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Epic: Featured Poems - The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. The following poems and excerpts are examples of the epic form.
- The Iliad
- Epic of Gilgamesh
- The Odyssey
- John Milton’s Paradise Lost
- Mahabharata
- Dante’s Divine Comedy
- Beowulf
- Rāmāyaṇa
- Virgil’s Aeneid
- Facts About Famous Epic Poems in World History
Homer’s Iliad, along with the Homeric poem Odyssey, is considered one of the cornerstones of the Western literature. The epic narrates the events that occurred during the Trojan War – a legendary war in Greek mythology that saw the city of Troy pitted against the Greeks. According to the story, tensions boiled over to an all-time high when a Trojan...
Owing to how ancient the Epic of Gilgamesh is, historians struggle to pinpoint the year it was first written. The widely accepted view is that it was written in Sumerian language on a clay tablet between 2100 BC and 1200 BC (during the Third Dynasty of UR or the Neo Sumerian Empire). This Mesopotamian epic poem recounts the heroic exploits of King ...
The Odyssey is an ancient Greek epic poem composed by the Greek poet Homer. Along with the Iliad (also presumably written by Homer), the Odyssey is arguably the most prominent epic poem to emerge from ancient Greece. The Odyssey deploys a style called In medias res, i.e. a poem that starts in the middle of the story and then uses flashbacks to deve...
As a result of masterpieces like Paradise Lost, English poet John Milton ranks up there as one of the greatest poets of all time. This epic is a brilliant retelling of how one of God’s most favorite angels Lucifer (Satan) fell and how humanity lost the grace of god by succumbing to the deceptions of Lucifer. In his epic poem, Paradise Lost, Milton ...
In ancient India, the Mahabharat was a very famous Sanskrit epic, along with the Rāmāyaṇa,that helped in the development of Hinduism. It provides Hindus with lessons concerning moral law and history. The story talks about a family feud involving two groups of cousins – the Kauravas and the Pandavas – in the Kurukshetra War. The two groups, who are ...
In his birth country, Italy, Dante Alighieri was nicknamed il Sommo Poet, meaning “the Supreme Poet”. His brilliant masterpiece Divine Comedy (1308-1321) was just one of the reasons why he is often considered the greatest Italian poet. Divine Comedy, a narrative poem, follows the exploits of the chief character, most likely Dante himself, on a peri...
In Old English literature very few epic poems could rival Beowulf, a critically acclaimed vernacular epic that was probably composed in the 7thcentury AD. It still remains one of the most translated poems of Old English literature. The poem is primarily in two parts set in pagan Scandinavia around the 6thcentury AD. The first part, which is set in ...
As stated above, the Rāmāyaṇa is one of the two greatest epic poems of ancient India. Similar to the Mahabharata, the Rāmāyaṇa was written in Sanskrit, the dominant language (Old Indo-Aryan language) used in writing poems and hymns in ancient India. The poet and Hindu sage Valmiki is widely claimed as the person who authored Rāmāyaṇa.This epic poem...
The Aeneid, which was composed by Augustan era Roman poet Virgil, tells about the story of Aeneas, a Trojan hero during the Trojan War. As it was similarly stated in the Iliad (by the poet Homer), Aeneas was born to the Greek goddess of love and beauty Aphrodite (Venus) and prince Anchises. Imbued with demigod features, Aeneas fought bravely in def...
The word ‘epic’ was derived from the Latin word ‘epicus’, which in turn, was derived from the ancient Greek word ‘epos’ (ἔπος), which means “story” or “poem”. The ancient Greeks basically saw epics as all forms of poetry, including the ones written by Homer, Hesiod or even statements made by the Delphic oracle. Prior to the invention of writing, th...
Mar 7, 2019 · William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 18” (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”) Like Dickinson, we could have put several of Shakespeare’s sonnets in this slot. Most people only recognize the first couplets anyway. Audre Lorde, “Power“ A uniquely American poem, written in 1978, that should be outdated by now, but still is not.
What is an example of an epic poem? Poems like The Odyssey and The Iliad as both epic poems. Other examples are The Divine Comedy and The Metamorphoses. Milton’s Paradise Lost is one final famous example.
epic: a long narrative poem in elevated style recounting the deeds of a legendary or historical hero. The epic was originally an oral form—Homer's oral compositions, the Iliad and Odyssey being perhaps the most influential of all epics—and written epics tend to suggest what might be performed aloud.
Aug 16, 2021 · Perhaps the most widely known epic poems are Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey, both of which detail the events of the Trojan War and King Odysseus’s journey home from Troy. These were written in Epic Greek (sometimes called Homeric Greek), although the dates of their composition are unknown.
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Examples of Epic Poetry. 1. Virgil, The Aeneid. Inspired by the works of Homer, Virgil composed an epic poem also based around the Trojan War. Virgil’s work follows the hero Aeneas, the mythological ancestor of the Roman people, as his Trojan fleet searches for a place where they can settle.
