Epic is a long narrative poem. Almost all epics tell about the heroic deeds of divine beings and people in war or travel. In many epics, the hero is a demigod, born of one human parent and one divine parent. Some cycles (series) of epic poems developed around a hero or event. Many epics tell how a nation or people began. Some were created by several unknown authors over a long time. Other epics were written by one author.
Epics date back to prehistoric times. The earliest ones were sung by poets who accompanied themselves on a stringed instrument. These epics had no established text. The singers composed each line as they sang it, following the outline of a traditional tale. But every singer memorized certain descriptions, incidents, phrases, and scenes that could be used in making up verses. This method of composition is called oral formulaic.
In Western literature, epic poetry began with the Iliad and the Odyssey. Scholars believe these two works were composed by Homer, a blind Greek poet who may have lived during the 700’s B.C. Both epics belonged to a cycle of poems based on the partly historical, partly mythical Trojan War. Homer’s works served as models for later poets.
Greek and Roman literary critics prescribed rules for epics based on the style of Homer and his most important follower, the Roman poet Virgil. These rules stated that epics must begin in medias res (in the middle of things). That is, the story had to begin after much of the action had already taken place. Poets also had to write in a dignified style and begin with an “invocation” in which they asked a Muse for divine inspiration (see Muses).
During the Middle Ages, Greek and Roman epics and their rules were largely forgotten. Poets wrote epics in a more natural style. By the 1600’s, the Greek and Roman models had been rediscovered. The English poet John Milton imitated Homer and Virgil in his epic Paradise Lost (1667). Beginning in the 1700’s, the acceptance of realistic prose fiction, especially novels, helped lead to the decline of epic poetry.
