Literary History

The Epic and the Epic Hero

The epic, a long narrative poem, is one of the major forms of narrative literature. Epics tell the stories of heroes or mythological people and reflect the histories and values of the societies in which they were produced.

Epics originally were created in illiterate societies. These poems were transmitted to audiences orally and were later written down by a single author or several writers. Ancient epic poems included the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer (Greek mythology), the Epic of Gilgamesh (Sumerian mythology), and the Mahabharata (Hindu mythology). Literate societies created epics that used the conventions of earlier forms. One of the earliest known European works is Virgil’s Aeneid.

All epics contain similar elements: a narrative written in poetic lines; worthy heroes that save a society from evil; audacious villains; long, dangerous journeys; godlike creatures who intervene during the story; lengthy battles; and action on a grand scale.

Examples of medieval epics include Beowulf (Anglo-Saxon mythology), the Poetic Edda (Norse mythology), Nibelungenlied (German mythology), Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. The seventeenth century brought John Milton’s well-known Paradise Lost and King Arthur by Richard Blackmore.

Two literary devices used in the epic were epithets and kennings. The epithet is a word or short phrase consistently linked to a person, place, or thing. An example is “Richard the Lionheart” or “Alexander the Great.” You might even say that an epithet is a type of nickname. The classical Roman author Virgil always called his main hero fidus Achates; the epithet here is fidus, which means loyal or faithful. Today’s usage of the word epithet has changed. The phrase “racial epithet,” or “racial slur,” has given the term negative connotations.

Kennings are literary devices that helped epic poets mold ideas to poetic forms. In Beowulf, for example, the sea is a “whale-road.” James Joyce used the phrase “the snot-green sea” in his work Ulysses, borrowing from Homer’s similar description of “the wine-dark sea.”

Epic poetry did not sustain its popularity in twentieth-century American literature. However, the word epic has taken on another meaning: it now refers to works of great length, works that span a long period of time, or works that include multitudes of characters.

Bibliography

Iliad and Odyssey Boxed Set. New York: Penguin Classics, 1999. These are Homer’s defining works of Western epic literature, translated by Robert Fagles. The Iliad is the story of the Trojan War and the rage of Achilles. Odyssey chronicles man’s journey through life.

World Mythology: An Anthology of Great Myths and Epics. New York: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages, 2001. An anthology of fifty-nine epics from Greece, Rome, the Middle East, Europe, the Far East and Pacific Islands, Africa, South America, and North America. Selections include the Iliad, the Odyssey, King Arthur, Beowulf, the Ramayana, the Aeneid, and Gilgamesh.

The Mahabharata. California: University of California Press, 2000. An English translation of the ancient Eastern Indian epic, perhaps the longest Indian epic ever written.

The Poetic Edda: The Mythological Poems. New York: Dover Publications, 2004. A collection of thirteenth-century Norse poems that recapture the oral traditions of the Norsemen.

The Canterbury Tales. New York: Penguin Classics, 2003. A modern English translation of Geoffrey Chaucer’s depiction of life in fourteenth-century England.

Paradise Lost. New York: Penguin Classics, 2003. John Milton’s classic epic poem, in which God and Satan battle over control of man’s destiny.

The Divine Comedy: Volume I: The Inferno. New York: Penguin Classics, 2002. Dante’s poetic journey through the circles of hell, translated by Mark Musa.

Epic Poetry
http://litmuse.maconstate.edu/litwiki/index.php/Epic_Poetry
Read about the history and find examples of epic poetry throughout the ages. Also access links to famous writers of this genre.

Encyclopedia Mythica: Norse mythology
http://www.pantheon.org/areas/mythology/europe/norse/
This website provides an introduction to Norse mythology. Find out why Tolkien and Wagner were so heavily influenced by this literary genre.

The Mythology of Odyssey
http://www.pbs.org/odyssey/odyssey/20040723_log_transcript.html
This is an audio report from the research vessel Odyssey and describes the origins and setting of Homer’s poem, for which this ship was named.