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Epic poetry

An epic (from the Ancient Greek adjective ἐπικός (epikos), from ἔπος (epos) "word, story, poem"[1]) is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containingdetails of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation.[2] Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oralpoetic form. Nonetheless, epics have been written down at least since the works of Virgil, Dante Alighieri, and John Milton. Many probably would not have survived if not written down. The first epicsare known as primary, or original, epics. One such epic is the Old English story Beowulf.[3] Epics that attempt to imitate these like Milton's Paradise Lost are known as literary, or secondary, epics.Another type of epic poetry is epyllion (plural: epyllia), which is a brief narrative poem with a romantic or mythological theme. The term, which means 'little epic', came into use in the nineteenthcentury. It refers primarily to the erudite, shorter hexameter poems of the Hellenistic period and the similar works composed at Rome from the age of the neoterics; to a lesser degree, the termincludes some poems of the English Renaissance, particularly those influenced by Ovid.[citation needed] The most famous example of classical epyllion is perhaps Catullus 64.
Some of the most famous examplesof epic poetry include the Ramayana, Mahabharata, Iliad and the Odyssey.
The first epics were products of preliterate societies and oral poetic traditions. In these traditions, poetry is transmittedto the audience and from performer to performer by purely oral means.
Early twentieth-century study of living oral epic traditions in the Balkans by Milman Parry and Albert Lord demonstrated theparatactic model used for composing these poems. What they demonstrated was that oral epics tend to be constructed in short episodes, each of equal status, interest and importance. This facilitates...