Hesiodic poetry in Plutarch’s biographies

Plutarch, one of the most important Greek intellectuals of the early Roman Empire, was a big fan of the archaic poet Hesiod, and especially of his Works and Days. This talk examines closely how Plutarch uses Hesiod’s poetry in his biographical works, and it aims to demonstrate how Hesiodic didactic enhances the effectiveness of Plutarch’s biographies as narrative accounts of the past and as morally edifying texts.