Candice,
Don't worry, my "definition" was only a throw-away remark, not serious.
From what's left of the other Greek epics (quotes in other authors, bits of
papyri from Egyptian rubbish dumps) it seems that the Homeric epics were
more unified than the rest, though it's certainly a structure imposed later
on material that had been in oral circulation for centuries.
There were written epics in the West prior to Vergil though. Apollonius of
Rhodes "Argonautica" comes to mind: a scholar/poet attempting to write an
epic in Homeric dialect, the influence of which can be seen in the Aeneid,
along with practically everything else that anyone had written prior to
Vergil's day. Both of these are, as literary epic, a long way from Homer.
What's certainly in common though, as others have said, is the concern with
community issues and particularly definition of a community and its origins.
Seems that the importance of epic and its insistance on those things might
be an indication of how problematic that concept has always been.
Another thing to consider regarding epic length is where the epyllion fits
in this. The word is admittedly a modern one for an ancient form, the
miniature epic, but the thing already existed in antiquity. From the ones
that come to mind (especially Vergil's telling of the Orpheus story at the
end of the Georgics) they seem less concerned with community issues. This is
a later form than the big epic though, and may be a sort of compromise in
the big poem vs little poem debate.
On the etymology, Ali: If a false etymology is productive for you, then I
think you should use it, though with awareness of the fact. I'm lamentably
ignorant of Persian lit. but in "Western" epic and other ancient lit.
etymological play, often serious play, is part of the game. A favourite one
(not from epic but Euripides' Bacchae) : is Teiresias' theory that the myth
of Dionysos' birth from the thigh of Zeus comes from a conclusion of the
words homeros (hostage) and meros (thigh).
I'd best stop rambling at this point.
Cheers,
Graeme
>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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