God and the Land : The Metaphysics of Farming in Hesiod and Vergil

In this pathbreaking book, which includes a powerful new translation of Hesiod's Works and Days by esteemed translator David Grene, Stephanie Nelson argues that a society's vision of farming contains deep indications about its view of the human place within nature, and our relationship to the divine. She contends that both Hesiod in the Works and Days and Vergil in the Georgics saw farming in this way, and so wrote their poems not only about farming itself, but also about its deeper ethical and religious implications. Hesiod, Nelson argues, saw farming as revealing that man must live by the sweat of his brow, and that good, for human beings, must always be accompanied by hardship. Within this vision justice, competition, cooperation, and the need for labor take their place alongside the uncertainties of the seasons and even of particular lucky and unlucky days to form a meaningful whole within which human life is an integral part. Vergil, Nelson argues, deliberately modeled his poem upon the Works and Days, and did so in order to reveal that his is a very different vision. Hesiod saw the hardship in farming; Vergil sees its violence as well. Farming is for him both our life within nature, and also our battle against her. Against the background of Hesiods poem, which found a single meaning for human life, Vergil thus creates a split vision and suggests that human beings may be radically alienated from both nature and the divine. Nelson argues that both the Georgics and the Works and Days have been misread because scholars have not seen the importance of the connection between the two poems, and because they have not seen that farming is the true concern of both, farming in its deepest and most profoundly unsettling sense. -- Amazon.com

In this pathbreaking book, which includes a powerful new translation of Hesiod's Works and Days by esteemed translator David Grene, Stephanie Nelson argues that a society's vision of farming contains deep indications about its view of the human place within nature, and our relationship to the divine. She contends that both Hesiod in the Works and Days and Vergil in the Georgics saw farming in this way, and so wrote their poems not only about farming itself, but also about its deeper ethical and religious implications.

Hesiod, Nelson argues, saw farming as revealing that man must live by the sweat of his brow, and that good, for human beings, must always be accompanied by hardship. Within this vision justice, competition, cooperation, and the need for labor take their place alongside the uncertainties of the seasons and even of particular lucky and unlucky days to form a meaningful whole within which human life is an integral part. Vergil, Nelson argues, deliberately modeled his poem upon the Works and Days, and did so in order to reveal that his is a very different vision. Hesiod saw the hardship in farming; Vergil sees its violence as well. Farming is for him both our life within nature, and also our battle against her. Against the background of Hesiods poem, which found a single meaning for human life, Vergil thus creates a split vision and suggests that human beings may be radically alienated from both nature and the divine. Nelson argues that both the Georgics and the Works and Days have been misread because scholars have not seen the importance of the connection between the two poems, and because they have not seen that farming is the true concern of both, farming in its deepest and most profoundly unsettling sense.

Contents......Page 16 Abbreviations......Page 18 Geneaological Table......Page 21 Translator's Note: Hesiod's Works and Days......Page 24 HESIOD'S WORKS AND DAYS......Page 28 INTRODUCTION: HESIOD, POET AND FARMER......Page 50 Hesiod's Time......Page 52 Hesiod's Town and Country......Page 53 Hesiod—Or Was He?......Page 55 1. THE COMPOSITION OF HESIOD'S POEMS......Page 60 The Composition of the Theogony......Page 63 The Composition of the Works and Days......Page 65 The Farmer's Year......Page 67 Hesiod's Outlook......Page 78 Pandora and the Nature of Hardship......Page 83 The Five Ages: The History of Hardship......Page 87 Hesiod's Fable and the J ustice of Zeus......Page 96 3. THE COMPOSITION OF THE GEORGICS: VERGIL'S FARM......Page 101 Roman Farming......Page 107 Vergil's Works and Days......Page 110 Vergil and the Animals......Page 113 The Divine Order......Page 117 Zeus and His Children......Page 123 The Theology of Farming......Page 126 The Gods of the Georgics......Page 130 The Georgic of Force......Page 132 The Georgic of Understanding......Page 136 Justice, Perception, and Farming......Page 144 The Balance of Justice......Page 149 The Place of Justice......Page 154 Force and Order: Vergil and Caesar......Page 157 The Third Georgic: The Problem of the Individual......Page 160 The Fourth Georgic: The Promise of the Whole......Page 165 The City, the Farm, and Nature......Page 171 Orpheus and Aristaeus......Page 174 Hesiod and the Balance of Nature......Page 181 Notes......Page 190 Bibliography......Page 250 C......Page 266 H......Page 267 M......Page 268 R......Page 269 X......Page 270 Z......Page 271 "The Works and Days" of Hesiod and Virgil's "Georgics" are fundamental texts in the Greek canon. Here Nelson brings them together with a metaphysical eye, showing how the two writers each viewed the farming lifestyle as a system of belief unto itself. A translation of Hesiod is included