Hesiod was an early Greek poet who lived and worked around 700 BCE, during the Archaic period. He came from Ascra, a village in the region of Boeotia on mainland Greece. According to his own poetry, he worked as a shepherd before the Muses inspired him to become a poet. His life is known primarily from personal details in his work, including a dispute with his brother over their inheritance.

He is a foundational figure in Western literature, often paired with Homer. However, his poetry offers a different perspective, focusing on practical daily life, moral instruction, and the origins of the gods rather than heroic adventure. Only two of the many works attributed to him are universally accepted as authentic. His Theogony provides the earliest systematic account of the birth and genealogy of the Greek gods. His Works and Days is a didactic poem that blends myth, farming advice, and ethical maxims, introducing influential ideas like the myth of the Five Ages of humankind.

Modern scholars view Hesiod as crucial for understanding early Greek thought. His Theogony established a canonical framework for mythology that influenced all later Greek writing. Works and Days is valued as a rare glimpse into the social values and economic realities of the early Archaic period from a land-owning farmer's perspective. His claim of direct inspiration from the Muses also helped shape later conceptions of poetic authority.