In poetry, an epic is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants.
Influential epics that have shaped Western literature and Western culture include Homer's Iliad and Odyssey; Virgil's Aeneid; and the anonymous Beowulf and Epic of Gilgamesh. The genre has inspired the adjective as well as derivative works in other mediums (such as epic films) that evoke or emulate the characteristics of epics.
Etymology
The English word
epic comes from
Latin epicus, which itself comes from the
Ancient Greek adjective epikos (ἐπικός), from epos (ἔπος),
'word, story, poem'.
In Ancient Greek, 'epic' could refer to all poetry in dactylic hexameter (), which included not only Homer but also the wisdom poetry of Hesiod, the utterances of the Delphic oracle, and the strange theological verses attributed to Orpheus. Later tradition, however, has restricted the term 'epic' to heroic epic, as described in this article.
Overview
Originating before the invention of writing, primary epics, such as those of
Homer, were composed by bards who used complex rhetorical and metrical schemes by which they could memorize the epic as received in tradition and add to the epic in their performances. Later writers like
Virgil, Apollonius of Rhodes,
Dante Alighieri, Camões, and
John Milton adopted and adapted Homer's style and subject matter, but used devices available only to those who write.
The oldest epic recognized is the Epic of Gilgamesh (), which was recorded in ancient Sumer during the Neo-Sumerian Empire. The poem details the exploits of Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk. Although recognized as a historical figure, Gilgamesh, as represented in the epic, is a largely legendary or mythical figure.
The longest written epic from antiquity is the ancient Indian Mahabharata (–3rd century AD),[Austin, p. 21 .] which consists of 100,000 ślokas or over 200,000 verse lines (each shloka is a couplet), as well as long prose passages, so that at ~1.8 million words it is roughly twice the length of Shahnameh, four times the length of the Rāmāyaṇa, and roughly ten times the length of the Iliad and the Odyssey combined.
Famous examples of epic poetry include the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, the ancient Indian Mahabharata and Rāmāyaṇa in Sanskrit and Silappatikaram and Manimekalai in Tamil, the Persian Shahnameh, the Ancient Greek Odyssey and Iliad, Virgil's Aeneid, the Old English Beowulf, Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, the Finnish Kalevala, the German Nibelungenlied, the French Song of Roland, the Spanish Cantar de mio Cid, the Portuguese Os Lusíadas, the Armenian Daredevils of Sassoun, the Old Russian The Tale of Igor's Campaign, John Milton's Paradise Lost, The Secret History of the Mongols, the Kyrgyz Manas, and the Malian Sundiata. Epic poems of the modern era include Derek Walcott's Omeros, Mircea Cărtărescu's The Levant and Adam Mickiewicz's Pan Tadeusz. Paterson by William Carlos Williams, published in five volumes from 1946 to 1958, was inspired in part by another modern epic, The Cantos by Ezra Pound.
Oral epics
The first epics were products of
literacy societies and
oral tradition poetic traditions.
Oral tradition was used alongside written scriptures to communicate and facilitate the spread of culture.
In these traditions, poetry is transmitted to the audience and from performer to performer by purely oral means. Early 20th-century study of living oral epic traditions in the
Balkans by
Milman Parry and
Albert Lord demonstrated the
Parataxis 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 memorization, as the poet is recalling each episode in turn and using the completed episodes to recreate the entire epic as he performs it. Parry and Lord also contend that the most likely source for written texts of the epics of
Homer was dictation from an oral performance.
Milman Parry and Albert Lord have argued that the Homeric epics, the earliest works of Western literature, were fundamentally an oral poetic form. These works form the basis of the epic genre in Western literature. Nearly all of Western epic (including Virgil's Aeneid and Dante's Divine Comedy) self-consciously presents itself as a continuation of the tradition begun by these poems.
Composition and conventions
In his work
Poetics, Aristotle defines an epic as one of the forms of poetry, contrasted with
lyric poetry and drama (in the form of tragedy and comedy).
[ Aristotle: Poetics, translated with an introduction and notes by Malcolm Heath, (Penguin) London 1996.]
- Epic poetry agrees with Tragedy in so far as it is an imitation in verse of characters of a higher type. They differ in that Epic poetry admits but one kind of meter and is narrative in form. They differ, again, in their length: for Tragedy endeavors, as far as possible, to confine itself to a single revolution of the sun, or but slightly to exceed this limit, whereas the Epic action has no limits of time. This, then, is a second point of difference; though at first the same freedom was admitted in Tragedy as in Epic poetry.
- Of their constituent parts some are common to both, some peculiar to Tragedy: whoever, therefore knows what is good or bad Tragedy, knows also about Epic poetry. All the elements of an Epic poem are found in Tragedy, but the elements of a Tragedy are not all found in the Epic poem. – Aristotle, Poetics Part V
Harmon & Holman (1999) define an epic:
- Epic
- A long narrative poem in elevated style presenting characters of high position in adventures forming an organic whole through their relation to a central heroic figure and through their development of episodes important to the history of a nation or race.
- :: — Harmon & Holman (1999)
Harmon and Holman delineate ten main characteristics of an epic:
-
Begins in medias res ("in the thick of things").
-
The setting is vast, covering many nations, the world or the universe.
-
Begins with an invocation to a muse (epic invocation).
-
Begins with a statement of the theme.
-
Includes the use of epithets.
-
Contains long lists, called an epic catalogue.
-
Features long and formal speeches.
-
Shows divine intervention in human affairs.
-
Features heroes that embody the values of the civilization.
-
Often features the tragic hero's descent into the underworld or hell.
The hero generally participates in a cyclical journey or quest, faces adversaries that try to defeat them in their journey, and returns home significantly transformed by their journey. The epic hero illustrates traits, performs deeds, and exemplifies certain morals that are valued by the society the epic originates from. Many epic heroes are recurring characters in the legends of their native cultures.
Conventions of the Indian Epic
In the Indian mahākāvya epic genre, more emphasis was laid on description than on narration. Indeed, the traditional characteristics of a
mahākāvya are listed as:
-
It must take its subject matter from the epics ( Ramayana or Mahabharata), or from history,
-
It must help further the four goals of man (purusharthas),
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It must contain descriptions of cities, seas, mountains, moonrise and sunrise, and accounts of merrymaking in gardens, of bathing parties, drinking bouts, and love-making.
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It should tell the sorrow of separated lovers and should describe a wedding and the birth of a son.
-
It should describe a king's council, an embassy, the marching forth of an army, a battle, and the victory of a hero.
Themes
Classical epic poetry recounts a journey, either physical (as typified by Odysseus in the
Odyssey) or mental (as typified by Achilles in the
Iliad) or both.
Epics also tend to highlight cultural norms and to define or call into question cultural values, particularly as they pertain to
heroism.
Conventions
Proem
In the
proem or preface, the poet may begin by invoking a
Muse or similar divinity. The poet prays to the Muses to provide them with divine inspiration to tell the story of a great hero.
Example opening lines with invocations:
- Sing goddess the baneful wrath of Achilles son of Peleus – Iliad 1.1
- Muse, tell me in verse of the man of many wiles – Odyssey 1.1
- From the Heliconian Muses let us begin to sing – Hesiod, Theogony 1.1
- Beginning with thee, Oh Phoebus, I will recount the famous deeds of men of old – Argonautica 1.1
- Muse, remember to me the causes – Aeneid 1.8
- Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top
- of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire – Paradise Lost 1.6–7
An alternative or complementary form of proem, found in Virgil and his imitators, opens with the performative verb "I sing". Examples:
- I sing arms and the man – Aeneid 1.1
- I sing pious arms and their captain – Gerusalemme liberata 1.1
- I sing ladies, knights, arms, loves, courtesies, audacious deeds – Orlando Furioso 1.1–2
This Virgilian epic convention is referenced in Walt Whitman's poem title / opening line "I sing the body electric".
Compare the first six lines of the Kalevala:
- Mastered by desire impulsive,
- By a mighty inward urging,
- I am ready now for singing,
- Ready to begin the chanting
- Of our nation's ancient folk-song
- Handed down from by-gone ages.
These conventions are largely restricted to European classical culture and its imitators. The Epic of Gilgamesh, for example, or the Bhagavata Purana do not contain such elements, nor do early medieval Western epics that are not strongly shaped by the classical traditions, such as the Chanson de Roland or the Poem of the Cid.
In medias res
Narrative opens "in the middle of things", with the hero at his lowest point. Usually flashbacks show earlier portions of the story. For example, the
Iliad does not tell the entire story of the Trojan War, starting with the judgment of Paris, but instead opens abruptly on the rage of Achilles and its immediate causes. So, too,
Orlando Furioso is not a complete biography of Roland, but picks up from the plot of
Orlando Innamorato, which in turn presupposes a knowledge of the romance and
.
Enumeratio
and genealogies are given, called
enumeratio. These long lists of objects, places, and people place the finite action of the epic within a broader, universal context, such as the catalog of ships. Often, the poet is also paying homage to the ancestors of audience members. Examples:
-
In The Faerie Queene, the list of trees I.i.8–9.
-
In Paradise Lost, the list of demons in Book I.
-
In the Aeneid, the list of enemies the Trojans find in Etruria (Central Italy) in Book VII. Also, the list of ships in Book X.
-
In the Iliad,
Stylistic features
In the Homeric and post-Homeric tradition, epic style is typically achieved through the use of the following stylistic features:
-
Heavy use of repetition or stock phrases: e.g., Homer's "rosy-fingered dawn" and "wine-dark sea".
-
Homeric simile
Form
Many verse forms have been used in epic poems through the ages, but each language's literature typically gravitates to one form, or at least to a very limited set.
Ancient Sumerian epic poems did not use any kind of poetic meter and lines did not have consistent lengths;
Dactylic hexameter has been adapted by a few anglophone poets such as Longfellow in "Evangeline", whose first line is as follows:
- This is the | forest pri | meval. The | murmuring | pines and the | hemlocks
Old English, German and Norse poems were written in alliterative verse,
While the above classical and Germanic forms would be considered stichic, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese long poems favored forms, usually written in terza rima
In ottava rima, each stanza consists of three alternate rhymes and one double rhyme, following the ABABABCC rhyme scheme. Example:
From the 14th century English epic poems were written in ,
Baltic Finns (e.g. Estonian, Finnish, Karelian) folk poetry uses a form of trochaic tetrameter that has been called the Kalevala meter. The Finnish and Estonian national epics, Kalevala and Kalevipoeg, are both written in this meter. The meter is thought to have originated during the Finnic languages period.
In Indic epics such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata, the shloka form is used.
Genres and related forms
The primary form of epic, especially as discussed in this article, is the
heroic epic, including such works as the
Iliad and
Mahabharata. Ancient sources also recognized
didactic poetry as a category, represented by such works as
Hesiod's
Works and Days and Lucretius's
De rerum natura.
A related type of poetry is the epyllion (plural: epyllia), a brief narrative poem with a romantic or Mythology theme. The term, which means "little epic", came into use in the nineteenth century. It refers primarily to the erudite, shorter hexameter poems of the Hellenistic period and the similar works composed at Rome from the age of the ; to a lesser degree, the term includes some poems of the English Renaissance, particularly those influenced by Ovid.
Epyllion is to be understood as distinct from mock epic, another light form.
Romantic epic is a term used to designate works such as Morgante, Orlando Innamorato, Orlando Furioso and Gerusalemme Liberata, which freely lift characters, themes, plots and narrative devices from the world of prose chivalric romance.
Non-European forms
Long poetic narratives that do not fit the traditional European definition of the heroic epic are sometimes known as folk epics. Indian folk epics have been investigated by Lauri Honko (1998),
Brenda Beck (1982)
and John Smith, amongst others. Folk epics are an important part of community identities.
Egypt
The folk genre known as al-sira relates the saga of the Hilālī tribe and their migrations across the Middle East and north Africa, see Bridget Connelly (1986).
India
In India, folk epics reflect the caste system of Indian society and the life of the lower levels of society, such as cobblers and shepherds, see C.N. Ramachandran, "Ambivalence and Angst: A Note on Indian folk epics," in Lauri Honko (2002. p. 295).
Some Indian oral epics feature strong women who actively pursue personal freedom in their choice of a romantic partner (Stuart, Claus, Flueckiger and Wadley, eds, 1989, p. 5).
Japan
Japanese traditional performed narratives were sung by blind singers. One of the most famous, The Tale of the Heike, deals with historical wars and had a ritual function to placate the souls of the dead (Tokita 2015, p. 7).
Africa
A variety of epic forms are found in Africa. Some have a linear, unified style while others have a more cyclical, episodic style (Barber 2007, p. 50).
The best known of African epics is Epic of Sundiata from Mali. Some contemporary scholarship presses against the bifurcation of "epic vs. novel".
[Repinecz, Jonathon. Subversive traditions: Reinventing the West African Epic. Michigan State University Press, 2019.]
There is also the epic of "Kelefaa Saane", "part of the repertoire that maintains the memroy of a legendary warrior prince of Kaabu, a kingdom in the Senegambia area of West Africa, in the nineteenth century".[p. ix, Camara, Sirifo. The Epic of Kelefaa Saane. Indiana University Press, 2010.]
China
People in the rice cultivation zones of south China sang long narrative songs about the origin of rice growing, rebel heroes, and transgressive love affairs (McLaren 2022).
The borderland ethnic populations of China sang heroic epics, such as the Epic of King Gesar of the
Mongols, and the creation-myth epics of the
Yao people of south China.
See also
Footnotes
Bibliography
External links
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"The Epic", BBC Radio 4 discussion with John Carey, Karen Edwards and Oliver Taplin ( In Our Time, 3 February 2003)
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"Epic Poem", Main Features and Conventions of the Epic
