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Genre

Epic

Also Known As Epic Poetry · Heroic Poetry
Epic and Heroic Narrative

A long narrative poem, traditionally elevated in style, recounting the deeds of a legendary or historical hero on whom the fate of a people or an age turns. The oldest epics, the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh and the Homeric poems among them, arose from oral performance traditions long before they were fixed in writing, which is part of why their own authorship and composition history is often genuinely unsettled. Epic conventions, the invocation of a muse, the in medias res opening, the extended simile, recur across otherwise unrelated traditions from ancient Greece to classical India to medieval Europe, suggesting the form answers a need common to many literary cultures rather than a single point of origin.

Facts
Place of Origin
Predates the invention of writing; primary epics, such as those attributed to Homer, were composed by bards using complex rhetorical and metrical schemes before ever being written down. 1
Notable Example
The Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2500-1300 BCE), the oldest epic recognized, recorded in ancient Sumer during the Neo-Sumerian Empire. 1
Defining Trait
A lengthy narrative poem, typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters, told on a grand scale. 1
Connections

Associated With

Homer, Authors

Primary epics such as those of Homer are the genre's founding, oral-tradition examples.

Source Epic Poetry (Wikipedia)

Encompasses Form

Blank Verse, Forms
Source The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Byliny, Forms
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Eddic Verse, Forms
Source The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Luc Bat, Forms
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Ottava Rima, Forms
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Terza Rima, Forms
Source The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
The Chanson de Geste, Forms
Source The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
The Griot Epic, Forms
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
The Masnavi, Forms
Source The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Wuxia, Genres

Features Author

Dante Alighieri, Authors
Source The Norton Anthology of World Literature
Eugene Onegin, Works
Source Eugene Onegin (Wikipedia)
Ferdowsi, Authors
Source Ferdowsi (Wikipedia)
Hesiod, Authors
Homer, Authors
Source The Norton Anthology of World Literature
Les Miserables, Works
Source Les Miserables (Wikipedia)
Masnavi, Works
Source Masnavi (Wikipedia)
Metamorphoses, Works
Source Metamorphoses (Wikipedia)
Moby-Dick, Works
Source Moby-Dick (Wikipedia)
Paradise Lost, Works
Source Paradise Lost (Wikipedia)
The Aeneid, Works
Source Wikipedia: The Aeneid
The Cantos, Works
Source The Cantos (Wikipedia)
The Divine Comedy, Works
The Iliad, Works
The Odyssey, Works
Valmiki, Authors
Virgil, Authors

The Aeneid already in-genre Epic; Virgil himself carried no in-genre edge to it.

Source Virgil (Wikipedia)
Vyasa, Authors
War and Peace, Works
Source War and Peace (Wikipedia)

Form Of Genre

Poetry, Genres
Sources
1. Epic Poetry (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation
  • Overview section
    In poetry, an epic is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters. The oldest epic recognized is the Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2500-1300 BCE), recorded in ancient Sumer during the Neo-Sumerian Empire. Originating before the invention of writing, primary epics, such as those of Homer, were composed by bards who used complex rhetorical and metrical schemes.
  • Associated With: Homer
    Primary epics, such as those of Homer, were composed by bards who used complex rhetorical and metrical schemes.
View the Source
The Norton Anthology of World Literature
W. W. Norton & Company
The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Princeton University Press
  • s.v. Epic
  • Encompasses Form: Blank Verse, s.v. Blank Verse
  • Encompasses Form: Terza Rima, Long associated with sustained narrative and epic verse, most famously Dante's Divine Comedy.
  • Encompasses Form: Eddic Verse
  • Encompasses Form: The Chanson de Geste
  • Encompasses Form: The Masnavi
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
  • Encompasses Form: Ottava Rima, s.v. Ottava rima
  • Encompasses Form: Luc Bat
  • Encompasses Form: Byliny
  • Encompasses Form: The Griot Epic
View the Source
The Cantos (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia)Features Author: The Cantos, Infobox, Genre field
Quote, Features Author: The Cantos, Infobox, Genre field
Modernist epic
View the Source
Wikipedia: The Aeneid
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: The Aeneid, Lead section
Quote, Features Author: The Aeneid, Lead section
epic poem
View the Source
Virgil (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation
  • Features Author: Virgil, Works section, three famous poems
    He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid.
  • Features Author: Virgil, Opening paragraph, the epic Aeneid
    He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid.
View the Source
Les Miserables (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: Les Miserables, Lead section, genre
Quote, Features Author: Les Miserables, Lead section, genre
is a French epic historical novel by Victor Hugo
View the Source
Masnavi (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: Masnavi, Lead section, genre
Quote, Features Author: Masnavi, Lead section, genre
It is a series of six books of poetry that together amount to around 25,000 verses or 50,000 lines
View the Source
Eugene Onegin (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: Eugene Onegin, Lead section, genre
Quote, Features Author: Eugene Onegin, Lead section, genre
Almost the entire work is made up of 389 fourteen-line stanzas (5,446 lines in all) of iambic tetrameter
View the Source
Moby-Dick (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: Moby-Dick, Lead section, genre
Quote, Features Author: Moby-Dick, Lead section, genre
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is an 1851 epic novel by American writer Herman Melville
View the Source
Paradise Lost (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: Paradise Lost, Lead section, genre
Quote, Features Author: Paradise Lost, Lead section, genre
is an epic poem in blank verse by the English poet John Milton
View the Source
War and Peace (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: War and Peace, Lead section, genre
Quote, Features Author: War and Peace, Lead section, genre
an epic novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy
View the Source
Metamorphoses (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: Metamorphoses, Infobox, Genre field
Quote, Features Author: Metamorphoses, Infobox, Genre field
Narrative poetry, epic, elegy, tragedy, pastoral
View the Source
Ferdowsi (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: Ferdowsi, Lead section
Quote, Features Author: Ferdowsi, Lead section
Abu al-Qasim Mansur bin Hasan Tosi (940-1025), better known by his pen name Ferdowsi, was a Persian poet who is notable for being the author of the Shahnameh ("Book of Kings"), which is one of the world's longest epic poems created by a single poet, and the greatest epic of the Persian-speaking countries.
View the Source
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