Eris and Epos

Abstract

This article examines the development of the theme of eris in Hesiod and Homer. Starting from the relationship between the destructive strife in the Theogony (225) and the two versions invoked in the Works and Days (11–12), I argue that considering the two forms of strife as echoing zero and positive sum games helps us to identify the cultural and compositional force of eris as cooperative competition. After establishing eris as a compositional theme from the perspective of oral poetics, I then argue that it develops from the perspective of cosmic history, that is, from the creation of the universe in Hesiod’s Theogony through the Homeric epics and into its double definition in the Works and Days. To explore and emphasize how this complementarity is itself a manifestation of eris, I survey its deployment in our major extant epic poems.