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KINDS OF STORIES Extracts From "A Dictionary of Literary Terms" by Martin Gray EPIC An epic is a long narrative poem in elevated style, about the exploits of superhuman heroes. 'Traditional epics’, also called ‘primary epics’ are part of the oral tradition of a nation, and involve myths and legends of nationhood. The oldest example is the Sumerian epic Gilgamesh (c 2700BC). In European literature the Odyssey and Iliad (c eight century BC), traditionally ascribed to Homer, and in Old English literature Beowulf (eight century AD) are primary epics. The Chansons de Roland (c.1100), one of the many French chanson de geste, is almost certainly also a primary epic. The ‘secondary’ or ‘literary epic’ is a work modelled on the primary epic and including many of its characteristic features, but written by a single individual for a literate audience. Virgil’s Aeneid (c 30-20BC) and Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) are two clear examples of the literary epic, as are Camoëns’s The Luciads (1572) from Portugal, and Dante’s Divine Comedy (c.1304-21) and Tasso’s Jerusalem Liberated (1575) from Italy. Many long poems from the fourteenth century onwards, for example, Spenser’s The Faerie Queene (1590, 1596), in some respects resemble the epic, but include elements of the ROMANCE or other kinds of literature: such works are often still called epics. The term can also be applied more loosely to suitable novels or films, though in this popular sense no more may be meant by ‘epic’ than ‘long and ambitious’. Virgil studied Homer’s epics and wrote the Aeneid with them in mind; Milton studied both Homer and Virgil’s work and constructed Paradise Lost according to certain conventions that were thought to be essential to the form. Some of the conventions of the epic are as follows: the hero represents a nation or race (in the case of the Aeneid, Aeneas is the founder of Rome, and his journeys all lead to this end; in the case of Paradise Lost, Adam represents the human race); th eepic hero performs superhuman deeds, with the help of the gods and other supernatural helpers (called the MACHINERY in the eighteenth century), and the arena for these deeds is vast in scale, ranging from the battlefields of the Trojan Wars (Achilles’s battles in the Iliad) to the Mediterranean, around which Odysseus and Aeneas journey, both of them also visiting the underworld, to the universal cosmic setting of Paradise Lost; the style of the epic is grand and formal, including traditional EPIC SIMILES, CATALOGUES and EPITHETS. For Aristotle the epic was a less significant literary form than the tragedy. But from the seventeenth century onwards th epic ranked as the most ambitious form a poet could attempt. The NEOCLASSICAL age reverted to the epic, yet though Dryden translated the Aeneid and Pope the Iliad and the Odyssey, many eighteenth-century poets found the talents better suited to the mock epic: Pope’s The Rape of the Lock (1712, 1714) and the Dunciad (1728, 1743) in their different ways are perfect examples of mock-epic writing. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature has produced nothing that can be classified as pure epic, but many works that at least invite comparisons with the form. Wordsworth’s The Prelude (1850) might be described as an epic autobiography. Several poems are more attempts at epic grandeur, for example Arnold’s Sohrab and Rustum (1853), but they are not works of a cosmic or even national significance. Pound’s Cantos (1930-69) or W.C. William’s Paterson (1946-58) are modern works with epic aspirations; yet neitheris really a narrative poem, with a story: both are COLLAGES, Paterson is giving an account of William’s home town, while the Cantos are an encyclopaedia of allusions to Europe, American and Chinese culture and history. David Jone’s account of a battle in the First World War, set in a historical context, In Parenthesis (1937), is in some respects closer to being a modern version of epic. Perhaps the novel has taken over as the medium for epic ambitions. Tolstoy’s War and Peace (1863-9), for example, is epic in theme and scope; yet the fact that the novel is essentially a work of realism denies it the epic element of supernatural machinery. This is also, of course, lacking from Joyce’s ironic masterpiece Ulysses (1922), in spite of the constant parallels with the Odyssey. Links:
FABLE Links to Aesop's Fables: About Aesop at Wikipedia Online Collection University of Virginia Library, Electronic Text PARABLE LEGEND MYTH
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