Lilah Grace Canevaro | University of Edinburgh (original) (raw)

Books by Lilah Grace Canevaro

Greek poet Hesiod's canonical archaic text, the Works and Days, was performed in its entirety, bu... more Greek poet Hesiod's canonical archaic text, the Works and Days, was performed in its entirety, but was also relentlessly excerpted, quoted, and reapplied. In this volume, Lilah Grace Canevaro situates the poem within these two modes of reading and argues that the text itself, through Hesiod's complex mechanism of rendering elements detachable while tethering them to their context for the purposes of the poem, sustains both treatments. One of the poem's difficulties is that Hesiod gives remarkably little advice on how to negotiate these different modes of reading. Canevaro considers the didactic methods employed by Hesiod from two perspectives: in terms of the gaps he leaves, and of how he challenges his audience to fill them. She argues that Hesiod's reticence is linked to the high value he places on self-sufficiency, which creates a productive tension with the didactic thrust of the poem as teaching always involves a relationship of exchange and, at least up to a point, reliance and trust. Hesiod negotiates this potential contradiction by advocating not blind adherence to his teachings but thinking for oneself and working for one's lesson.

Exploring key issues such as gender and genre, and persona and performance, this volume places this important poem within a wider context, revealing how it draws on and contributes to a tradition of usefulness.

Papers by Lilah Grace Canevaro

Didactic Poetry: Knowledge, Power, Tradition, eds. L.G. Canevaro and D. O'Rourke (in progress)

According to Hesiod’s hierarchy, ‘That man is altogether the best, who thinks of everything himse... more According to Hesiod’s hierarchy, ‘That man is altogether the best, who thinks of everything himself, considering the things which are then better in the end’ (Op.293-4). Throughout the Works and Days, Hesiod champions intellectual alongside practical self-sufficiency, encouraging his audience to work for their lesson as well as their livelihood. The Works and Days is not just good to think with – it is good for thinking. This chapter applies to the Works and Days a number of tenets of cognitive psychology, to show the poem’s value in terms of cognitive training. In switching between narrative forms, Hesiod challenges our brains to switch between different generic expectations, working us hard at the moments of greatest cognitive processing load. Some of the forms themselves, such as proverbs or riddles, require complex cognitive processes to resolve. Rhetorical showpieces such as Hesiod’s description of woodcutting (Op.414-47) impress an audience in an oral setting as feats of memory, a prized cognitive capacity. In making one point in many ways (at e.g. Op.354-8), Hesiod not only makes his teachings more widely applicable but also provides iterative training. In identifying what one should not do (e.g. Op.722-59), Hesiod effects a form of cognitive behavioural therapy, identifying and challenging dysfunctional thinking. His cyclical teachings lead us out of problem behavioural loops and into recurrent good practice. In presenting analogous problems (Op.106 ‘I’ll tell you another story’) and switching from the general to the specific (e.g. Op.227-37), Hesiod is introducing us to cognitive techniques for problem-solving.
Brown 2000:194 defines wisdom as ‘a term used to denote markedly successful problem-solving ability, particularly in personal and social domains, in the face of complexity, subtlety, novelty, and/or uncertainty.’ This chapter explores how Hesiod teaches us wisdom by confronting us with all of these challenges and training us to work through them. It shows that didactic poetry can teach us not only how to behave, but also how to think. In the current pedagogical climate with its focus on ‘novel’ constructivist approaches (Honeck 1997 suggests we use proverbs in education, and Newell/Simon 1972 represent problem-solving as a journey: cf. Op.287-92), it is worth drawing attention to the psychological sophistication already embedded in the archaic wisdom tradition.

Oxford Handbook to Hesiod, eds. A. Loney and S. Scully (in progress)

This chapter uses Callimachus’ Aetia, Aratus’ Phaenomena and Nicander’s Theriaca to explore the i... more This chapter uses Callimachus’ Aetia, Aratus’ Phaenomena and Nicander’s Theriaca to explore the intense engagement with Hesiodic poetry in the Hellenistic period. Informed by statistics for explicit references to Hesiod at this time, it asks: why is this the only period of antiquity in which the Theogony and Works and Days are considered equally important? Questions of genre and didaxis, of inspiration and knowledge, are set against a backdrop of learned library culture, in order to determine what it really meant in the Hellenistic age to be a scholar-poet. This chapter draws on a recent wave of interest in the ancient reception of Hesiod, and considers not only how Hesiodic poetry was used, but also how the potential for that use is embedded in the archaic poems themselves.

for the volume ‘Conflict and Consensus in Early Hexameter Poetry’, eds. P. Bassino, L.G. Canevaro, B. Graziosi (in progress)

In addressing his brother, Hesiod departs from traditional didactic models we know from the Near ... more In addressing his brother, Hesiod departs from traditional didactic models we know from the Near East which are usually based on father/son or teacher/pupil relationships. This paper argues that Hesiod chooses a brother as his addressee because this better fits what he wants to teach, and how he wants to teach it.
Works and Days is an Iron-Age poem, and Hesiod an Iron-Age poet – though he would rather not be (174-5). The Iron Age is a time of conflict: men are at odds with the earth (176-8), and women are at odds with men (586-7); children will be at odds with parents, guests with hosts and brothers with brothers (182-4). Hesiod needs to teach us how to manage the Iron-Age condition, and so he establishes a didactic framework itself rooted in a conflict – the quarrel with Perses.
Throughout Works and Days self-sufficiency is consistently foregrounded as the ideal way of managing the Iron-Age condition. To instil this ideal, Hesiod employs a didactic method based on intellectual self-sufficiency: he encourages thinking for oneself and reaching conclusions independently. This is best channelled through a sibling: someone of supposedly equal standing; someone who feels at liberty to question and to protest against injustice. Much of Hesiod’s advice brings to mind that typical sibling complaint “But it’s not fair!”
However, self-sufficiency creates a fundamental tension with the didactic thrust of the poem, as teaching inevitably involves a relationship of exchange. To negotiate this apparent contradiction, Hesiod must also retain didactic authority and moral control. To this end, through a series of mythical paradigms he casts himself as the elder, better, brother.
Just like Hesiod’s didactic project, poised precariously as it is between autonomy and dependence, the relationship between brothers strikes a delicate balance between equality and hierarchy. Hesiod chose such a didactic model to invite conflict – but only insofar as it might lead to consensus.

Ceccarelli, P. and Castagnoli, L. (eds.) Greek Memories: Theories and Practices, forthcoming.

This chapter looks at the way in which Homeric women act as vessels for the preservation of memor... more This chapter looks at the way in which Homeric women act as vessels for the preservation of memory. It examines the narrative strategies the poet adopts to treat the relationship between memory and women, and argues that women, who are characters with limited agency in Homeric epic, memorialise their men through words and objects, but also as objects. In a further step, this chapter shows that this characterisation of women as vessels of memory is not unique to Homer, or indeed the Greek tradition, by exploring the relationship between women and memory in South Slavic epic songs.

New Voices in Classical Reception Studies Issue 10, Feb 2015

This article examines Frederick Sandys’ and J.W. Waterhouse’s depictions of sorceresses, through ... more This article examines Frederick Sandys’ and J.W. Waterhouse’s depictions of sorceresses, through the objects surrounding the subjects. It argues that these objects can tell us something important not only about the figure of the witch, but about female roles and men’s perception of them in Victorian Britain. Through exploration of myth and the occult, male gaze turns to female agency, an agency expressed through objects. Furthermore, the symbolism integral to the paintings invites us to explore similar gender relations in the ancient world. This article traces the witches back through their myths to the Greek texts in which they appear, and asks to what extent these objects, and their implications for female agency and male responses to it, have their roots in the Greek tradition. Women in Greek epic are treated as objects, caught up in a male-controlled network of exchange. They are characters with limited agency, in that they are not the conventionally spotlighted protagonists. This does not mean, however, that they do nothing behind the scenes. ‘As much as men may define women as exchange objects, there is always the possibility that women will find a way to express their own agency’ (Lyons 2012:19). That this female agency is often expressed through objects is therefore a subversion of the male viewpoint, as women enact their agency through the very form they themselves are thought by men to represent. In focusing in on the Pre-Raphaelites’ presentation of objects, this article begins to peel away layers of reception and interpretation, showing that the eclectic clutter with which the artists surround their witches reflects the eclectic sources of the Victorian imagination.

Oral Tradition 29.1: 99-126, 2014

This paper offers fresh insights into Hesiod’s Works and Days by comparing it to the Eddic Hávamá... more This paper offers fresh insights into Hesiod’s Works and Days by comparing it to the Eddic Hávamál, a didactic poem far removed in terms of geography and date, but compellingly close in subject matter, construction and transmission. This paper finds parallels between the poems in the methods of teaching and in what is being taught, focusing on the shared theme of self-sufficiency (both intellectual and practical). It finds parallels in structure, as Hávamál is, like the Works and Days, made up not only of precepts and maxims but also elaborate mythological sections, and is associated with catalogic elements which may be original or later accretions, just like Hesiod’s Days, or the Catalogue of Women, or the Ornithomanteia. This paper also traces parallel scholarly trajectories, summarising the strikingly similar histories of scholarship on the two poems.
Finally, this paper finds parallels in the transmission of the poems, as both are rooted in the oral tradition but poised at that crucial juncture: the advent of writing. Despite the striking similarities between the poems, this paper refrains from any suggestion of a straight channel of reception but rather interprets the parallels as a reflection of comparable societies, or at least societies at comparable points in their developments. Archaic Greece and Viking Scandinavia might not be exactly parallel cultures, but they evidently share certain cultural concerns: as agrarian societies with strong family and household structures, polytheistic religions and honour codes, they offer similar advice in similar formulations through similar didactic strategies. Such similarities may encourage us to think in terms of the shared characteristics of transitional products. If we exclude direct reception we are left with a cultural constant: the transmission of wisdom. And with recurring elements such as gnomic language, myth and catalogue, we are also left with constant expressions of that wisdom.

Werner, C., Sebastiani, B.B., Dourado-Lopes, A. (eds.) (2014) Gêneros Poéticos na Grécia Antiga: Confluências e Fronteiras, São Paulo, 2014

In this paper I consider the multiple generic strategies employed by Hesiod in the Works and Days... more In this paper I consider the multiple generic strategies employed by Hesiod in the Works and Days. I argue that the poem operates primarily in the tradition of wisdom literature, but that Hesiod both manipulates this genre and appropriates elements from other genres when it suits his didactic purpose. The result is an authoritative didactic persona, and a multi-faceted poem with elements which can be applied to all sorts of situations.
The narrator of the Works and Days is not hidden behind a shield of tradition and divinity, like Homer; he is conspicuous, breaking away from the Muses (1-10) and putting himself forward. It is this immanent, tangible persona of the teacher which establishes the primary generic force of the poem. The initial addressee takes us further into the wisdom genre as Perses is first and foremost a didactic tool: however, a brother-to-brother model of teaching is not traditional but rather makes a particular pedagogic point.
The Works and Days does not operate solely within wisdom literature, ignoring all else: it is in dialogue with other genres. For example Hesiod draws on the language of hymns (1-10), of cult (336-41), of omen-reading and of ritual when they suit his didactic purpose, using his mastery over multiple genres to assert his authority in just about any field. Further, though Hesiod distances himself from heroic epic he also engages with it: he 'corrects’ epic (11-26 there are two kinds of Eris: Homeric epic has only one), he creates antithesis with it (for example 760-4 prioritising pheme over kleos), he appropriates its language (I explore in particular Odyssean/nostos resonances in the Nautilia at 663-78) and even creates his own specifically Iron-Age epic formulae (such as 422 ὥριον ἔργον).

Revista Almatroz 1.1, Oct 2013

In this short paper I discuss the nature of poetry as it is portrayed by William Morris’ The Eart... more In this short paper I discuss the nature of poetry as it is portrayed by William Morris’ The Earthly Paradise: as a string of sources into which the poet subsumes himself. Furthermore, in light of Maurer’s observation that Morris had a ‘preoccupation with the stories and indifference to the historical backgrounds and ethical overtones usually associated with them’, I examine what exactly it meant to historically-disinterested Morris to be a historian-poet.

Greece and Rome 60.2: 185-202, Oct 2013

In this paper I argue that Hesiod’s (predominantly negative) views on women in the Works and Days... more In this paper I argue that Hesiod’s (predominantly negative) views on women in the Works and Days are inextricably linked with his persistent anxieties about life in the Iron Age. I hope to complement the existing scholarship on Hesiod’s approach to gender by pinpointing the ideal of self-sufficiency as a driving force behind Hesiod’s view of women, and by showing how gender in the Works and Days is framed in terms of balance. Hesiod’s suspicion of women in the Works and Days is driven both by concern for the productivity of the individual oikos and by a perceived imbalance between the sexes. Women can therefore be tolerated when they fulfil a low-risk role, or when the genders are in equilibrium. Further, I add to the scholarship on gender in the Works and Days by showing that this attitude to women can be traced in the Days section too: I argue for a link between the earlier and latter parts of the poem which has been mostly ignored.

Classical Receptions Journal 6.2: 198-220, Jun 2014

This article argues that the traditional referentiality of Tennyson’s ‘The Lady of Shalott’ can b... more This article argues that the traditional referentiality of Tennyson’s ‘The Lady of Shalott’ can be better understood by supplementing the poet’s medieval sources, of little more than tangential relevance to the poem, with Homeric influences. It suggests that the Lady is an amalgamation of Homeric women, primarily Andromache and Helen but also Penelope, Circe, and Calypso, who fulfil their domestic roles by weaving but who also cross gender boundaries: who express themselves through objects and engage in memorialization. It shows that Tennyson used layers of resonance to create a character through which he could reflect on issues of poetics, aesthetics, memory, and vision, utilizing those elements of tradition which were simultaneously timeless and allowed him to comment on his own art and times. Further, it posits that in rewriting ‘The Lady of Shalott’ in 1842, Tennyson took yet another step away from his medieval sources, and towards Homer. As a final point, this article suggests that it is this perpetual chain of resonance stretching back from Victorian England through medieval legend to the archaic Greek world which inspired the Pre-Raphaelites to adopt ‘The Lady of Shalott’ as a favoured subject.

Cambridge Classical Journal, Vol. 59 pp. 9-28, Dec 2011

The Pandora myth as told in Hesiod's Works and Days (59–105) has been criticised since antiquity ... more The Pandora myth as told in Hesiod's Works and Days (59–105) has been criticised since antiquity as internally inconsistent. In the nineteenth and most of the twentieth century this led editors to propose radical atheteses and emendations to resolve the inconsistencies. Although in recent decades the impetus has swung more towards conservative editing, and seemingly endless work has been done on the myth, the passage still has not been fully understood in terms of its purpose within the Hesiodic corpus. In this paper I argue that the ‘suspect’ lines are perfectly consistent when understood in terms of the intertextual relationship between Hesiod's Works and Days and his Theogony, a relationship which has been established by scholars such as Jean-Pierre Vernant (1980), Glenn Most (1993) and Jenny Strauss Clay (2003). I argue that, in representing Pandora in Works and Days, Hesiod is engaged in a project of expansion which had its roots in his Theogony. Pandora is of more importance to the Iron Age Works and Days than to the divine Theogony; so she is described in greater detail and becomes more of a prominent figure in her own right. Furthermore, I argue that Hesiod does not stop there, but enacts an expansion of the expansion within Works and Days itself, from Zeus' commands to the gods for Pandora's creation at Op. 60–68, to the execution of those commands at 70–80.