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What does epically mean?

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2011-09-27 21:24:31

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In everyday conversation, "epic" is often slang for superb or excellent. The term is also applied to productions on a large or grandiose scale (novels, movies).

The modern use is a metaphorical extension of its basic meaning, a literary genre consisting of an extended verse narrative. In the Western tradition, the first great epics were Homer's Iliadand Odyssey. The term is also applied to similar narratives in other traditions -- for example, the Indian Mahabharata.Even in literary criticism, one sometimes finds it used for works which do not strictly qualify -- for example, Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself."

Non-literary uses like "epic movie" or "epic event" are common in advertising and occasionally appear even in formal prose.

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2012-04-24 07:54:11
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2015-08-21 06:00:59

In everyday conversation, "epic" is often used loosely to refer to anything big or important or long. All such uses are metaphorical extensions of its basic meaning, in which it denotes a literary genre, an extended verse narrative. In the Western tradition, the first great epics were Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. The term is also applied to similar narratives in other traditions--for example, the Indian Mahabharata. Even in literary criticism, one sometimes finds it used of works which do not strictly qualify--for example, Whitman's "Song of Myself."

Strictly speaking, though the word "Epic" should be restricted to tales which engage multiple generations of characters. The Illiad, e.g. is not epic, whereas The Odyssey is, in that the Illiad is just a war story, told as such, as opposed to Telemachus's search for his father moves it into the Epic catagory.

I would consider Evelyn Waugh's "Sword of Valor" trilogy to be epic, following as it does the death of the father and older sons, the survival of the remaining son, and the adoption of the estranged wife's bastard son

Non-literary uses like "epic movie" or "epic event" are common in advertising and occasionally appear even in formal prose, but it is probably safer to avoid them when writing for English teachers.

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2011-04-22 17:30:04

In everyday conversation, "epic" is often used loosely to refer to anything big or important or long. All such uses are metaphorical extensions of its basic meaning, in which it denotes a literary genre, an extended verse narrative. In the Western tradition, the first great epics were Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. The term is also applied to similar narratives in other traditions--for example, the Indian Mahabharata. Even in literary criticism, one sometimes finds it used of works which do not strictly qualify--for example, Whitman's "Song of Myself."

Non-literary uses like "epic movie" or "epic event" are common in advertising and occasionally appear even in formal prose, but it is probably safer to avoid them when writing for English teachers.

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2014-01-18 16:12:02

The term epicness is somewhat of a grammatically incorrect way to say that something is spectacular or fantastically huge. An example might be "Sharon's new shoes cost a lot of money and they're limited edition, they are epicness"

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