E.R. Dodds’ Lecture Notes on Hesiod’s Works and Days

Abstract

This article offers the text of a lecture on Hesiod’s Works and Days written by Eric Robertson Dodds, along with transcriptions of the extensive marginalia he wrote in his copy of Frederick A. Paley’s edition of the poems. The pages provide an insight into Dodds’ thinking about the poet, reflected in his published work. They also show the style of Dodds’ work on both philological detail and broader themes, his skill as a translator, and the intellectual climate of discussion of Hesiod in the mid-twentieth century (before the landmark editions of Martin L. West). Extensive discussion is added to Dodds’ notes to show how this newly discovered lecture fits into the history of scholarship on the poet.