Shilovskiy, D. P. HESIODI THEOGONIAE PROOEMIUM: REINTERPRETATION OF COMMUNICATION AND THE POET’S CREATIVE MANIFESTO. Proceedings of Petrozavodsk State University. 2026;48(3):92–98. DOI: 10.15393/uchz.art.2026.1306


VIII International Conference "Russia and Greece: Dialogues of Cultures"

HESIODI THEOGONIAE PROOEMIUM: REINTERPRETATION OF COMMUNICATION AND THE POET’S CREATIVE MANIFESTO

Shilovskiy
D. P. 		Russian University of Medicine
Keywords:
Hesiod
Theogony
proem
Dichterweihe
oracles
divination
verbal communication
reinterpretation		 Summary: The article proposes a new interpretation of the scene of Hesiod’s initiation as a poet by the Heliconian Muses in his poem Theogony. The initiation is considered not only as a former shepherd’s story of his own investiture, but also as a kind of “literary manifesto” formulating new creative tasks. The main task set by the Muses for the poet is formulated as “to sing of the future and the past”. It represents a reinterpretation of a shortened epic formula that originally had a mantic (prophetic) meaning and described the omniscience of a seer (cf. Calchas in the Iliad). Hesiod borrows this formula and reformulates it to define his new “literary program”. In the proem of the Theogony, Hesiod starts from the original model of mantic communication between the two worlds through the seer as the point of inter- section of their informational fields, and proclaims a new, properly poetic one. In this new model, the poet becomes the figure possessing direct access to the knowledge of the immortals and uses it depending on the chosen subject – the mythological past in the Theogony or the present and the future derived from it in the Works and Days.



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