Epic poetry Did You Mean Epic?

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For other meanings of epic, see epic (other meanings).

The epic is a broadly defined genre of poetry, which retells in a continuous narrative the life and works of a heroic or mythological person or group of persons. In the West, the Iliad, Odyssey, and the Nibelungenlied; and in the East, the Mahabharata, Ramayana, and Shahnama are often cited as examples of the epic genre.

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Epic versus narrative

One factor that distinguishes epics from other forms of narrative poetry is scale: epic poems tend to be too long to be read or performed in a single sitting. A second distinguishing factor is stylistic: epic poems are written in what might be termed high style, avoiding popular metres and verse patterns. For example, an epic written in English would not use the ballad form.

Thirdly, epic poems always deal with persons and events that are considered to be historically real by the poet and their audience. Epics are, essentially, the tale of the tribe. In oral cultures, the learning and performance of epic poems frequently formed an integral part of the education of the poet and, by extension, the audience. This assumed historicity is important for distinguishing epic from other long narrative forms such as allegory.

The fourth distinguishing factor in the definition of an epic is what is termed the epic hero cycle. The hero in an epic poem tends to follow a predictable cycle of events that is repeated in epics from every sort of culture. Although the cycle may repeat upon itself and vary slightly in order from epic to epic, the general points of the cycle include:

a test (to test worthiness to complete said quest)
a main antagonist, often supernatural
a magical/unreal world, unable to be visited by a normal human, that the hero visits (e.g. the underworld or the world of the gods)
a resurrection (either from being dead or from a dead-like state of mind, such as an unwillingness to complete the quest, and may also be a hero who was thought to be dead who was rediscovered)

George Lucas' original Star Wars trilogy, in particular, follows this cycle exactly, and some have cited it as the reason for its mass appeal.

Classical epic conventions include:

Invocatio (pray to the muse of the epic)
Prepositio (introduction of the epic's theme)
Enumeratio (counting the fighting armys / heroes)
In medias res (start from the middle of an event)
Deus ex machina (interruption / miracle from a god)
Anticipatio (prediction)
Ephiteton ornans (permanent attributives of the heroes)
Episodes
Epic similies

Early epics

The first recorded epic is the Sumerian Gilgamesh. The longest epic (and, in general, work of literature) of all time is the Tibetan Epic of King Gesar, which has been collected as a work composed of roughly 120 volumes, with more than one million verses, totaling over 20 million words, making it 25 times the size of the ancient Greek epic, the Iliad. The Mahabharata, whose 100,000 verses make it four times the size of the Bible and seven times the size of the Iliad and Odyssey combined, is considered the second-largest literary work.

Oral epics or world folk epics

The first epics are associated strongly with preliterate societies and oral poetic traditions. In these traditions, poetry is transmitted to the audience and from performer to performer by purely oral means. World folk epics are those epics which are not just literary masterpieces but also an integral part of the weltanschauung of a people. They were originally oral literatures, which were later written down by either single author or several writers.

Studies of living oral epic traditions in the Balkans by Milman Parry and Albert Lord demonstrated the paratactic model used for composing these poems. What they demonstrated was that oral epics tend to be constructed in short episodes, each of equal status, interest and importance. This facilitates memorisation, as the poet is recalling each episode and using them to recreate the entire epic as they perform it.

Parry and Lord also showed that the most likely source for written texts of the epics of Homer was dictation from an oral performance.

Epics in literate societies

Literate societies have often copied the epic format, and the earliest known European example is Virgil's Aeneid, which follows both the style and subject matter of Homer. Other obvious examples are Tulsidas' Sri Ramacharit Manas, following the style and subject matter of Valmiki's Ramayana,. and the Persian epic Shahnama by Ferdowsi.

Notable epic poems

20th century BC: The Epic of Gilgamesh (Sumerian mythology)
19th century BC: The Ramayana (Hindu mythology)
1316 BC: Traditional date for the Mahabharata (Hindu mythology).
8th century BC:
- The Iliad by Homer (Greek mythology)
- The Odyssey by Homer (Greek mythology)
1st century BC:
- Aeneid by Virgil
- Táin Bó Cúailnge (Irish mythology)
c.3rd century: Cilappatikaram, a South Indian epic written by prince Ilango Adigal
Sometime in the period 8th to the 10th century: Beowulf (Anglo-Saxon mythology)
10th century:
- Shahnameh
- Bhagavata Purana (Sanskrit "Stories of the Lord")
11th century:
- Digenis Acritas (Byzantine epic poem)
- La Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland)
- Epic of King Gesar (Tibetan; compiled in 11th century from earlier sources)
12th century: The Knight in the Panther Skin by Shota Rustaveli
13th century:
- Poetic Edda (Norse mythology)
- Hervarar saga (Norse mythology)
- Völsunga saga (Norse mythology)
- Nibelungenlied (Germanic mythology)
- Brut by Layamon
c.1300: Cursor Mundi by an anonymous cleric
early 14th century: Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy) by Dante Alighieri
1516: Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto
c.1555: Lusiadas by Luis de Camões
1575 La Gerusalemme liberata by Torquato Tasso
16th century:
- Ramacharitmanas (based on the Ramayana) by Goswami Tulsidas
- The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser
17th century:
- Paradise Lost by John Milton
- Obsidio Szigetianae ("Szigeti veszedelem"; Hungarian) by Miklós Zrínyi
19th century:
- The Prelude by William Wordsworth
- Don Juan by George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
- Clarel by Herman Melville
- Der Ring des Nibelungen by Richard Wagner
- Canigó by Jacint Verdaguer
- Venezuela Heroica, by Eduardo Blanco (1881)
- Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot (Finnish mythology)
20th century:
- Savitri by Aurobindo Ghose
- The Cantos by Ezra Pound
- The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel by Nikos Kazantzakis
- The Anathemata by David Jones
- Maximus by Charles Olson
- Paterson by William Carlos Williams
- The Changing Light at Sandover by James Merrill

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Contents

Epic versus narrative

Early epics

Oral epics or world folk epics

Epics in literate societies

Notable epic poems

See also

References

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