Definition of Epic?
According to Webster’s New World Dictionary, “epic is a long narrative poem in a dignified style about the deeds of a traditional or historical hero or heroes; typically a poem like Iliad or the Odyssey with certain formal characteristics.” An epic is much like a ballad in all its features. However, its length is one thing that differentiates the epic from the ballad. An epic is a long narrative in verse, while a ballad is a short story in verse.
Ø The word “epic” comes from the ancient Greek term “epos,” which means “story, word, poem.”
Ø At least loosely based on historical or quasi-historical characters or events or characters.
Characteristics:
Ø The hero is outstanding. They might be important, and historically or legendarily significant.
Ø The setting is large. It covers many nations or the known world.
Ø The action is made of deeds of great valour or requiring superhuman courage.
Ø Supernatural forces—gods, angels, demons—insert themselves into action.
Ø It is written in a very special style (verse as opposed to prose).
Ø The poet tries to remain objective.
Ø Epic poems are believed to be supernatural and real by the hero and the villain
Ø Contains third-person narration and an omniscient narrator
Ø Invocation: The poet prays to the Muses to provide divine inspiration to tell the great story.
Ø Set in a mythologized distant time, traditionally in the past.
Ø In medias res: Narrative opens in medias res, or in the middle of things, usually with the hero at his lowest point. Usually flashbacks show earlier portions of the story.
Ø Bulky in size.
Ø Morality: focuses on moral order
Ø Often of oral origin.
Ø Epic simile
Ø Glorification of justice and peace.
Ø Feasts and revels
Ø An Mighty battles
Ø Long speeches
Ø Epithets
Ø Heroic verse: The meter used for epic poetry. For the Classical writers it was the dactylic hexameter. In England, the unrhymed pentameter line was commonly used, as in Paradise Lost, or the heroic couplet
Ø Hexameter: ‘of six feet’) A metrical line of six feet. In Greek and Latin verse it is often dactylic, especially in epic (q.v.). Often the first four feet were spondees, the fifth a dactyl and the last a spondee.
Ø Canto: A subdivision of an epic or narrative poem; comparable to a chapter in a novel.
Primary epic is also known as oral, primitive or folk epic
® Anonymous: Authorship is unknown
® Passed from generation to generation
® Primary epic belongs to oral tradition. It is composed orally and recited. In some cases, it is written down later.
® Beowulf", and "Iliad", are examples of primary epic
Secondary epic is also known as literary epic.
® Secondary epic is written down at the start.
® Authorship is known.
® "Paradise Lost" is an example of a secondary epic.
Epic simile, also called Homeric simile, is an extended simile often running to several lines, used typically in epic poetry to intensify the heroic stature of the subject and to serve as decoration
History of Epic
Ø Gilgamesh, the Sumerian epic (c. 3,000 bc), is the earliest extant work in the oral tradition. It recounts the adventures of the king of that name and his search for glory and eternal life. Next, come the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey (c. 800 bc), whose heroes are Achilles and Odysseus respectively. The Iliad recounts the story of the war between the Greeks and the Trojans; the Odyssey relates the adventures of Odysseus during his return from the Trojan war to his island home in Ithaca. Beowulf (from roughly the 10th c., though it was probably composed some two hundred years earlier) narrates the exploits of a legendary Geatish hero who first rids the Danish kingdom of Hrothgar of two demonic monsters, Grendel and his mother, and then slays a dragon.
Ø Faerie Queene brings to an end the tradition of the epic of chivalry, Paradise Lost, which Milton began composing in 1658 but which was not published until 1667, is often considered the last major epic.
The Mock Epic
Definition:
A Mock-epic is a small narrative poem in which the machinery and conventions of epic proper are employed in the treatment of trivial themes, and in this way, it becomes a parody or burlesque of the epic. A mocking, ridiculous effect is created when the grandiloquent epic style and epic- conventions are used for a theme that is essentially trivial and insignificant.
It contains epic structure, tone, and even diction but applies minor subject matter. In a mock-heroic poem, trivial things and incidents are presented in a heroic manner. Which are just the opposite of the heroic. Alexander Pope's The Rape of The Lock
What is Beast Epic?
Beast epic: An allegorical tale, often, but by no means always, long, in which animals are characters and in which the style is pseudo-epic. The 1st c. collection of Latin fables made by Phaedrus was, after Aesop, the source and inspiration of a very large number of fables in European literature. The prototypal beast epic is almost certainly Roman de Renart, composed late in the 12th c. by Pierre de Saint-Cloud. The first episode is the Chanticleer story later used by Chaucer in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale (c. 1395). Spenser continued the tradition in Mother Hubbard’s Tale (1590). Goethe used it in his Reineke Fuchs (1794). The intention of this form was often satirical, like many fables. Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945) is in the same tradition.
What is Epic Cycle?
The term ‘epic cycle was first used by the Alexandrine grammarians to describe a group of epic poems which, by c. 800 bc, had grown up in Cycle connection with the battle for Troy. The individual epics, in some cases fairly short ballads, were elaborated and eventually joined with others to form an epic cycle. The result we now know as Homer’s Iliad.
What is Question Epic?
Question, epic: A device in epic poetry by which the poet invokes the aid of a muse, patroness or superior power to explain what has happened. Milton uses it to considerable effect at the beginning of Books I, VII and IX of Paradise Lost.
