The Epic

1. The Epic A Study of the Values and Heroes of a Culture

2. What do you think of when you hear or see the term “epic”?

3. Large; long • Grand in scope • Important

4. Definitions: From The American Heritage College Dictionary • epic – (ĕp’ǐk) n. 1. An extended narrative poem in elevated or dignified language, celebrating the feats of a legendary or traditional hero 2. A literary or dramatic composition resembling an epic 3. A series of events considered appropriate to an epic

5. Adj. 1. Of, constituting, or suggestive of a literary epic 2. Surpassing the usual or ordinary, esp. in scope or size 3. Heroic and impressive in quality [ < Lat. epicus < Gk. Epicos < epos, word, song] – epically adv.

6. epic from Holman and Harmon’s A Handbook to Literature – Fifth Edition • A long narrative poem in elevated style presenting characters of high position in adventures forming an organic whole through their relationship to a central heroic figure and through their development of episodes important to the history of a nation or race.

7. Common Epics • The Iliad Tells the story of the Trojan War Do you know the story? • The Odyssey Tells the story of Odysseus’ wanderings as he traveled home from Troy (Ilium)

8. Characteristics of an epic (epic conventions) • Hero is of national or international importance and of great historical or legendary significance • Setting is vast • Action consists of deeds of great valor requiring superhuman courage • Supernatural forces interest themselves in the action • Sustained elevation of style • Poet remains objective

9. More epic conventions . . . Sometimes open with a theme Sometimes invokes a muse (one of the nine daughter of Zeus; they inspired the arts) Sometimes open “in medeas res” – in the middle of things Sometimes repetition of phrases (epithets) Use of the epic simile

10. Hero is of national or international importance and of great historical or legendary significance • Achilles - "Rage- Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles” (The Iliad) • Odysseus – Tell me, O’ Muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. (The Odyssey)

11. Setting is vast • The Iliad and The Odyssey are both set throughout the area known today as the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas.

13. Action consists of deeds of great valor requiring superhuman courage • Achilles and Odysseus both fight against overwhelming odds and powerful mythical creatures

14. Supernatural forces interest themselves in the action The ancient Greeks relied upon the gods to explain their circumstances. Their literature reflects the gods’ involvement in the lives of the individual players in the action of the epics.

15. Sustained elevation of style The epic writer writes in the most important style of his or her time. The Homeric epics are written in dactylic hexameter.

16. Poet remains objective The poet has a responsibility to tell the story without bias; this allows the reader to come to his own conclusions. (Keep in mind, however, that writers can influence one’s opinions by the events he or she chooses to include or exclude.)

17. Epic simile • A very elaborate comparison Look at the following epic simile from The Odyssey :

18. During his meditation, a heavy surge was taking him, in fact, straight on the rocks. He had been flayed there, and his bones broken, had not grey-eyed Athena instructed him: he gripped a rock-ledge with both hands in passing and held on, groaning as the surge went by, to keep clear of its breaking. Then the backwash hit him, ripping him under and far out. An octopus, when you drag one from his chamber, comes up with suckers full of tiny stones: Odysseus left the skin of his great hands torn on the rock-ledge as the wave submerged him. And now at last Odysseus would have perished, battered inhumanly, but he had the gift of self-possession from grey-eyed Athena. • Homer. The Odyssey. Robert Fitzgerald, trans. NY: Doubleday Books, 1963. Book 5, lines 443-57.

19. Almost every major world culture uses the “epic” as a form.

20. Eastern Epics

21. The Sumerians The Epic of Gilgamesh (Flood) Gilgamesh was an historical king of Uruk in Babylonia, on the River Euphrates in modern Iraq; he lived about 2700 B.C. Although historians tend to emphasize Hammurabi and his code of law, the civilizations of the Tigris-Euphrates area, among the first civilizations, focus rather on Gilgamesh and the legends accruing around him to explain, as it were, themselves.

22. India The Mahabharata The  Mahabharata tells the story of two sets of paternal first cousins who became bitter rivals and opposed each other in war for possession of the ancestral Bharata kingdom. What is dramatically interesting within this simple opposition is the large number of individual agendas the many characters pursue, and the numerous personal conflicts, ethical puzzles, subplots, and plot twists that give the story a strikingly powerful development.

23. Tibetan culture The Epic of Gesar 120 volumes; over 1 million verses; 25 times the size of The Iliad

24. The Gesar is a vast treasury of Inner Asian literary culture. It is still sung today in Tibet and is known in different languages and editions along the Silk Route and throughout the Far East. It contains long sections of prose narration alternating with hundreds of epic ballads and examples of every sort of poetry in the Tibetan repertoire, both folk and classical. In size it is like The Arabian Nights. In its breadth, unity, and seriousness, it is like the Homeric epics or the Mahabharata.

25. Western epics

26. Irish Tain Bo Cuilange

27. Irish mythology was originally recorded in oral form and passed down through the centuries by the Druids, an intellectual religious group, not unlike the Christian monks. The oral traditions recorded history, mythology, and sometimes a combination of both. The majority of the main characters in the Tain are demi-gods; they either started out as real people who were later attributed with god-like powers or they were originally gods and goddesses who were given frailties that made them more human.

28. In The Tain Bo Cuailgne the women are represented as emotionally strong, manipulative, intelligent and deceptive, while the men are physically stronger, honorable, brave and easily subjected to the will of the women.

29. Roman The Aeneid by Virgil Tells the story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travels to Italy to establish the Roman culture.

30. Italian The Divine Comedy (Commedia) by Dante Alighieri Dante casts himself as a traveler through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven.

31. English epics

32. Anglo-Saxon Beowulf – 9th-10th century (AD) • Only one copy exists • Heroic quests of an Anglo-Saxon warrior • Beowulf is epic in scope if not in structure.

33. Text of Beowulf

34. The Renaissance The Faerie Queen by Edmund Spenser (1590-1596) A story of the noble feats of a chivalric knight . The Redcrosse Knight – St. George (Union Jack)

35. 1667 – Paradise Lost John Milton – great English poet (usually metioned with Chaucer and Shakespeare as a member of “the big three.” Why Milton wrote Paradise Lost: That to the highth of this great ArgumentI may assert th' Eternal Providence,And justifie the wayes of God to men.

37. Why are epics important?

38. Epics reflect the values of the cultures in which they are written. As your read The Odyssey, try to determine what Greek culture valued during the Homeric age.

39. Example • The Hospitality Rule broken by the suitors AND Polyphemus

40. Why do we still read The Odyssey? (or any other ancient epic?)

41. The great epics are TIMELESS; they speak to the human condition throughout eternity, not simply during the times in which they are written.

42. We all undergo our own odysseys, and like Odysseus, we treat every encounter differently, depending on the situation.

43. As you read The Odyssey, consider how your life (or the lives of other people) parallel(s) the life of Odysseus.

44. The Odyssey The Major Characters

45. The Greek Gods Definitions from Encyclopedia Mythica http://www.pantheon.org/main/search.html

46. Zeus

47. the youngest son of Cronus and Rhea • the supreme ruler of Mount Olympus and of the Pantheon of gods who resided there • upheld law, justice and morals, and this made him the spiritual leader of both gods and men. • celestial god, and originally worshiped as a weather god by the Greek tribes

48. Athena

49. goddess of wisdom, war, the arts, industry, justice and skill • the favorite child of Zeus • sprung fully grown out of her father's head

50. Poseidon