Over the last couple of decades a number of studies have critically examined the biographical approach that influenced (and, to some extent, continues to influence) interpretations of Hesiod's poetry. L. presents his book as an intervention in this on-going reassessment, focussing principally on Theogony and Works and Days. He attempts to cover a good deal of ground: the poet's authorial self-presentation, his relationship to the epic tradition and his reception in later antiquity, inter alia. Unfortunately, L.'s unclear methodological approach and tendency towards digression obscures his larger argument; consequently this book is unlikely to influence current scholarship on Hesiod's biography and narrative voice.

Chapter 1, ‘La Question Hésiodique’, begins from a philological problem in the Theogony proem: is the poet to be identified with ‘Hesiod’, or does the proem suggest instead a split between ‘Hesiod’ (mentioned in the third person at line 23) and the poet (identified by the first person pronoun at line 24)? The case for a ‘second Hesiod’ has been argued most recently by A. Ballabriga in F. Blaise, P. Judet de la Combe, P. Rousseau, Le Métier du Mythe (1996), pp. 71–82; but since very few scholars have supported this position it seems odd for L. to structure his argument as a response to Ballabriga, and without giving much consideration to alternatives to his reading of the lines. L.'s solution is no better: he proposes that the ‘je’ and the ‘il’ of lines 22–4 are two individuals but a single poet (which he describes as ‘un mystère’ p. 22), in an argument that involves a lengthy digression on Aristotle's theory of mimêsis and its relevance to the famous crux at Th. 26–8 and the larger issue of Hesiodic ‘fiction’ (pp. 13–19). This chapter is narrowly framed within Ballabriga's problematic reading, but L. would have been better served if he had engaged with scholarship in German and English that works within a narratological perspective, especially K. Stoddard's The Narrative Voice in the Theogony of Hesiod (2004), which L. does not cite.

Chapter 2, ‘Le Roman d’ Hésiode', discusses, unsurprisingly, how the strong presence of a first person voice in Hesiod's poetry gave rise to biographical speculation about the author. L. suggests the term ‘romancer’ to describe this process: ‘romancer n'est pas farder la vérité ou la recouvrir d'oripeaux inutiles; c'est chercher cette vérité, la chercher par d'autres voies que celles de la raison discursive … qui rendent aux faits et personnages l'apparence du réel, et souvent les seules dont nous disposions’ (p. 68). Nevertheless, it is difficult to see how the shift in terminology – from ‘biographie’ to ‘roman’ – changes our understanding of this process. Again, further engagement with recent scholarship on Hesiod's ancient reception could have enriched this chapter (cf. especially H. Koning, Hesiod: the Other Poet [2010]).

Chapter 3, ‘L'Auteur’, examines the differences in authorial voice between the Theogony and Works and Days through a close reading of the Theogony proem, the Nautilia of the Works and Days and the two versions of the Pandora myth. He argues that the Works and Days presents itself as the composition of Hesiod, while the Theogony presents itself as the composition of a poet who aligns himself with Hesiod. L.'s conclusions are disappointing: he lapses into the very biographical fallacy that he elsewhere criticises when he suggests that the only way to account for the differences in the two texts is to see them as the product of a single author composed at different life stages. Among other relevant works L. should have consulted R. Rosen's important article on the Nautilia (‘Poetry and Sailing in Hesiod's Works and Days’, CA 9.1 [1990], 99–113). A ‘Conclusion Générale’ speculates (with only cursory reference to the relevant secondary literature) on the existence of a tradition of Boeotian epic parallel to the Ionian tradition, perhaps dating to the Mycenaean age.

As the above comments suggest, L.'s study is hampered by insufficient engagement with the relevant scholarship in German and English, and by his poor argumentative structure. Long passages of the book are simply extended collections of primary sources in translation: it is unnecessary to reproduce every passage in the Theogony and Works and Days that references the Muses (pp. 22–8), or to collect the biographical testimonia reproduced on pp. 56–67 (which receive only minimal comment from L. anyway). But most problematic of all is the uncertain methodology that L. employs, which moves rather abruptly between philology, philosophy and narratology, while using none of these approaches with any particular care. Regretfully, scholars who are interested in Hesiod's narrative persona, and the ancient biographical tradition that developed from his poetry, should consult the other works cited above.