Epic Poetry

The notes in this section cover the two major types of epic: the primary and secondary epics. Also covered are mock epics, epic novels, and epic romances. Epic criticism and theory, in addition to examining several texts and essays about the epic genre, also contain notes about the epic genre in general.

Definition

In its strict use by literary critics, the term epic or heroic poem is applied to a work that meets at least the following criteria: it is a long narrative poem an a great and serious subject, related in an elevated style, and centered on a heroic or quasi-divine figure on whose actions depends the fate of a tribe, a nation, or the human race. The "traditional epics" (also called "primary epics" or "folk epics") were shaped by a literary artist from historical and legendary materials which had developed in the oral traditions of his nation during a period of expansion and warfare. To this group are ascribed the Iliad and Odyssey of the Greek Homer, and the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf. The "literary" or "secondary" epics were composed by sophisticated craftsmen in deliberate imitation of the traditional form. Of this kind is Virgil's Latin poem the Aeneid, which later served as the chief model for Milton's literary epic Paradise Lost; and Paradise Lost in turn became a model for Keat's fragmentary epic Hyperion, as well as for Blake's several epics, or "prophetic books" (The Four Zoas, Milton, Jerusalem) which undertook to translate into Blake's own mythic terms the biblical design and materials which had served as Milton's subject matter.

Characteristics

The epic was ranked by Aristotle (in his Poetics) as second only to tragedy, and by Renaissance critics as the highest genre of all. The literary epic is certainly the most ambitious of poetic types, making immense demands on a poet’s knowledge, invention, and skill to sustain the scope, grandeur, and variety of a poem that tends to encompass the world of its day and a large portion of its learning. Despite numerous attempts over nearly three-thousand years, we possess no more than a half dozen epic poems of indubitable greatness. Literary epics are highly conventional poems which commonly share the following features, derived ultimately from the traditional epics of Homer:

The hero is a figure of great national or even cosmic importance. In the Iliad, he is the Greek warrior Achilles, who is the son of a Neried, Thetis; and Virgil’s Aeneas is the son of the goddess Aphrodite. In Paradise Lost, Adam represents the entire human race, or if we regard Christ as the hero, he is both God and man. Blake’s primal figure is the "universal man" Albion who incorporates, before his fall, man and god and the cosmos as well.

The setting of the poem is ample in scale, and may be worldwide, or even larger. Odysseus wanders over the Mediterranean basin (the whole of the world known to the author), and in Book XI, he descends into the underworld (as does Virgil’s Aeneas). The scope of Paradise Lost is cosmic, for it takes place on earth, heaven, and in hell.

The action involves superhuman deeds in battle, such as Achilles’ feats in the Trojan War, or a long and arduous journey intrepidly accomplished, such as the wanderings of Odysseus on his way back to his homeland, despite the opposition of some of the gods. Paradise Lost includes the war in heaven, the journey of Satan through chaos to discover the newly created world, and his desperately audacious attempt to outwit God by corrupting humanity, in which his success is ultimately frustrated by the sacrificial enterprise of Christ. And Gilgamesh portrays the eponymous hero’s search for a fountain of youth after the death of his friend, Enkidu.

In these great actions, the gods and other supernatural beings take an interest or an active part — the Olympian gods in Homer, and Jehovah, Christ, and the angels in Paradise Lost. These supernatural agents were in the neoclassic age called the machinery, in the sense that they were a part of the literary contrivances of the epic.

An epic poem is a ceremonial performance and is narrated in a ceremonial style which is deliberately distanced from ordinary speech and proportioned to the grandeur and formality of the heroic subject matter and the epic architecture. Hence Milton's “grand style” — his Latinate diction and stylized syntax, his sonorous lists of names and wide-ranging allusions, and his imitation of Homer's epic similes and epithets. Also the great catalogs of heroes, weaponry, spoils, etc.

Conventions

There are also some commonly adopted conventions in the structure and in the choice of episodes of the epic narrative; prominent among them are these elements:

The narrator begins by stating his argument, or theme, invokes a muse or guiding spirit to inspire him in his great undertaking, then address to the muse the epic question, the answer to which inaugurates the narrative proper (cf. Paradise Lost, I.1-49).

The narrative starts in medias res, i.e., "in the midst of things," at a critical point in the action. Paradise Lost opens with the fallen angels in hell gathering their forces and planning their revenge. Not until Books V-VII does the angel Raphael relate to Adam the events in heaven which led to his situation; while in Books XI-XII, after the fall, Michael foretells to Adam future events up until Christ’s second coming. Thus Milton’s epic, although its action focuses on the temptation and the fall of man, encompasses all time from the creation to the end of the world. In the Iliad, Homer begins with the contention between the Greek champion Achilles and his leader Agamemnon: it is this formal challenge of Agamemnon’s right that precipitates the critical actions in Homer’s epic of war.

There are catalogs of some of the principle characters, introduced in formal detail, as in Milton’s description of the procession of fallen angels in Book I of Paradise Lost. These characters are often given set speeches which reveal their diverse temperaments; an example is the debate in Pandemonium, Book II, and the formal debate among the aristoi in book one of the Iliad.

Classifications

The Iliad is a menis, or a song of wrath.

The Odyssey begins the tradition of the epic of return, or nostos. The story of the romance of a hero escaping incredible perils and arriving in the nick of time to reclaim his bride — a master of the house coming back to reclaim his own.

The Aeneid develops the theme of return into one of rebirth; the end in New Troy becomes the starting point renewed and transformed by the hero’s quest.

The christian epic carries the same themes into a wide archetypal context; the action of the Bible includes the themes of the three great classical epics: theme of destruction and captivity of the city (Troy) in the Iliad; the theme of the return in the Odyssey; the theme of building a new city in the Aeneid. Adam is like Achilles, Odysseus, and Aeneas — a man of wrath, exiled from home because he angered God by going beyond his limit as a man. A provocation against God is the eating of food reserved for the deity. As with Odysseus, Adam’s return home is contingent on appeasing of divine wrath by divine wisdom.

Actions

Actions appropriate to the epic include:

• Deeds of heroes like Beowulf, Gilgamesh, Prometheus
• Battles against great odds, like Roland
• Wars between individual heroes as in the Iliad
• Real voyages as in the Odyssey; or allegorical voyages through a different terrain as in the Divine Comedy'
• Initiation of great enterprises, as the founding of a new city in the Aeneid
• The performing of exploits, great and important; admirable actions accompanied by difficulty, temptations, and danger