epic: References & Edit History

Additional Reading

H.M. Chadwick, The Heroic Age (1912); and H.M. Chadwick and N.K. Chadwick, The Growth of Literature, vol. 1, The Ancient Literatures of Europe (1932), are two classic works on European heroic poetries that are still valuable. A more comprehensive general survey is given in C.M. Bowra, Heroic Poetry (1952); and J. de Vries, Heroic Song and Heroic Legend (1963; originally published in German, 1961). Helen Damico and John Leyerle (eds.), Heroic Poetry in the Anglo-Saxon Period (1993), deals with Old English poetry. John G. Demaray, Cosmos and Epic Representation: Dante, Spenser, Milton, and the Transformation of Renaissance Heroic Poetry (1991), focuses chiefly on English poets. Karl Reichl, Singing the Past: Turkic and Medieval Heroic Poetry (2000), treats non-English sources. A.B. Lord, The Singer of Tales (1960), was written by an authority on the Balkan oral epic of the guslari. The subject of Homer is covered in Joachim Latacz, Homer, His Art and His World (1996, originally published in German); Ian Morris and Barry B. Powell (eds.), A New Companion to Homer (1997); and Barry B. Powell, Homer (2004). Sources on Beowulf include Craig Davis, Beowulf and the Demise of Germanic Legend in England (1996); and Stephen P. Thompson (ed.), Readings on Beowulf (1998). Among the books dealing with elements of Germanic epic are Brian Murdoch, The Germanic Hero: Politics and Pragmatism in Early Medieval Poetry (1996); and Joyce Tally Lionarons, The Medieval Dragon: The Nature of the Beast in Germanic Literature (1998). J.B. Pritchard, The Ancient Near East (1958), gives summaries and translations of Akkadian and Ugaritic epics. The use of mythical themes in Indo-European epics is the subject of D. Ward, The Divine Twins: An Indo-European Myth in Germanic Tradition (1968). Michael Murrin, The Allegorical Epic (1980), is a survey of the European tradition.

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Article History

Type Description Contributor Date
Add new Web site: International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts - Novel as an Epic. Oct 23, 2024
Add new Web site: Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research - “An Analytical Study of The Mahabharata As An Epic”. Oct 23, 2024
Add new Web site: International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Invention - The Principal Requirements of an Epic. Sep 11, 2024
Add new Web site: Academia - Epic as Genre. Jan 25, 2024
Add new Web site: Oregon State University - College of Liberal Arts - What is an Epic? || Definition and Examples. Oct 10, 2023
Corrected display issue. Sep 07, 2022
Add new Web site: Poets.org - Epic. Oct 18, 2019
Add new Web site: Literary Devices - Epic. Jan 10, 2019
Add new Web site: PBS LearningMedia - Homer and the Gods - The Greeks. Jan 03, 2018
Add new Web site: Fact Monster - Entertainment - Epic. Sep 20, 2011
Article thoroughly revised and updated. Mar 24, 2011
Bibliography revised and updated. Aug 13, 2010
Article revised and updated. Aug 13, 2010
Photo of tablet containing part of the Gilgamesh epic added. Apr 02, 2009
Added new Web site: HyperEpos: Epic on the Internet. Jun 12, 2006
Article revised. Sep 05, 2000
Article added to new online database. Jul 26, 1999
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