Hesiod's Cosmos offers a comprehensive interpretation of both the Theogony and the Works and Days and demonstrates how the two Hesiodic poems must be read together as two halves of an integrated whole embracing both the divine and the human cosmos. After first offering a survey of the structure of both poems, Professor Clay reveals their mutually illuminating unity by offering detailed analyses of their respective poems, their teachings on the origins of the human race and the two versions of the Prometheus myth. She then examines the role of human beings in the Theogony and the role of the gods in the Works and Days, as well as the position of the hybrid figures of monsters and heroes within the Hesiodic cosmos and in relation to the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women.

珍妮·施特劳斯·克莱（Jenny Strauss Clay），美国弗吉尼亚大学古典学教授。她受古希腊研究中心、美国国家人文基金会、德意志学术交流中心、罗马美国学院、雅典美国学派古典研究所等机构的研究基金资助，在欧美广泛讲学。她的主要研究领域为古希腊诗歌，并就此撰写了大量的学术作品，包括两本专著：《雅典娜的愤怒：荷马《奥德赛》中的神与人》（The Wrath of Athena: Gods and Men in Homer’s Odyssey）和《奥林波斯的政治：几部重要的荷马颂歌中的形式与意义》（The Politics of Olympus: Form and Meaning in the Major Homeric Hymns）。此外，她在古希腊罗马诗歌方面发表论文四十余篇。