Encyclopedia of Literary Epics

686 Pages·1996·46.517 MB·English

by  Guida M. Jackson

Epics
Long before we humans learned to
write, we loved epic poetry. In the
flickering light of ancient campfires we
were frightened, inspired, and
enraptured by early bards and their
heroic tales of adventure. But neither
these early poets nor their audiences
could have imagined that their verses
would lay the foundation for the world's
greatest literary tradition—the epic
poem.
Through the centuries the form evolved
and expanded until, by the early
twentieth century, an epic was simply a
poem that included history. Today,
according to literary scholar Guida M.
Jackson, when we judge a poem an
"epic," we measure its scope—its height
and breadth and the depths it reaches
into the common human psyche. Jackson
also distinguishes between the oral or
traditional epics of the earliest poets (the
subject of her Encyclopedia of Traditional
Epics, a companion reference volume
from ABC-CLIO)—works often based on
legends of expanding nations and
featuring a central hero—and the written
or literary epics that followed,
compositions that were often conscious
imitations of the traditional epic form.
In the Encyclopedia of Literary Epics,
Jackson not only analyzes the
monumental works that are the
cornerstones of the Western literary
canon—from Vergil's Aeneid, the first of
the great literary epics of Europe—to
twentieth-century works such as Ezra
Pound's The Cantos and The Bridge by
Hart Crane. She also brings to light
hundreds of less familiar poems from
both the Western tradition
(Continued on back flap)

ABC-CLIO LITERARY COMPANION
Encyclopedia of
Literary
Epics

ABC-CLIO LITERARY COMPANION
Encyclopedia of
Literary
Epics
Guida M. Jackson
ABC-CLIO
Santa Barbara, California
Denver, Colorado
Oxford, England
Copyright © 1996 by Guida M. Jackson
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except
for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permis­
sion in writing from the publishers.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jackson-Laufer, Guida M. (Guida Myrl)
Encyclopedia of literary epics / Guida M. Jackson.
p. cm.—(ABC-CLIO literary companion)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Epic literature—Encyclopedias. 2. Epic literature—History and
criticism. I. Tītie. II. Series
PN56.E65J33 1966b 809.1'32'03—dc21 96-36995
ISBN 0-87436-773-5 (alk. paper)
02 01 00 99 98 97 96 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ABC-CLIO, Inc.
130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911
Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911
This book is printed on acid-free paper
Manufactured in the United States of America.
To Daniel, Ashley- Mikie, Mattie, Gregory, Elizabeth,
and Eleanor
"No writer, however skillful, can say anything important for his
own time, or for any future time, in a style, however good, that
belongs to a past age."
—T. S. Eliot