Document Type
Book Chapter
Version
Final Published Version
Publication Title
Oxford Handbook of Hesiod
Publication Date
2018
Abstract
Hesiod’s Theogony provides one of the most widely authoritative accounts of the origin of the cosmos, but his account has always been challenged by rivals claiming to be older, wiser, and better, and the name of Orpheus has always been privileged in the evidence for ancient rivals to Hesiod. The Orphic accounts play their variations on the Hesiodic themes, riffing in different ways on the idea of the ultimate origin of the cosmos; the processes of reproduction by which subsequent entities were generated; the conflicts between these divinities that created the changes from the original state to the current one; the way in which humans entered the story; and the final resolution of the conflicts and changes that created the current, normal order of Zeus. The shocking innovations they introduce in the images of the theogonic narrative serve to bolster the authority of their often less shockingly innovative cosmological ideas.
Publisher's Statement
Reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press (https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com).
Citation
Edmonds, Radcliffe G. 2018. "Deviant Origins: Hesiodic Theogony and the Orphica." In In Oxford Handbook of Hesiod, edited by A. Loney & S. Scully, 225-242. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.
DOI
http://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190209032.013.43