Recomposition in Performance in Early Greek Hexameter: The Case of Pandora

This study investigates the two accounts of the Prometheus/Pandora story in the Hesiodic corpus (Theogony 509-616, Erga 47-105), arguing that they are best understood from the point of view of recomposition in performance. The oral-traditional qualities of Hesiodic poetry have been widely acknowledged, but previous scholarship has preferred a model of sequential publication that is more appropriate to the dissemination of fixed, written texts than the composition methods of oral poets. Close analysis of the similarities and differences between the passages provides insights into the oral-poetic techniques with which they are crafted, and provides some evidence regarding the origins of the Hesiodic poems - in particular, it seems unlikely that the Erga and the Theogony are the work of a single poet recorded at the same moment in that poet’s career.