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Epic Poetry: Difference between revisions
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The epic was ranked by Aristotle (in his <i>[[Poetics]]</i>) 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 epic was ranked by Aristotle (in his <i>[[Poetics]]</i>) 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 <i>[[Iliad]]</i>, 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 <i>[[Paradise Lost]]</i>, 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 [[hero]] is a figure of great national or even cosmic importance, and represents a culture’s [[heroic ideal]]. In the <i>[[Iliad]]</i>, 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 <i>[[Paradise Lost]]</i>, 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 9]] on the <i>[[Odyssey]]</i>, he descends into the underworld (as does Virgil’s Aeneas). The scope of <i>[[Paradise Lost]]</i> is cosmic, for it takes place on earth, heaven, and in hell. | 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 9]] on the <i>[[Odyssey]]</i>, he descends into the underworld (as does Virgil’s Aeneas). The scope of <i>[[Paradise Lost]]</i> is cosmic, for it takes place on earth, heaven, and in hell. | ||