Epic Poetry

[Kafka's Crow]

It's another retelling, but in verse.

What do you think about The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel by Nikos Kazantzakis?



Grendel is on my list of things to read, but I want to read Beowulf first. I hope to finish The Aeneid soon, then it's on to Gilgamesh. I will follow it with Beowulf. I want to read as many epics as possible.

Gilgamesh is excellent. Short and witty with some wonderful and memorable passages. You will never realise the old age of the poem. It is just so very human and natural. Even gods are very very human. I think humanism is also one of the major ingredients of epic poems. Our age is not exactly a humanistic age as our priorities lie elsewhere, not with the unmeasurable worth of a human being. We have lost the ability to appreciate the unquantifiable.

I was taught Beowulf from the point of view of the outsider or the monster. Try to get hold of Seamus Heaney's translation:
http://www.amazon.com/Beowulf-Illust...9743427&sr=8-3

[JBI]

The bilingual edition of Heaney's is much better.

[mortalterror]

Gilgamesh is excellent. Short and witty with some wonderful and memorable passages. You will never realise the old age of the poem. It is just so very human and natural. Even gods are very very human. I think humanism is also one of the major ingredients of epic poems. Our age is not exactly a humanistic age as our priorities lie elsewhere, not with the unmeasurable worth of a human being. We have lost the ability to appreciate the unquantifiable.

I was taught Beowulf from the point of view of the outsider or the monster. Try to get hold of Seamus Heaney's translation:
http://www.amazon.com/Beowulf-Illust...9743427&sr=8-3

I read Gilgamesh in January. I don't remember the humanism you're talking about. Maybe I'm just defining humanism more narrowly though. You are right about the work being short and sweet. It's very efficient, tells it's story and doesn't overstay it's welcome. Lots of nice action.

As far as empathizing with the monster, that works for John Gardner's Grendel (which I loved), but there are actually three antagonists in Beowulf, with only one protagonist. It might help not to get too attached to any one of them, because they don't have nearly the same number of lines as the principle character. They sort of come and go amid a lot of boasting and giving of rings.

[JBI]

Beowulf should not be poked at from the monsters anyway. The whole thing needs to be read in context of Beowulf. The Christian allusions and references are probably the most important aspect. as a poem, it functions as a telling of what passed in the transition from pagan to Christian life. Beowulf's death is a symbolic destruction of the old good, and a Christ like transition into the unknown, terrible, where all that once was is overthrown by the opposing threats. It is rather a sad a grim tale, with the ending being the saddest part of all.