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Epic poetry: traditions |
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Being
so demanding,
epic poetry is counted among man's noblest creations.
Gilgamesh,
Mahabharata,
Ramayana,
Iliad,
Odyssey,
Aeneid,
Beowulf,
Poema
de mio Cid, La
Chanson de Roland, Divine Comedy,
Jerusalem
Delivered, Orlando
Furiosa, os
Lusíadas, Faerie
Queen, and Paradise
Lost are still read with admiration and enthusiasm.
Some long poems are better called mock heroic or satire
— The
Rape of Lock,
Don
Juan, — and others are magnificent
failures: Prelude,
Hyperion,
Idylls
of the King, Cantos,
There
is also the pastoral
tradition, from Theocritus
through Virgil to Milton
and others, but the setting is an idealised landscape and
the heroic element is missing.
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Epic poetry today |
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With
different objectives, epic poetry continues to be written
by a few individuals: Ruth
Mabanglo, and Frederick
Turner. Some aspects also appear in proponents of expansive
poetry and the long
poem — broad perspectives, significant non-confessional
content, strong narrative and dramatic elements. Readers may
also like to see the various approaches to extended poems
that feature in the work of Walt
Whitman, Nikos
Kazantzakis, St.-John
Perse, William
Carlos Williams, Robert
Pinsky, Ed
Dorn, Amy
Clampit, Adrienne
Rich, James
Merril, Galway
Kinnel, Judy
Grahn, Derek
Walcott and Sharon
Doubiago. |
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Further reading |
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Excellent
places to start are hyperepos,
and the Epic section of The Princeton Encyclopedia
of Poetry and Poetics (1993), which has a short bibliography.
Helpful introductions include: P. Ker's Epic and Romance
(1908), W.M. Dixon's English Epic and Heroic Poetry
(1912), C.M. Bowra's From Virgil to Milton (1952),
G. Highet's The Classical Tradition (1948), A.C.
Yu's Parnassus Revisited (1973), A.T. Hatto's Traditions
of Heroic and Epic Poetry (1980), J.P. McWilliams's
The American Epic (1989) and J.B. Hainsworth's The
Idea of Epic (1991).
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