Epic Poetry

It isn't influence on culture but speaking for a culture.

Again... this is an idea I don't accept. An artist speaks first and foremost for him or herself. I read a book or spend time with a painting not in order to gain a deep understanding of another culture... but rather to engage in a dialog with an individual with an exceptional mind. Certainly, all individual artists cannot help but be influenced by the society in which they live and work... but no work of art can speak of the totality of a single individual human being... let alone represent the whole of a culture.

When people think Ancient Greek, they think Homer, When people think Roman, they think Virgil, when people think early Italian, they think Dante.

You are making some rather large assumptions, here. When I think of Greece I certainly think of Homer... but I also think of Plato, Aeschylus, Sappho, Euripides, the Parthenon, Praxiteles, the Mausoleum of Hallikarnosis, Haigha Sophia, etc... When I think of the Romans I think of Virgil... and Ovid, Horace, the Colosseum, Augustus of Prima Porta, Constantine, etc... When I think of early Renaissance Italy I think of Dante... but also Petrarch, Cavalcanti, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Cimabue, Giotto, Fra Angelico, Simone Martini, Brunelleschi, etc... None of these artists speaks of the whole of the culture.

To say that Brut and the Comedia are on the same scale is ridiculous.

Certainly... but you seem to be suggesting that the aesthetic worth of a work is one of the standards by which we establish what is or is not an "Epic". Of course, by this standard I would question whether Beowulf might even hold its own (let alone stand superior) against Paradise Lost, The Faerie Queene, The Prelude, Leaves of Grass, etc... An "Epic Poem" is a genre... like a tragedy, a comedy, a symphony, or an opera. We don't question whether Mozart's early symphonies are even symphonies because they cannot hold up to comparison with his later works... or with Beethoven's symphonies. The fact that Orlando Furioso cannot withstand direct comparison with the Comedia does not mean that both are not epic poems... any more than the fact that Charles Simic may pale in comparison to Baudelaire means that hie are not lyrical poems. The term "Epic" suggest scale... but does not assure quality.

I am a bit unsure about epic poets reflecting their own age. They, more often than not, reflect the tradition. Then there are the 'cycles' of epics. Gilgamesh hearkens to other epics that existed even before the so-called first epic itself, Homer tells of almost mythical events he took from other epic poets, Virgil depicts of the times he had heard about, Milton and Dante depict events that do not happen in our world as we know it. Yes there are the under-lining themes of rebellion, humanism, improvisation, expression and creativity etc but most art is about these things, not only epic poetry. Art and creativity itself is rebellious and unnatural. Art is produced when a human being takes himself above and out of the 'normal' scheme of things and becomes a Creator. An epic has a bigger canvas. It depicts a gamut of human and divine emotions, motives, actions and their results. War and Peace, King Lear and the Sistine ceiling and altar are three of my favorite 'epics'.

As far as the decline of the epic is concerned, we have the novel form which has replaced the traditional epic poems. This decline in the popularity of the epic 'poem' maybe temporary. Poetry has generally declined in popularity with the growing popularity of the printed media. As we moved away from the oral tradition, the decline in the popularity of poetry became more and more obvious. The new age of the 'multimedia' has the potential to revive the oral/aural element in poetry. Only time will tell how we use these opportunities.

The closest thing to an American epic is LEAVES OF GRASS, the thing precluding it from being the one, its structure, which is an almagam of images and ideas, as opposed to being a narrative that is singular and coherent.

But then who's to say. Proust's magnum opus is called a novel though it's stuctured nothing like it's predecessors.

Ergo LEAVES OF GRASS is America's epic poem if you ask me.

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Originally Posted by JBI

Dante seems to be the last one in this line of West-European epics. His journeys reflect the influences of Chivalric rommance, mixed in with a strong religious temperament (which was higher than ever at this point), and also reflects the values of Christian morality, and Christian desires.

I purposely left out the Nieblungenlied because I am less familiar with it than other epics, and because it seems to me to be minor in comparison, it being derived heavily from prior works. There are several other Scandanavian epics (including a famous Finnish one which I have never completed) but none seem to me to have the influence of these.

Either way, after Dante no work seems to come even close to achieving this sort of cult status. In addition, please take Milton off the list of Renaissance English writers, it is embarrassing to your intelligence.

The epic mode as it was originally intended seems to end with Dante. Milton, Wordsworth, Keats all try to create an epic, but none of them took. None of them had the same culture importance as the others.

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I've been dying to jump into this conversation, because i do agree the age of great epic literature pretty much ends with Milton. In this discussion my feelings are closer to JBI's than the others, although I disagree with JBI on several things he may have said throughout. But as far as great epic literature, I do believe it ends with Milton's Paradise Lost, and I'm not sure everyone (critics) know why. We can all specualte.

My specualtions include the following: With the rise democracies, and therefore an established dissenting voice to cultural ideals, it becomes impossible to create an epic that glorifies national norms. Epics by their nature support cultural ideals. Cynicism, an undercurrent to democratic debate, undermines whatever the reason forbeing of an epic. That's why the only epics that are reveared in contemporary literature is within the fantasy genre. Fantasy literature establishes a fictional homeland, not one rooted in reality.

StLukes, the concept of the artist speaking for the artist is a rather new one. In English it seems to stem from Wordsworth, especially in the epic style, which set himself as the hero of the Prelude. Homer did not even name himself in his work, and it doesn't detail anything in his life, or really anything rooted in truth.

In actuality, epic writers all the way to Milton seem to be calling on divine inspiration to bring these works into existence. As seen here;

Sing, O goddess, the rage of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans.
Homer, Iliad, Book1, Line 1-2 Samuel Butler translation.

O Muse! the causes and the crimes relate;
What goddess was provok'd, and whence her hate;
For what offense the Queen of Heav'n began
Virgil, the Aeneid, John Dryden translation, book 1, Lines 11-13

Of course, invoking the muse needed to rest here, since muses are not part of every tradition, but look closely at how Beowulf opens

LO, praise of the prowess of people-kings Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped, þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
we have heard, and what honor the athelings won! hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

The text there doesn't even consider the poet from the beginning, it goes straight to say that he is praising the prowess of the Great Spear-Danes, the poet himself is unmentioned.

Dante is of course the exception, but his subject matter is hardly his own. The work is personal on many levels, but it is also speaking, not just of Dante, but of his whole culture. Pay mind to the frequent references to contemporary politics, contemporary thought, and contemporary tradition.


On the note of not just these figures seeming the associate writers of their time, that is a point. But think of it this way, there are always some writers who seem to stand out, and be labeled culture figures for their time.

In the whole Ancient Greek tradition no one in contemporary times (Plato and Sophocles were not contemporaries, keep in mind) had the same status. His popularity was so constant and important to the Greek tradition that people would memorize it as pass time. Plato went as far as to attack it in his republic because of this. Everyone knew Homer, and his popularity lasted well through antiquity, up until the publication really of Virgil in Rome, as the supreme epic poet.

Virgil comes second, and seems to destroy the epic scene. There were roman epics written before him, yet none survive (which has been attributed to his overwhelming popularity over them). Virgil was the most read epic all the way through the middle ages, to the point where even Dante names him as his "master". Catullus hardly measures up the same way.

Of course, the hardest of these epics to defend is probably Beowulf, it coming from an oblique time period, and existing only in one MS. It is unclear (it seems to me) to determine how popular, or important it was to Anglo-Saxon society, but it is fair enough to say that it seems the definitive work of Anglo-Saxon literature. It existed for hundreds of years in oral form, which seems to indicate at least some cultural importance, in addition to the fact that it was popular enough for a scribe to actually write it, when so few Old English MS exist.

It seems that the point where we are most in disagreement is whether or not Dante should be considered the last major epic work, or Milton (most scholars I have encountered go with Milton). That I think we can leave for personal preference, since it's open to a wide debate, but as for Hiawatha being labeled a true epic, I think that's an impossible stretch. If you say anything written in a long saga-like way is epic, than you will find epics in everything.

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It isn't influence on culture but speaking for a culture. When people think Ancient Greek, they think Homer, When people think Roman, they think Virgil, when people think early Italian, they think Dante. The epic, in order to be true, must carry the heart of the time and location it is written in. By the Wiki definition, almost any book can be considered epic. You could apply their definition to any Tolkienian fantasy. You could apply it to almost any novel, pretty much, and have it classified as an epic.

I did not leave the Nieblungenlied out of my definition of an epic, I just didn't go into detail with it since I don't know enough about it. It is clearly a pre-Dante epic which classifies, but I would think Parzifal to be more of an epic of the time anyway.

The point is, if you look at it, any major poem seems to be somewhat epic in scale. A distinction is needed between a true epic, and an indistinct epic. To say that Brut and the Comedia are on the same scale is ridiculous. There is always going to be a distinction.

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Well, of course, as Kafka's Crow and others are pointing out, the word "epic" can be used in a modern sense to refer to any long work with a grand design. The word also, however, refers to a specific genre of literature starting with Gilgamesh and Homer, which is clearly what we have been discussing for the most part here.

You are bringing up a very interesting question about genre in the above quote, but you are answering it too quickly. St. Luke's and others have given some thoughtful responses to the specifics of your claims, but I would like to urge you to think a little bit more about the method of your claims. You clearly are well read in many of the epic poems and have an active and intelligent mind that has been engaged with some of the big questions about epic. You may even have come to an interesting point when you identify one thing that defines an epic as a work that tries to speak for a the culture of a group or nation in a specific time, and I agree with your desire to draw a line in defining a specific genre of epic so that it doesn't just become any large poem (carried too far in that direction things become so vague that genre is no longer useful as a tool for discussion). I urge you, though, not to stop there. The thinkers who come up with the best answers are those who constantly question and re-question; search and search again (that's why we call it research ;) ). By settling on this one thing as the answer to a very complicated question about genre, you're not only opening yourself up easily to attack from the likes of St. Luke's (:p ), but, more importantly, you're depriving yourself of the chance to discover a more interesting and nuanced answer to the question of epic and genre. Ask yourself that big question again, but with an open mind as though it were the first time you had thought of it. Play devil's advocate and question your own conclusions. Think of other possible questions that both your initial question and your current hypothesis about broad cultural representation lead to. I suggest these things, not solely because they may help with the issue at hand, but because an approach along these lines will be both an asset and a joy to you in many facets of your life and your thinking.

If the question of epic genre really is something of interest to you, then you may want to start (if you haven't already) by looking at some of the criticism written about the form. Here's a brief bibliography of some things written about epic. The first grouping are a few historical texts that address (indeed, created) questions of poetic genre including the genre of epic and the second grouping are some of the more influential critical works of the last century or so:

Aristotle's Poetics
Dante's De vulgari eloquentia
Tasso's Discorsi dell'arte poetica (discourse on the art of poetry)
Sidney's Defense of Poesy

Bowra, C.M., From Virgil to Milton (1945).
Giammatti, A. Bartlett, The Earthly Paradise and the Renaissance Epic (1966).
Greene, Thomas M. The Descent from Heaven: A Study in Epic Continuity (1963).
Ker, W.P. Epic and Romance: Essays on Medieval Literature (1897).
Murrin, Michael, Allegorical Epic (1980).
Tolkien, J.R.R. "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" (1936).
Quint, David, Epic and Empire (1993).

This is a far from exhaustive list, but may give you some food for thought if this is a subject you have an interest in. I especially recommend starting with the Aristotle if you don't know it already, since it is a foundational text for thinking about all kinds of poetry and genre. I hope you take my suggestions above in the friendly and constructive spirit in which they are offered.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

I've been dying to jump into this conversation, because i do agree the age of great epic literature pretty much ends with Milton. In this discussion my feelings are closer to JBI's than the others, although I disagree with JBI on several things he may have said throughout. But as far as great epic literature, I do believe it ends with Milton's Paradise Lost, and I'm not sure everyone (critics) know why. We can all specualte.

My specualtions include the following: With the rise democracies, and therefore an established dissenting voice to cultural ideals, it becomes impossible to create an epic that glorifies national norms. Epics by their nature support cultural ideals. Cynicism, an undercurrent to democratic debate, undermines whatever the reason forbeing of an epic. That's why the only epics that are reveared in contemporary literature is within the fantasy genre. Fantasy literature establishes a fictional homeland, not one rooted in reality.

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Originally Posted by JBI

Milton could be considered a Renaissance poet, but Paradise Lost comes after the end of English Renaissance. It is in the restoration that it first appears, and it alludes to those events, rather than Renaissance events. The central focus seems to be on Revolutionary events, rather than Renaissance ideals or humanism.

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To return to the specifics of the discussion, I wanted to combine my thoughts on these two points. To begin with JBI's comment on the classification of Milton. Yes, certainly Milton's work was published in the Restoration period, and the political events of the civil war and the restoration are clearly important to keep in mind in order to generate the fullest possible interpretation of PL. At the same time, Milton was very deeply concerned with the renaissance humanist projects of resurrecting classical texts, imitating the style and rhetoric of the classics, and attempting to write an epic to rival the Aeneid. Certainly his intensely latinate style could easily be regarded as the culmination fo the humanist literary project. I referred to Milton as a Renaissance poet because this is how he is most commonly regarded (It's certainly expected that I'll cover Milton when teaching a Medieval/Renaissance survey course), but I do think it is more accurate to think of him as a transitional writer who is still deeply connected to the style and aesthetic characteristic of the Renaissance, but an inhabitant of the post-civil war era.

It is because of the transitional quality of his work that I juxtoposed JBI's observation with Virgil's above. I think Virgil has a good point about fantasy being the modern realm for epic because of an unease about fixing certain kinds of cultural ideals about empire, nobility etc. in a real world place. Given Virgil's hypothesis about the rise of democracy, I wonder if we can make anything of the fact that what many regard as the last English epic, Paradise Lost, is written in the wake of Cromwell's republic? Could the political context also be one reason (certainly not the reason) for setting the epic in Paradise (which, like fantasy settings, is not a real place and nation) and for making it a work that makes every Christian a potential hero?

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Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

It is because of the transitional quality of his work that I juxtoposed JBI's observation with Virgil's above. I think Virgil has a good point about fantasy being the modern realm for epic because of an unease about fixing certain kinds of cultural ideals about empire, nobility etc. in a real world place. Given Virgil's hypothesis about the rise of democracy, I wonder if we can make anything of the fact that what many regard as the last English epic, Paradise Lost, is written in the wake of Cromwell's republic? Could the political context also be one reason (certainly not the reason) for setting the epic in Paradise (which, like fantasy settings, is not a real place and nation) and for making it a work that makes every Christian a potential hero?

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Good point Petrarch, and perhaps that is one of the reasons people find Paradise Lost as an epic problematic. The real heros of Paradise Lost is actualy God or Jesus, who actually rides triumphantly in a chariot (kind of silly if you ask me). But the dislocation from real life terra firma to a metaphysical place allows Milton to avoid his present day political issues.

Edit: One more thing. I don't think Milton had thought it through as to why he picks this subject for an epic. That's just a hunch. How could he pick his present day, he was on the losing side of the war?

I don't think the epic is dead because of the rise of democracy, but because of the rise of further communications. Traditional epics for the most part in the west will never exist again, simply because someone with the capability to write something like that is most likely going to be literate, and thereby create a secondary epic. The secondary epic is pretty much dead, since no one has interest in it, and communications are removing regionalist thought. I can hardly think of any way to form an epic for the scope of the world exposed to the poet, and meanwhile retain the culture significance required.

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Originally Posted by JBI

The secondary epic is pretty much dead, since no one has interest in it, and communications are removing regionalist thought. I can hardly think of any way to form an epic for the scope of the world exposed to the poet, and meanwhile retain the culture significance required.

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When Virgil wrote his epic, Rome was essentially the world and there was no regionalist thought. I don't see why it could not occur again, given the right conditions. It may be that at some point the entire world will be of one culture, or close enough. Actually mass communication is making that happen.

Yes, but cultural identities are being preserved rather than mixed into an ideal. Common trends right now are trying to keep ethnic diversification, it seems, especially amongst academic anthropological thought. You really need 1 set of core beliefs, or very few sets, to create an epic.

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Originally Posted by JBI

Yes, but cultural identities are being preserved rather than mixed into an ideal. Common trends right now are trying to keep ethnic diversification, it seems, especially amongst academic anthropological thought. You really need 1 set of core beliefs, or very few sets, to create an epic.

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I essentially agree with that last sentence, but can't you envision a world, perhaps far into the future, with one essential core set of beliefs? I'm not saying it will happen, but it is in the realm of possibility, no?

I think thought has always been more diverse than Virgil or JBI make out in their comments above. The idea of a core belief system is essentially as mythical as Aeneas. People may talk about the unity and reason of the Ancient Greeks, but let's not forget that when we speak of the Ancient Greeks we are really talking about a diverse collection of city states spread over several generations and several hundred years. We lose sight of the fact that although Plato or Aristotle were advanced thinkers for any time, they were neck deep in superstition, violence, slavery, and ignorance. It's really a mistake to take the shining lights of an age for it's median and guiding star. The individuals themselves are often so much more complicated than the way history has preserved their memory. In addition to his scientific and mathematical genius, Newton was a big fan of Alchemy. The Alchemical side of Newton's character is probably a much better example of the trend in thought common to his time. I think that great men like Virgil, Dante, or Milton are not so much creatures of their age, so much as they are above it. These stand out men, are not so much men of their own time as much as they are men for all time.

When I think of the epic, I think of two things: poetry and length. If you are going to define the epic through morality and national identity, then you must include The Faerie Queene. But if you are defining it structurally, in the twelve book style, then you should exclude Dante.

Also, Jesus isn't the hero of Paradise Lost. Satan is.

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Originally Posted by mortalterror

When I think of the epic, I think of two things: poetry and length. If you are going to define the epic through morality and national identity, then you must include The Faerie Queene. But if you are defining it structurally, in the twelve book style, then you should exclude Dante.

Also, Jesus isn't the hero of Paradise Lost. Satan is.

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I don't know about morality, but certainly national identity is a critical component to any epic. You'll just have to look it up. Even a modern day epic as Joyce's Ullyses the national identity of Ireland is the among the main themes.

As to Satan being the hero of Paridise Lost, well, we're just going to have to disagree. There is just no way possible that Milton intends Satan to be idealized. He is attractive and seductive, but that is the point. Anyway, that's for another thread.

First of all, Plato and Aristotle are in a different time period than Homer. Second of all, The Iliad is essentially about Arete, the Greek ideal. Everything in the story can be seen as an extension of that thought. Achilles' feud with Agamemnon is a dispute in Arete. If Agamemnon gives away his prize, he appears to be answering to not only the priest, but also Achilles. He solves the problem by taking Achilles' prize, and thereby not losing face, but causing Achilles to lose face.

The Odyssey seems to me to be an expansion on this. Penelope is seen to possess a high amount of Arete, because of her devotion and faithfulness. Odysseus because of his wit, the old man for helping him, and even his dog for recognizing him when all others could not.

The core beliefs of Rome are written in Virgil. The very purpose of the epic, I have heard argued, was to create a Roman epic, to rival the Greek one, since they beat the Greeks, and therefore could not go on praising them that way. To do this, Virgil links back to Troy, and says, though they beat them there, Rome, the seeds of Troy, won in the end. Aeneas is the Roman ideal in every way, and even possess the flaw of Rome, as seen when, as I previously have mentioned, he kills Turnus right at the end. His men show Greek idealism in the way they fight, his very birth links, not to the usual God, Zeus, but to Venus, the goddess of beauty, which is a very post-homer thought.

Sure the Fearie Queen could classify with these things, but it seems to me to have failed because of Spenser's death. It lacks coherent structure to really chronicle the time, though this does not make it a bad work, just simply not the same genre. The incoherent nature of the Faerie Queen, which seems to leap from one thing to another, without any real closure because of it's abrupt end, seems to disqualify it from the genre.