on 2/22/01 3:07 AM, Graeme Miles at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> Firstly, the ep- in epic (Greek epos) and the ep- in the prefix epi- aren't
> from related origins. Epos started out meaning any sort of utterance
> (story, counsel or whatever) and came to be used in the plural (epe) in the
> meaning "epic" though not exclusively. You're right that nothing in the
> word itself implies length necessarily, though as you say, by its use as a
> description of Homer (and the other, lost, epic poets) it became associated
> with long poems.
>
> As to a definition of epic, I think we're going to need something quite
> broad if it's going to fit everything from oral epic as it's still practised
> to Homer (writing the oral stuff down. I suppose writing was the new
> information technology then) through to Omeros via Vergil, Dante and the
> rest.
> I'm afraid my brain isn't producing anything more meaningful than "A
> generally big poem about people dealing with the serious shit of life."
I'm just now catching up with or maybe grabbing the tail of this thread,
so apologies if people have already responded to Gaeme's helpful post.
(Thanks for sorting out the etymology!) Much as your appealing definition
has going for it, Graeme, I think Ali's "human protagonist who adventures"
is not only more precise (epic heroes being nothing if not adventurers, as
Walcott rightly emphasizes in _Omeros_), but also avoids confusing the long
poem with the epic (a distinction that gets a bit big-muddied in your
southbound "generally big poem," I'd say).
The confusion between epic and (merely) long is probably related to
broadness-of-fit issue you raise re the oral and the written epic, which
really began in the West with Vergil, as the Homeric epics are loose enough
to suggest what _Beowulf_ clearly manifests: a series of discrete episodes
or adventures involving a single protagonist, which were later compiled or
collocated into a single long work that achieved a retrospective unity to
the degree that its seams proved relatively smooth. The major seam in
_Beowulf_ is monstrous (as Tolkien showed long ago) and it's a fairly smooth
one in terms of its unifying power, but there are also very rough minor
seams, particularly where the edges of paganism and Christianity meet (or
don't, quite), such as when Hrothgar, made desperate by Grendel's
depredations, resorts to praying to the old gods for relief. The poet
dutifully recounts this in a reproving manner, yet who shows up next but our
hero, almost as if in response to that pagan prayer.
But it's the missing episodes or adventures of Beowulf that really give away
its post-hoc epic status as a product of being written down. When performed
orally, the number of episodes covered would have depended on the occasion's
demand for a shorter or longer performance. While we can easily imagine a
single performance covering both of Beowulf's adventures with the Grendel
family, it's harder to rationalize one that leaps all those years ahead to
his last adventurous episode with the dragon, assuming the competence of the
singer. And there are allusions to other episodes that we don't get in full,
such as the swimming contest with Brecca, but that some audiences probably
did on some occasions.
If what was written down and survived as a result were just three of the
many presumed adventure tales featuring Beowulf, it's because that's what
the scribe had at the time, and all he could do by way of arrangement was to
put them in chronological order as he wrote them up (or down). The _Aenead_,
by contrast, was conceived as a written work from the get-go and is
accordingly almost seamless, attaining a unity for which the oral epics
never even strived because they had originated as individually performable
pieces of varying lengths for diverse occasions.
Well, I've probably strained the interest and patience of everyone except
Ali, but hope this has been of some use to him--and thanks again, Graeme,
for your own post.
Candice
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