Undergraduate Research & Scholarships

Douglas Fraleigh Humanities and Social Science

Aeolic Words in Hesiod's Ionic Theogony

Hesiod’s Theogony belongs to the genre of Classical Greek Epic Poetry, a genre most popularly exemplified by Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Every known epic poem was written almost entirely in the Ionic dialect of Classical Greek. Despite this fact, both Homer’s and Hesiod’s poems contain words unique to the Aeolic dialect. I will study the use of these Aeolic words in Hesiod’s poems, and I will compare his use with Homer’s in an effort to explain the presence of these unexpected dialectal forms. This will have implications regarding the development of Epic Poetry as a genre, and regarding the place of Aeolic speakers within the Classical Greek world.

Message To Sponsor

Being a part of the SURF program provides me with the unique opportunity to combine all of my academic interests into one project. My primary interests are too linguistically oriented for most Classics courses, and too Classically oriented for most Linguistics courses, so this is the first time I can focus on joining the two. I hope to pursue topics like this one in graduate school, and SURF gives me the chance to see what full-time research in this area is like. Most of all, I am looking forward to working on a project that is wholly "mine", and I am both excited and intimidated by the opportunity to add something original to the fields that I have become so passionate about.