Quando l'epos diventa maniera. Lo scudo di Eracle pseudo-esiodeo

The author of the Shield of Heracles (generally dated about the first quarter of the sixth century B.C.) was confronted with great archaic epos. Both the analysis of some passages that allow a precise comparison (the‘depiction of the two cities’, exemplified on Homer’s Shield of Achilles, the ‘description of the summer’, inspired from the Works and Days by Hesiod), and the examination of some formulae that betray an awkward and mannered approach to epic narrative, allow us to measure the distance (in terms of taste and culture) that separates it from its models.