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The term EPIC is applied to a work which is a long narrative poem on a great subject
treated in a
serious mood and in elevated style . It centres round a heroic or quasi –
divine figure on whose
actions depends the fate of a tribe , a nation or the human race.
The narrative incorporates myth , legend, folk – tale and histroy
thereby embodying the aspirations of a nation in a grandiose manner.
The epic is divided into cantos.
KINDS OF EPIC :
THE PRIMARY EPIC THE LITERARY EPIC
(Oral or primitive/ (Secondary epic)
Traditional or folkepic)
-eg: eg:
1. Homer’ s Odyssey 1. Paradise Lost of Milton.
Adventures of Ulysses . 2.Virgil’s Aeneid.
2. Anglo - Sexon Beowulf.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PRIMARY EPIC & THE LITERARY EPIC :
The Literary Epic is written down even at the start where as the Primary Epics
were composed orally ad recited and later written down.
COMMON FEATURES OF PRIMARY EPIC :
1.Written in imitation of the traditional form .
2.There is a central heroic figure who is super – human .
3.It describes perilous journeys, great adventures etc.
4. The tone is lofty like the tone of a classical tragedy and Homeric epithets are used.
Common features of Literary Epic :
1. Is the most ambitious of literary types because it makes immense demands
on a poet’s knowledge of invention and skill to sustain the scope and grandeur
of the poem.
2. Literary epics are highly conventional and some of the conventions drawn
from Homer are observed in them.
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