happened to Demeter and her daughter. The Homeric hymns speak and praise only one god. The Hymn to Aphrodite is about how beautiful Aphrodite is and how men fall in love with her when they see her.

Of these two works, I personally prefer Hesiod's Theogony. My favorite stories from Greek mythology are the ones about the gods and how odd they are. I like to read about their interactions with one another, how they came to be, how they came to rule over what they rule over, what they do among each other and how they rule over men. While you get some of this from the hymns you only get it about a specific god, just the one you happen to be reading about. I also kind of like the way that the Theogony is written which might sound weird, but I don't find it difficult. The hymns aren't difficult they are just sing song and I don't really care for that all that much.