If Leo seems to have demonstrated to everyone’s satisfaction that the Hesiodic [,A # was the same poem as the Ehoiai,1 the relation between the Catalogue and the Megalai Ehoiai (hereafter ME) remains much more debated. The fragments attributed to the ME by ancient sources are separately printed in the edition of Merkelbach and West, and West 1985a treats them as belonging to a poem different from the Catalogue. The view that the two titles refer to two, more or less different, editions of the same poem is, however, fairly widespread.2 Schwartz 1960 and Cohen 1986, for example, thought that the two were essentially the same poem known by two different titles,3 while others, like Casanova 1979b, have argued that the ME was an expanded version of the Catalogue. Schwartz and Cohen have further argued that sources referring to either work by different titles did so because they had no firsthand acquaintance with the texts.My opinion is that substantial differences in content, focus, and, to a limited extent, narrative technique between the remains of the two poems can hardly be denied. While this may be seen as not incompatible with the hypothesis that the ME was a substantially expanded and modified version of the Catalogue, I see no unambiguous evidence that it was not a completely separate poem belonging to the same poetic tradition.
The Megalai Ehoiai: a Survey of the Fragments
D'ALESSIO, Giovan Battista
2005-01-01
Abstract
If Leo seems to have demonstrated to everyone’s satisfaction that the Hesiodic [,A # was the same poem as the Ehoiai,1 the relation between the Catalogue and the Megalai Ehoiai (hereafter ME) remains much more debated. The fragments attributed to the ME by ancient sources are separately printed in the edition of Merkelbach and West, and West 1985a treats them as belonging to a poem different from the Catalogue. The view that the two titles refer to two, more or less different, editions of the same poem is, however, fairly widespread.2 Schwartz 1960 and Cohen 1986, for example, thought that the two were essentially the same poem known by two different titles,3 while others, like Casanova 1979b, have argued that the ME was an expanded version of the Catalogue. Schwartz and Cohen have further argued that sources referring to either work by different titles did so because they had no firsthand acquaintance with the texts.My opinion is that substantial differences in content, focus, and, to a limited extent, narrative technique between the remains of the two poems can hardly be denied. While this may be seen as not incompatible with the hypothesis that the ME was a substantially expanded and modified version of the Catalogue, I see no unambiguous evidence that it was not a completely separate poem belonging to the same poetic tradition.Pubblicazioni consigliate
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