Theogony and Works and Days

Two short Greek poems, composed around 700 BC and usually printed together. The Theogony is a genealogy of the gods — how the cosmos got from Chaos to the rule of Zeus, through successive generations that each overthrow the last. Works and Days is the opposite register: a farmer’s didactic poem addressed to Hesiod’s brother Perses about honest labour, the agricultural calendar, justice in disputes, and the ages of man. Together they are the earliest surviving Greek account of both how the world was ordered and how a person is supposed to live in it.

Why it’s on the list: Assigned in the University of Austin’s Chaos and Civilization course. The Theogony is the literal text the course title comes from — it begins with Chaos and ends with a settled order — and pairing it with Works and Days puts the cosmic story and the daily discipline of work in the same book.

Where I saw it: On the University of Austin’s Fall 2025 reading list, “65 Texts Our Students Are Reading”, November 13 2025, saved to Kyle’s “Books To Read” Apple Note. The full 65-text curriculum is transcribed on UATX Fall Reading List.

Recommended again: on A Library to Build Great Americans, a 468-title curriculum published in December 2025 by the Substack writer Dissident Teacher, where it appears in the Ages 13-99+ band under Poetry at Lexile 1280 — the source spells the title “Theogeny”. Kyle’s ruling on that list was to card its adult band only; the full roster is transcribed on A Library to Build Great Americans.

Connections

• UATX Fall Reading List — the curriculum this is assigned in.
• A Library to Build Great Americans — the second curriculum that recommends it.
• Hesiod — the author.
• Poetry — the form, and the genre bucket the second list files it under.
• Classics — the tradition; Hesiod sits beside Homer as its other origin point.
• Religion — the Theogony is a theogony: an account of where the gods came from.