"Characteristics of an Epic Poem"

"Characteristics of an Epic Poem"

An epic is the highest type of narrative poetry. It is a long narrative poem in which the characters and the action are of heroic proportions. From the works of Homer and Virgil, certain characteristics have become established in the West as standard attributes of the epic. The main attributes are given below.

(i) The hero is a figure of great national or international importance. Moreover, the characters must belong to the highest class in a society, raised above the common man by birth, position, manners and appearance. They must be kings and princes descended from heroes, and even from the gods, compelling in their deportment and arresting in their personal appearance. In Paradise Lost the hero is Adam, who incorporates in himself the entire race of man.
(ii) The setting is ample in scale, sometimes world-wide, or even larger in the classical epic. The scope of Paradise Lost is cosmic, for it includes Heaven, Earth and Hell.
(iii) The action involves heroic deeds: Paradise Lost includes the war in Heaven, the journey of Satan to discover the newly created world, and his audacious attempt to outwit God by corrupting mankind.
(iv) The action should be an entire action, complete in itself. By this is meant that it should have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
(v) The next characteristic of the epic poem according to Aristotle is that it must have greatness, by which is meant that it must produce far-reaching consequences in which the destinies of great men and nations are involved.
(vi) God are also used in the epic as a tragedy, as deux ex machina; the intervention of supernatural machinery advances the plot and solves its complications. It not only gives ample scope for the exercise of the poet’s imagination, it also provides a proper spiritual support for the heroic deeds.
(vii) An epic poem is a ceremonial composition and deliberately given a ceremonial style proportionate to its great subject and architecture. Hence, Milton’s Latinised diction and stylized syntax, his resounding lists of strange and sonorous names, and his epic similes, that is, sustained similes in which the comparison is developed far beyond the specific points are appropriate.
(viii) The poet begins by stating his theme, then invokes a Muse in his great undertaking and addresses the Muse.