Neil Bowen on (Edited )
The Epic
‘An epic is a very long narrative poem giving an account of the exploits of the chief heroes and gods of a national culture. Homer’s Greek Iliad and Odyssey were the models for Virgil’s Latin Aeneid, which was read and admired throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and inspired - among other texts - Dante’s Divine Comedy (c.1300) and Spenser’s Faerie Queene (1589), though these are not constructed like classical epics. Homer was translated into English by George Chapman in 1611-15.’
Baldwin, Oxford Student Texts
Common features of Epics:
Invocations to the muse
A hero whose leadership changes history
Descriptions of battles, with the armour and accoutrements of the generals, details of the fallen
Description of voyages
Allusions and digressions
Extended comparisons or ‘epic similes’ which develop the Epic’s symbolic level.