rightpo.blogg.se - Epic poem

What they demonstrated was that oral epics tend to be constructed in short episodes, each of equal status, interest and importance. Studies of living oral epic traditions in the Balkans by Milman Parry and Albert Lord demonstrated the paratactic model used for composing these poems.

They were originally oral literatures, which were later written down by either single author or several writers. World folk epics are those epics which are not just literary masterpieces but also an integral part of the weltanschauung of a people. In these traditions, poetry is transmitted to the audience and from performer to performer by purely oral means. The first epics are associated strongly with preliterate societies and oral poetic traditions. The Mahabharata, whose 100,000 verses make it four times the size of the Bible and seven times the size of the Iliad and Odyssey combined, is considered the second-largest literary work. The longest epic (and, in general, work of literature) of all time is the Tibetan Epic of King Gesar, which has been collected as a work composed of roughly 120 volumes, with more than one million verses, totaling over 20 million words, making it 25 times the size of the ancient Greek epic, the Iliad. The first recorded epic is the Sumerian Gilgamesh. George Lucas' original Star Wars trilogy, in particular, follows this cycle exactly, and some have cited it as the reason for its mass appeal.

a resurrection (either from being dead or from a dead-like state of mind, such as an unwillingness to complete the quest, and may also be a hero who was thought to be dead who was rediscovered).

an escape from the quest/low point (the hero questions the validity of his quest and seeks to escape from his responsibility).

a magical/unreal world, unable to be visited by a normal human, that the hero visits (e.g.

various mythical, human, or animal helpers.

a test (to test worthiness to complete said quest).

Although the cycle may repeat upon itself and vary slightly in order from epic to epic, the general points of the cycle include: The hero in an epic poem tends to follow a predictable cycle of events that is repeated in epics from every sort of culture. The fourth distinguishing factor in the definition of an epic is what is termed the epic hero cycle.

This assumed historicity is important for distinguishing epic from other long narrative forms such as allegory. In oral cultures, the learning and performance of epic poems frequently formed an integral part of the education of the poet and, by extension, the audience. Epics are, essentially, the tale of the tribe. Thirdly, epic poems always deal with persons and events that are considered to be historically real by the poet and their audience. For example, an epic written in English would not use the ballad form. A second distinguishing factor is stylistic: epic poems are written in what might be termed high style, avoiding popular metres and verse patterns. One factor that distinguishes epics from other forms of narrative poetry is scale: epic poems tend to be too long to be read or performed in a single sitting.