Semester 1
MJ 1 notes
Table of Contents
Epic
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.
Epic, long narrative poem recounting heroic deeds, although the term has also been loosely used to describe novels, such as Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and motion pictures, such as Sergey Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible. In literary usage, the term encompasses both oral and written compositions. The prime examples of the oral epic are Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.
There are many genres of epic and various mediums that have adopted such genres, including:
Epic film
encompasses historical epics, religious epics, and western epics.
However, such commonly been broken further into subgenres,
Female epic: examines ways in which female authors have adapted the masculine epic tradition to express their own heroic visions.
Chivalric epics from the Middle Ages.
National epics.
Real-life stories of heroic figures have also been referred to as being epic. For example, Ernest Shackleton’s exploration adventures in Antarctica.
List of some important examples of Epic poems:-
1. Anonymous, Epic of Gilgamesh.
2. Homer, The Iliad.
3. Homer, The Odyssey.
4. Apollonius of Rhodes, The Argonautica.
5. Virgil, The Aeneid.
6. Anonymous, Beowulf.
7. Dante, The Divine Comedy.
8. Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene.
9. John Milton, Paradise Lost.
10. Ezra Pound, The Cantos.
