Hesiod (Author) a contemporary of Homer, probably lived in the eighth century in Boeotia on the Greek mainland. He is often considered to be the author of both the Theogony and Works and Days, although this has been debated. Alicia Stallings (Translator) is an American poet and translator. She has published three books of original verse, Archaic Smile (1999), Hapax (2006), and Olives (2012), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her verse translation of Lucretius' The Nature of Things (2007) is published in Penguin Classics.
A Brilliant rendition of a fountainhead epic ... For clarity and class and prosody that sings through its print, Stallings' Hesiod is unrivaled. Endear yourselves to the immortals and read this compelling translation that introduces with a formalist literary flourish that fragile Western Civilization which still, to this day, nurtures the best of artistic creation * Somerville Times * Stallings makes a home for Hesiod in the English poetic landscape, where he can live the sort of idiosyncratic life that he enjoys in Greek, at once timeless and contemporary ... In prose, she makes for an appealing guide, elegant and accessible, intelligent and breezy ... A wonderful book -- Christopher Childers * New Criterion * Stallings is a true poet ... She finds enormous breadth and depth of resource in her open couplets ... No reader of the best poetry should miss this Works and Days -- Professor Peter McDonald * Literary Matters * Mixing rhyme and assonance, this is a Works and Days for the age of rap. By translating Hesiod as poetry, Stallings encourages us to realize that the poem should not just be the object of scholarly study, but can be read aloud for fun -- Armand D'Angour * The Times Literary Supplement * A. E. Stallings new verse translation of Works and Days for Penguin is a splendid development upon a recent flurry of Hesiod translation and poetic response ... Brilliantly sensitive ... Stallings's translation triumphs * The Oxonian Review * A. E. Stallings brings Hesiod back to life in her rhyming translation of Works and Days, which mingles farming tips, myths and evocation of the seasons: 'when first the cuckoo cuckoos in the oak'. Stallings's lively and learned notes make it a treat * The Times * Stallings's new translation of Hesiod's Works and Days - witty, gritty, and unsettlingly relevant - is not to be missed. Toil; corruption in high places; injustice; the prevailing sense that things are getting worse - none of these prevents the Muses' chosen poets from doing their indispensable and soul-refreshing work -- Rachel Hadas * The Times Literary Supplement *