epos: Definition from Answers.com

Epic poetry, while broadly covering long heroic poems which recount legendary or historical narratives of national importance, has in fact meant very different things over the centuries in France. Central to literary production in the high Middle Ages, it continued to enjoy great critical prestige in later centuries, even though the numerous epic efforts of French writers since the Renaissance have for the most part failed to win a place in the canon. Only in the 20th c., dominated by the novel, has the epic ceased to attract poets.

The earliest mention of epic poetry in France comes in Einhard's Vita Karoli (9th c.), in which we learn that Charlemagne ordered ancestral songs of the Franks to be collected. These were presumably oral compositions in Frankish, and provided one stream leading to the great flowering of chansons de geste in the 12th and 13th c. By the end of the Middle Ages these poems had undergone considerable influence from the romance, whose themes and narrative techniques were adopted and grafted onto subjects drawn from the traditional stock relating to Carolingian or Merovingian times, to the Crusades, or to ancient Greece and Rome through the influence of the romans d'antiquité. The surface form of the chansons de geste was preserved, although rhyme had replaced assonance in the laisse and the standard line was now the alexandrine rather than the decasyllable.

Originally a communal literature, epic had become the province of individual poets like Bertrand de Bar-sur-Aube and Bodel as early as the 12th c., and, under the increasing influence of humanistic thought in the 15th and 16th c., it came to be seen as the pinnacle of achievement to be aimed at by poets. The models adopted were Virgil, Statius, and to a lesser extent Homer. In his Franciade Ronsard elaborated a legend first propounded in Fredegarius's history of the Franks (7th c.) in providing a Trojan ancestry for the kings of France. Despite some moments of poetic grandeur the academic sterility of the thematic conception led to the poem's failure as an epic model. Les Tragiques by Agrippa d' Aubigné could not provide a model for future generations either, but its firm rooting in the personal experience, and prejudices, of its Protestant author during the Wars of Religion give the poem an immediacy and power lacking in Ronsard's erudite imitation of antiquity. Du Bartas's Semaines, while not epic poems in the traditional sense of the word, were perhaps the most influential long French poems of the period; they had a powerful impact on English poets from Spenser to Milton.

While the 17th c. did not abandon Greco-Roman models and themes, the inspiration of Tasso and the resurgence of a sense of national identity and cultural self-confidence, especially in the second half of the century, led to the reawakening of interest in great figures of the French Middle Ages. This produced poems on Clovis (by Desmarets, Clovis ou la France chrétienne, 1657), St Louis (by Le Moyne, Saint Louis ou la Sainte Couronne reconquise, 1653), and Charlemagne (by Le Laboureur, Charlemagne 1664, and by Nicolas Courtin, Charlemagne ou le Rétablissement de l'empire romain, 1666, and Charlemagne pénitent, 1687). These tend to be of chronicle inspiration, with unwieldy rambling plots; Desmarets seeks essentially to provide a model of Christian kingship for the young Louis XIV, while Le Laboureur and Courtin, in his first poem, present the career of the first Holy Roman Emperor in the colours of a national hero and popular saint. Courtin's second poem, which may reflect changing attitudes at Louis XIV's court, if not intended as a ‘mirror of the prince’, makes Charlemagne's soul the battleground between mere imperial glory (represented by the devil) and self-domination (represented by St James of Compostela). Le Moyne's poem, although marred like its contemporaries by a weight of digressions, achieves a certain breadth of inspiration by drawing not only on national historiography, but also on Tasso's vision of the crusade and on native epic and romance traditions. The 17th c. also saw a plethora of moralistic poems combining Old Testament subjects (Susanna and the Elders, Judith and Holofernes, Saul and David, the Creation) with classical models.

The 18th c. produced only one epic of note, Voltaire's La Henriade, a belated treatment to add to the many contemporary eulogies of the king of Navarre, which presents Henri IV as an enlightened enemy of l'infâme. The 19th c. took its premisses for writing epic poetry from a different source from that in vogue from the 16th to 18th c. The rise of Romanticism in Germany in the late 18th c. had renewed interest in Volksepos as an expression of national identity, and the work of Herder and Diez was soon communicated to France. The great epics of antiquity, and the freshly rediscovered epics of the Middle Ages, were considered to be the result of compilation and polishing by learned poets of short songs produced more or less spontaneously by participants in the events recounted. This provided Romantic poets with a new method of structuring epics by thematic groupings of shorter, more intense poems, enabling them to recapture the lyric aspect of epic lost since the mid-12th c. Along with the rediscovery of the Middle Ages proper came a renewed appreciation of Renaissance and early Baroque literature, which was often confused with the medieval.

A blend of mysticism and humanism (drawn from Dante, Petrarch, and Shakespeare) and the politico-philosophic legacy of Rousseau mark all attempts at epic in the Romantic period. Lamartine conceived a monumental epic of humanity, Visions, in 1821. The project was never completed, but elements of it were absorbed into other works, like the 12, 000 line ‘fragment’ La Chute d'un ange (1838-40) and the ‘episode’ Jocelyn (1836). The former deals with the conflict between humanity and barbarism and the role of civilization in human development, ending rather pessimistically with the Flood; the latter, much more optimistic, mixes an idyll of human love with the ascetic renunciation required by divine love, both of which are superseded in an appeal to transcendent humanism. Jocelyn is notable for its explicit mix of narrative and lyric forms. Vigny's Poèmes antiques et modernes (1826) and Les Destinées (1864) are thematic constellations of poems dealing with the relationship of man to nature, the conflict of humanity and barbarism, and the common heroism of all sentient creatures faced with the inimical fate imposed by a jealous God. Hugo's La Légende des siècles, produced in three series (1859, 1877, 1883) with its two posthumous companion poems, La Fin de Satan (1886) and Dieu (1891), treats similar themes on a broader canvas, taking in universal history, but concentrating on medieval and Revolutionary France. In all of these poems the sense of individual or communal heroic struggle against physical odds typical of early epic is lost in the purely transcendental conflict of Good and Evil. It is perhaps in the novels of the period, particularly in those of Balzac and Hugo, that this essential aspect of epic is best captured.

[Philip Bennett]

Bibliography

R. A. Sayce, The French Biblical Epic in the Seventeenth Century (1955)
D. Maskell, The Historical Epic in France, 1500-1700 (1973)
W. Calin, A Muse for Heroes (1983)

For other meanings of epic, see Epic.

Tablet containing a fragment of the Epic of Gilgamesh

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An epic (from Greek: έπος or επικό "word, story, poem"^[1]) is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation.^[2] Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form. Nonetheless, epics have been written down at least since Homer, and the works of Vyasa, Virgil, Dante Alighieri and John Milton would be unlikely to have survived without being written down. The first epics are known as primary, or original, epics. Epics that attempt to imitate these like Virgil's Aeneid and Milton's Paradise Lost are known as literary, or secondary, epics. One such epic is the Anglo-Saxon story Beowulf.^[3] Another type of epic poetry is epyllion (plural: epyllia) which is a brief narrative poem with a romantic or mythological theme. The term, which means 'little epic', came in use in the nineteenth century. It refers primarily to the type of erotic and mythological long elegy of which Ovid remains the master; to a lesser degree, the term includes some poems of the English Renaissance, particularly those influenced by Ovid. One suggested example of classical epyllion may be seen in the story of Nisus and Euryalus in Book IX of Aeneid.

1 Oral epics or world folk epics
2 Notable epic poems
3 Other epics
4 References
5 See also
6 Notes
7 External links
8 Bibliography

Oral epics or world folk epics

The first epics were products of preliterate societies and oral poetic traditions. In these traditions, poetry is transmitted to the audience and from performer to performer by purely oral means.

Early twentieth-century study 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 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 showed that the most likely source for written texts of the epics of Homer was dictation from an oral performance.

Epic: a long narrative poem in elevated stature 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.

Epics have nine main characteristics:

opens in media res.
The setting is vast, covering many nations, the world or the universe.
begins with an invocation to a muse.
starts with a statement of the theme.
the use of epithets.
includes long lists.
features long and formal speeches.
shows divine intervention on human affairs.
"Star" heroes that embody the values of the civilization.

The hero generally participates in a cyclical journey or quest, faces adversaries that try to defeat him in his journey and returns home significantly transformed by his journey. The epic hero illustrates traits, performs deeds, and exemplifies certain morals that are valued by the society from which the epic originates. Many epic heroes are recurring characters in the legends of their native culture.

Conventions of epics:

Praepositio: Opens by stating the theme or cause of the epic. This may take the form of a purpose (as in Milton, who proposed "to justify the ways of God to men"); of a question (as in the Iliad, where Homer asks the Muse which god it was who caused the war); or of a situation (as in the Song of Roland, with Charlemagne in Spain).
Invocation: Writer invokes a Muse, one of the nine daughters of Zeus. The poet prays to the Muses to provide him with divine inspiration to tell the story of a great hero. (This convention is obviously restricted to cultures which were influenced by European Classical culture: the Epic of Gilgamesh, for example, or the Bhagavata Purana would obviously not contain this element)
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.
Enumeratio: Catalogues and genealogies are given. These long lists of objects, places, and people place the finite action of the epic within a broader, universal context. Often, the poet is also paying homage to the ancestors of audience members.
Epithet: Heavy use of repetition or stock phrases: e.g., Homer's "rosy-fingered dawn" and "wine-dark sea."

Literate societies have often copied the epic format; the earliest European examples of which the text survives are the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes and Virgil's Aeneid, which follow both the style and subject matter of Homer. Other obvious examples are Nonnus' Dionysiaca, Tulsidas' Sri Ramacharit Manas.

Notable epic poems

The first page of the Beowulf manuscript

This list can be compared with two others, national epic and list of world folk-epics.^[4]

Ancient epics (to 500)

20th to 18th century BC:
- Epic of Gilgamesh (Mesopotamian mythology)
- Atrahasis (Mesopotamian mythology)
8th to 6th century BC:
- Enuma Elish (Babylonian mythology)
- Iliad, ascribed to Homer (Greek mythology)
- Odyssey, ascribed to Homer (Greek mythology)
- Works and Days, ascribed to Hesiod (Greek mythology)
- Theogony, ascribed to Hesiod (Greek mythology)
5th to 4th century BC:
- Mahābhārata, ascribed to Vyasa (Hindu mythology) (5th to 1st century BC)
- Ramayana, ascribed to Valmiki (Hindu mythology) (5th century BC to 4th century AD)
- The Book of Job
3rd century BC:
- Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes
1st century BC:
- Aeneid by Virgil (Latin mythology)
- De rerum natura by Lucretius (Epicurean philosophy)
1st century AD:
- Metamorphoses by Ovid (Latin mythology)
- Pharsalia by Lucan (Roman history)
- Punica by Silius Italicus (Roman history)
- Argonautica by Gaius Valerius Flaccus (Greek mythology)
- Thebaid and Achilleid by Statius (Greek mythology)
2nd century:
- Buddhacarita by Aśvaghoṣa (Indian epic poetry)
- Saundaranandakavya by Aśvaghoṣa (Indian epic poetry)
2nd to 5th century:
- The Five Great Epics of Tamil Literature:
  - Silappadikaram by Prince Ilango Adigal
  - Manimekalai by Seethalai Saathanar
  - Civaka Cintamani by Tirutakakatevar
  - Kundalakesi by a Buddhist poet
  - Valayapati by a Jaina poet
3rd to 4th century:
- Posthomerica by Quintus of Smyrna
4th century:
- Evangeliorum libri by Juvencus
- Kumārasambhava by Kālidāsa (Indian epic poetry)
- Raghuvamsa by Kālidāsa (Indian epic poetry)
- De Raptu Proserpinae by Claudian
5th century:
- Dionysiaca by Nonnus

5th to 6th century:
- Argonautica Orphica by Orpheus

Medieval epics (500-1500)

7th century:
- Táin Bó Cúailnge^{[citation needed]}
8th to 10th century:
- Bhaṭṭikāvya, Sanskrit courtly epic based on the Rāmāyaṇa and the Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini.
- Beowulf
- Waldere, Old English version of the story told in Waltharius (below), known only as a brief fragment
- David of Sasun (Armenian language)
9th century:
- Bhagavata Purana (Sanskrit "Stories of the Lord") written from earlier sources
10th century:
- Shahnameh (Persian literature; epic poem detailing Persian legend and history from prehistoric times to the fall of the Sassanid Empire)
- One Thousand and One Nights (Middle Eastern epic; prose and poetry, originally it is Persian)
- Waltharius by Ekkehard of St. Gall, Latin version of the story of Walter of Aquitaine
- The Battle of Maldon, brief Old English epic describing a recent battle
11th century:
- Taghribat Bani Hilal (Arabic epic literature)
- Ruodlieb, Latin epic by a German author
- Digenis Akritas (Byzantine epic poem)
- The Song of Roland
- Epic of King Gesar (Tibetan epic; compiled from earlier sources)
- Epic of Manas (Kyrgyz epic, possibly later)
12th century:
- The Knight in the Panther Skin by Shota Rustaveli
- Alexandreis, Latin epic by Walter of Châtillon
- De bello Troiano and the lost Antiocheis by Joseph of Exeter
- Carmen de Prodicione Guenonis (Latin version of the story of the Song of Roland)
- Architrenius, satirical Latin epic by John of Hauville
- Liber ad honorem Augusti by Peter of Eboli, Latin narrative of the conquest of Sicily by Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor
- The Tale of Igor's Campaign and Bylinas (XI-XIX c.)
13th century:
- Antar (Arabic epic literature)
- Nibelungenlied (Germanic mythology)
- Brut by Layamon
- Chanson de la Croisade Albigeoise ("Song of the Albigensian Crusade"; Occitan)
- Sirat al-Zahir Baibars (Arabic epic literature)
- Epic of Sundiata
- El Cantar de Mio Cid, Spanish epic of the Reconquista
- De triumphis ecclesiae, Latin literary epic by Johannes de Garlandia
- Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach
- The Secret History of the Mongols
14th century:
- Confessio Amantis by John Gower (c. 1350)
- Cursor Mundi by an anonymous cleric (c. 1300)
- Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy) by Dante Alighieri
- Africa, Latin literary epic by Petrarch
- The Tale of the Heike (Japanese epic war tale)
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Anonymous (c. 1390)
15th century:
- Alliterative Morte Arthure
- Orlando innamorato by Matteo Maria Boiardo (1495)
- Shmuel-Bukh (Old Yiddish chivalry romance based on the Biblical book of Samuel
- Mlokhim-Bukh (Old Yiddish epic poem based on the Biblical Books of Kings)

Modern epics (from 1500)

16th century:
- Orlando furioso by Ludovico Ariosto (1516)
- Os Lusíadas by Luís de Camões (c.1555)
- La Araucana by Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga (1569-1589)
- La Gerusalemme liberata by Torquato Tasso (1575)
- Ramacharitamanasa (based on the Ramayana) by Goswami Tulsidas (1577)
- Lepanto by King James VI of Scotland (1591)
- Matilda by Michael Drayton (1594)
- The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser (1596)
17th century:
- The Barons' Wars by Michael Drayton (1603; early version 1596 entitled Mortimeriados)
- The Purple Island by Phineas Fletcher (1633)
- Szigeti veszedelem, also known under the Latin title Obsidionis Szigetianae, a Hungarian epic by Miklós Zrínyi (1651)
- Davideis by Abraham Cowley (c. 1668)
- Paradise Lost by John Milton (1667)
- Paradise Regained by John Milton (1671)
- Wojna chocimska by Wacław Potocki (1672)
- Prince Arthur by Richard Blackmore (1695)
- King Arthur by Richard Blackmore (1697)
18th century:
- Eliza by Richard Blackmore (1705)
- Columbus by Ubertino Carrara (1714)
- Redemption by Richard Blackmore (1722)
- Henriade by Voltaire (1723)
- La Pucelle d'Orléans by Voltaire (1756)
- Alfred by Richard Blackmore (1723)
- Utendi wa Tambuka by Bwana Mwengo (1728)
- Leonidas by Richard Glover (1737)
- Epigoniad by William Wilkie (1757)
- The Highlander; by James Macpherson (1758)
- The Works of Ossian by James MacPherson (1765)
- O Uraguai by Basílio da Gama (1769)
- Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire** by Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill (1773)
- Der Messias by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1773)
- Rossiada by Mikhail Matveyevich Kheraskov (1771-1779)
- Vladimir by Mikhail Matveyevich Kheraskov (1785)
- Athenaid by Richard Glover (1787)
- Joan of Arc by Robert Southey (1796)
19th century:
- The Tale of Kiều by Nguyễn Du (1800?)
- Thalaba the Destroyer by Robert Southey (1801)
- The Lay of the Last Minstrel by Walter Scott (1805)
- Madoc by Robert Southey (1805)
- Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (part 1 1806, part 2 c. 1833)
- Columbiad by Joel Barlow (1807)
- Milton: a Poem by William Blake (1804-1810)
- Marmion (poem) by Walter Scott (1808)
- The Lady of the Lake (poem) by Walter Scott (1810)
- The Vision of Don Roderick by Walter Scott (1811)
- The Curse of Kehama by Robert Southey (1810)
- Rokeby and The Bridal of Triermain by Walter Scott (1813)
- Queen Mab (poem) by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1813)
- Roderick, the Last of the Goths by Robert Southey (1814)
- The Lord of the Isles by Walter Scott (1813)
- Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1815)
- The Revolt of Islam (Laon and Cyntha) by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1817)
- Harold the Dauntless by Walter Scott (1817)
- Endymion, (1818) by John Keats
- The Battle of Marathon by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1820)
- Hyperion, (1818), and The Fall of Hyperion, (1819) by John Keats
- L'Orléanide, Poème national en vingt-huit chants, by Philippe-Alexandre Le Brun de Charmettes (1821)
- Don Juan by Lord Byron (1824)
- Prometheus Bound by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1833)
- Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz (1834)
- The Seraphim by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1838)
- Smrt Smail-age Čengića by Ivan Mažuranić (1846)
- Evangeline by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1847)
- Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot (1849 Finnish mythology)
- Kalevipoeg by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald (1853 Estonian mythology)
- The Prelude by William Wordsworth
- The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1855)
- La Fin de Satan by Victor Hugo (written between 1855 and 1860, published in 1886)
- La Légende des Siècles (The Legend of the Centuries) by Victor Hugo (1859-1877)
- Martín Fierro by José Hernández (1872)
- Clarel by Herman Melville (1876)
- The City of Dreadful Night by James Thomson (B.V.) (finished in 1874, published in 1880)
- Idylls of the King by Alfred Lord Tennyson (c. 1874)
- Eros and Psyche by Robert Bridges (1885)
- Canigó by Jacint Verdaguer (1886)
- Lāčplēsis ('The Bear-Slayer') by Andrejs Pumpurs (1888; Latvian Mythology)
- The Wanderings of Oisin by William Butler Yeats (1889)
20th century:
- Lahuta e Malcís by Gjergj Fishta (composed 1902-1937)
- The Ballad of the White Horse by G. K. Chesterton (1911)
- Mensagem by Fernando Pessoa
- The Hashish-Eater; Or, The Apocalypse of Evil by Clark Ashton Smith (1920)
- Kurukshetra(1946), Rashmirathi(1952), Urvashi (1961), Hunkar (epic poem) by Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar'
- Savitri by Aurobindo Ghose (1950)
- Astronautilía-Hvězdoplavba by Jan Křesadlo
- The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel by Nikos Kazantzakis (Greek verse, composed 1924-1938)
- The Cantos by Ezra Pound (composed 1915-1969)
- Dymer by C. S. Lewis (1926)
- A Cycle of the West by John Neihardt (composed 1921-1949)
- "A" by Louis Zukofsky (composed 1928-1968)
- Paterson by William Carlos Williams (composed c.1940-1961)
- Victory for the Slain by Hugh John Lofting (1942)
- The Maximus Poems by Charles Olson (composed 1950-1970)
- Aniara by Harry Martinson (composed 1956)
- Libretto for the Republic of Liberia by Melvin B. Tolson (1953)
- Mountains and Rivers Without End by Gary Snyder (composed 1965-1996)
- The Changing Light at Sandover by James Merrill (composed 1976-1982)
- Genesis: An Epic Poem by Frederick Turner (1988)
- Omeros by Derek Walcott (1990)
- The Levant by Mircea Cărtărescu (1990)
- The Descent of Alette by Alice Notley (1996)
- Overlord: The Triumph of Light 1944-45 by Nicholas Hagger (1995-7)
- Cheikh Anta Diop: Poem for the Living by Mwatabu S. Okantah (1997)
- The Dream of Norumbega: Epic on the U.S. by James Wm. Chichetto (c. 1990; p. 2000- )
- Armageddon: The Triumph of Universal Order by Nicholas Hagger (to be published September 2010)

Other epics

The Anathemata by David Jones (1952)
The Adagios Quartet by Judith Fitzgerald (poetry 1999-2009)
Canto general by Pablo Neruda
Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot
Der Ring des Nibelungen by Richard Wagner (opera)
Parsifal by Richard Wagner (opera)
Fredy Neptune: A Novel in Verse by Les Murray

References

Notes

^ http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=epic
^ Michael Meyer, The Bedford Introduction to Literature, Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005, p2128. ISBN 0-312-41242-8
^ "epic". The Columbia Encyclopedia (6 ed.). New York: Columbia University Press. 2004.
^ According to that article, world folk epics are those which are not just literary masterpieces but also an integral part of the world view of a people, originally oral, later written down by one or several authors.

External links

Clay Sanskrit Library publishes classical Indian literature, including the Mahabharata and Ramayana, with facing-page text and translation. Also offers searchable corpus and downloadable materials.
Humanities Index has notes on epic poetry.
World of Dante Multimedia website that offers Italian text of Divine Comedy, Allen Mandelbaum's translation, gallery, interactive maps, timeline, musical recordings, and searchable database for students and teachers.

Bibliography

Jan de Vries: Heroic Song and Heroic Legend ISBN 0-405-10566-5
Cornel Heinsdorff: Christus, Nikodemus und die Samaritanerin bei Juvencus. Mit einem Anhang zur lateinischen Evangelienvorlage, Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte 67, Berlin/New York 2003, ISBN 3-11-017851-6
Fallon, Oliver. Bhatti’s Poem: The Death of Rávana (Bhaṭṭikāvya). New York 2009: Clay Sanskrit Library, [4]. ISBN 978-0-8147-2778-2, ISBN 0-8147-2778-6

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epos

Contents

Oral epics or world folk epics

Notable epic poems

Ancient epics (to 500)

Medieval epics (500-1500)

Modern epics (from 1500)

Other epics

References

See also

Notes

External links

Bibliography