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Hello Ali, At the risk of sounding ridiculously pedantic, I thought I should reply to your mail on the origins of the word epic as you seem to have got some misinformation. Not particularly important for your project of course, nor for how we're going to define epic as it's developed since, but anyway, here goes. 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." Again, I didn't write this wanting to knit-pick, but thought some well-intentioned pedantry might help you avoid some less well-intentioned pedantry later on. Cheers, Graeme >people say epic means long. the word itself couldn't. I've been struggling >with this >word for a while, and I think it means 'a story upon...' or 'about...'(a >person - as >opposed to a deity); the same effect of 'epi' in words like epilogue, >epicentrum, >etc. but then again I find in some words 'epi' does denote scale and span >(more so >than length); epidemic, etc. all of this is fairly pedantic in our >discussion but I >think it's interesting to know that the whole thing about epic meaning a >very very >long poem is a historical observation more than anything else. The fact >that Homer's >stuff was called epic before anything else (in the western tradition)has >been >fundamental in shaping the meaning of this word. To rock the boat a bit >more, in my >first language Persian the word Hamahseh (ham-us-eh) is used in place of >epic. It, >however, means, rather directly, 'The' adventure. Automatically, this word >indicates >a period, a span, a length of time (any adventure e.g. a camping trip, >pregnancy, >beheading Medusa, whatever, will take, before anything else, time). But I'm >not sure >if a length of time in poetry should mean a lenght of writing. What does >seem >fundamental to the epic is, I think, having a human protagonist who has >adventures >(sorry if it sound like an episode of 'Survivors') during a definite period >of time. >and it has to have something to do with mythos - some relationship with it. >howz >that for a definition? > >Ali > _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.