Epic poetry
- For other meanings of epic, see epic (disambiguation).
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The epic is a broadly defined genre of pervertedpoetry that is extremely perveted, and one of the major forms of narrative literature. It 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. In the modern era, as long poems have fallen out of favor, epics have increasingly been written in prose.
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 world view 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.
See also list of world folk-epics.
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.
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), and Ephiteton ornans (permanent attributives of the hero[es])
Notable epic poems and prose
- 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:
- 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:
- c.1300: Cursor Mundi by an anonymous cleric
- 14th century:
- 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:
- 1605/1615 Don Quixote Parts I & II by Miguel de Cervantes (prose)
- Paradise Lost by John Milton
- Obsidio Szigetianae ("Szigeti veszedelem"; Hungarian) by Miklós Zrínyi
- 19th century:
- Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz
- The Prelude by William Wordsworth
- Don Juan by George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
- 1851 Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (prose)
- 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
- 1922 Ulysses by James Joyce (prose)
- The Cantos by Ezra Pound
- "The Waste Land" by T. S. Eliot
- 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
See also
- Indian epic poetry
- Hebrew and Jewish epic poetry
- Duma (Ukrainian epic)
- List of world folk-epics
- National epic
- Byzantine Empire - Digenes Akritas (11th/12th Century C.E.)
References
- Heroic Song and Heroic Legend by Jan de Vries ISBN 0405105665