Hesiod and Hávamál: Transitions and the Transmission of Wisdom

Abstract

In this article I too offer a comparative analysis. However, I step away from the Near East and away from any suggestion of a chain of transmission. I aim to offer fresh insights into Hesiod's Works and Days by comparing it to the Eddic Havamal, a poem far removed in terms of geography and date, but compellingly close in subject matter, construction, and transmission. Those who have studied Havamal, just like Hesiodic scholars, have tied themselves in knots trying to disentangle the strands of authorship and the narrative threads. Havamal is, like the Works and Days, a wisdom poem with a composite structure. It is made up not only of precepts and maxims but also elaborate mythological sections. It 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. And most interestingly it is, like the Works and Days, a poem rooted in oral tradition, but poised at that crucial juncture: the advent of writing.