Early Epic Research Articles

THE ROLE OF THE NARRATIVE GENRE IN THE COMPOSITION OF THE FIRST EPICS "KHAMSA"

The article analyzes the role of stories in the composition of the dastans “Hayrat ul-abror”, their important function in the formation of the structure of the work, the ideological and artistic features of the story, their classification, and plot issues. When creating the “Hayrat ul-abror” architectonics, the issues of the original style of Hazrat Navoi, his attitude to tradition, the early epics of his predecessors and innovation were highlighted. It was found that the stories, considered the illustrative final part of the conversations of the epic, are an important factor in proving the poet’s artistic intention. “Hayrat ul-abror” emphasizes that conversations and stories are inextricably linked, that a specific moral, poetic idea is expressed in conversations based on the author’s own opinion, the author’s views on time, space, reality, that the stories reveal the issue discussed in the conversations, problem, the attitude of the sages of the past, saints to the idea. This article also reveals the principles of updating epic stories, a realistic reflection of the spirit and problems of the era in which the poet lived.

2901: Multifocal MRI directed SBRT microboost for prostate cancer: early toxicity and EPIC QoL outcomes

2901: Multifocal MRI directed SBRT microboost for prostate cancer: early toxicity and EPIC QoL outcomes

Mare magnum: the Romans and the Mediterranean Sea between myth and history in the early Latin epic

This article aims to illustrate the significant presence of images of the sea in the early Latin epic poetry as a mirror of the evolution of Roman society, which was originally founded on land and agriculture. This presence was mainly due to the first Punic War, which took place largely at sea, and was experienced by the poets themselves, Livius Andronicus and Naevius, and subsequently remembered by Ennius. A review of literary passages, which implicitly refer to the Mediterranean, shows (albeit in fragmentary form) the interest in the mare magnum between Greek myth and Roman history, changing from the dramatic representation of the sea as an enigmatic and hostile environment, to that of a pragmatic relationship between man and sea that offered new chances in peacetime and a wider perspective on the world.

Finding the ‘Epic of Jangar’: the literary construction of an early Oirat epic in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region

ABSTRACT During the early reform period in China beginning in 1978, intellectuals and government agencies expended significant resources collecting, ‘revising’, and publishing folk literature in collaboration with local folk artists and amateur collectors. While folk artists were encouraged to re-engage with past folk practices, academics were required to analyze and preserve this ‘folk culture’ ‘scientifically’, ‘objectively’, and ‘correctly’. This paper utilizes oral narratives of surviving agents and related materials to follow the politicized process of collection, ‘revision’, and publication of what would be called the ‘Epic of Jangar’ of Xinjiang’s Oirat Mongols. Through this process, a unified narrative began to emerge that assisted in the construction of a unique ‘excellent’ Mongol – but above all Chinese-Mongol – culture. Through textualization, historical ritualized socializing performances were systematically decontextualized and simultaneously recontextualized as a great contribution to Chinese national literature.

The Image of Women in Eastern and Western Epic literature: Shahnameh and Odyssey

The research examines two epics, one from the East and one from the West with regards to the question of woman and her images in early epic literature. The epics were selected from the literature. The epics were selected from the literature of two cultures, both of which, in different historical periods produced the most advanced civilizations of their time. The Persian epic, The Shahnameh (the book of Kings) was tooted in the ancient Indo-Iranian pagan as well as Zoroastrian traditions, an epic of approximately 60,000 couplets rewritten in the tenth century A. D. in the final, completed from which has reached us today. The Greek exemplar was the odyssey of Homer, epic with which Greek literature begins and widely influences not only the later periods of Greek literature but also the entire Western literature; this epic is also widely known in the East. Central to our study of The Shahnameh and Homeric epics were the themes of dynamism, the individuality of characters and their struggles in the epic world, the resourcefulness of the human mind ascribed to them, the subject of human crises, and irony, all of which are deep-seated components marking the central literary qualities of these epics. Women are indispensable in the early epics of both traditions and more often than not highly regarded by epic heroes in general and the narrators of the stories in particular. In both Eastern and Western example the structure split the female image in two opposite directions: one force is represented by exalted, praiseworthy, and positive images which also endow the women of The Shahnameh and the Homeric poems with powerful characteristics.

БАЛЫКООЗДУН (БЕКМУРАТ) АКЫНДЫК ЧЕБЕРЧИЛИГИ

The article considers the analysis of the work of one of the akyn-improvisers of the Kyrgyz people Bekmurat akyn. There are a number of facts testifying to his nickname Balykooz, a narrator, an improvising singer and the legend of early epics. First of all, Bekmurat was an improvisational poet. From the age of 14-15 he began to tell the epic "Manas", folk tales and songs among the people. In his work, improvisation, syncretism, mastery, and poetic traditions are clearly manifested. Balyk became famous in the competitions of akyns - improvising singers who demonstrated their skills, where he competed with the improvising singer Aytyk. Bekmurat’s works also analyze the songs of the sanat, therme, and the jokto.

‘Barbaro è di costume, empio di fede’? Sul nativo americano nell’epica del Seicento

‘Barbaro e di costume, empio di fede’? About the Native American in seventeenth-Century Epic The purpose of this article is to investigate the representation of Native Americans in seventeenth-century Italian epic by identifying two opposite ethical-literary approaches and connecting them to modern literary theories on epic and imperialism. The first poem I examine, Tommaso Stigliani’s Mondo Nuovo , unites the ideology of Homer’s Iliad and of the Spanish Empire and gives a negative idea of the native, seen as a brute and unholy follower of Satan. The second poem, Girolamo Bartolomei’s America , is based on the scheme of the Odyssey and recalls the philanthropic theories of Bartolome de Las Casas by emphasizing the original purity of Native Americans and describing its corruption through the brutality of the conquerors. This examination of the representation of the native thus argues that the ethical and political implications of the prevailing model in early modern epic, the Iliad , were countered by a (nowadays neglected) archetype, the Odyssey .

Frakes, Jerold C. (ed., trans.): Early Yiddish Epic (Judaic Traditions in Literature, Music, and Art). 2014.

Frakes, Jerold C. (ed., trans.): Early Yiddish Epic (Judaic Traditions in Literature, Music, and Art). 2014.

An Introduction to the Chansons de Geste by Catherine M. Jones (review)

Reviewed by: An Introduction to the Chansons de Geste by Catherine M. Jones Mihaela L. Florescu Catherine M. Jones, An Introduction to the Chansons de Geste, New Perspectives on Medieval Literature: Authors and Traditions ( Gainesville: University Press of Florida 2014) 218 pp. Catherine M. Jones, the Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor of French and Provencal at the University of Georgia, has produced an excellent introduction to the tradition of the Old French chansons de geste. The resulting book is divided into three major parts. In part one, the chansons are placed in historical and literary context. Part two presents on overview of the numerous texts. Part three looks at six popular chansons in greater detail: La Chanson de Roland, Le Charroi de Nimes, La Prise d’Orange, Raoul de Cambrai, Ami et Amile, and Huon de Bordeaux. Jones approaches the study of the chansons from feminist, postcolonial, and cognitive theory points of view. Jones explains the tradition of the chansons contending that while there are similarities with epics from earlier ages, such as the Homeric epics, the focus of the Old French chansons is more specific than that of its predecessors. The chansons are very much a product of a specific time and place, and often revolve around local conflicts in France usually involving the constant battles for power between the monarchy and the aristocracy and the medieval conflict between Western Europe and Islam. Many chansons de geste are associated with actual historical events. The events depicted in La Chanson de Roland, composed in the late eleventh or early twelfth century were based on an attack on Charlemagne’s troops that took place in 778. The character of Guillaume d’Orange, is loosely based on Guillaume, Count of Toulouse. Historical similarities can be seen even in the portrayal of minor characters. Geographical references and local conflicts are also based in historical fact. Nevertheless, an exact historical reading would be inaccurate as the events the chansons purport to portray were written hundreds of years after they were supposed to have occurred. It is possible the chansons had their start when noteworthy events were recorded contemporarily into lyrical narrative pieces later modified by generations of oral poets. The Old French chansons de geste may have evolved from the Germanic oral tradition prevalent at the time. Itinerant jongleurs in northern France may have been influenced by the traditions of their neighbors. Others theorize that the chansons were inspired by local legends. Neotraditionalists, such as Ramon Menendez Pidal, demonstrate that the early epics [End Page 249] preserved in manuscripts prove the stories predate the oldest surviving texts. Others point to Hellenists Milman Parry and Albert B. Lord’s findings on orally composed epic songs in Yugoslavia as evidence of an example of transmission of stories through an oral tradition which could have been very similar to the method employed to record the Old French chansons de geste. Delving into an even more distant past, Jones explores the possibility that the chansons are related to their older Indo-European forerunners. Joel Grisward’s three ideological identifiers of Indo-European culture are present in the Old French chansons de geste. The sacred, represented by a leader, in the form of a sovereign or a priest, the warrior, and abundance, represented by characters associated with nourishment and riches are the three Indo-European identifiers present in to Old French chansons. Grisward’s theory is further substantiated by the striking similarities in which the chansons align themselves with the earlier substrate of Indo-European themes. In the medieval age, the chansons de geste were distinguished from other writings by their distinctive form. The chansons from the twelfth century were composed in assonanced decasyllabic laisses. The decasyllabic line usually exhibits “epic caesura,” or a division into two parts, 4+6 syllables. The division 6+4 also appears from time to time. “Assonance” refers to the concept of an identical stressed (tonic) vowel at the end of each line. Chansons from the thirteenth century on, made use of the alexandrine verse of twelve syllable lines, featuring a division after the sixth syllable. The thirteenth century saw transition from assonance to rhyme, with many poems undergoing a transformative period containing both...

The Races of Poetry

THE IMAGE OF RACING is endemic to poetry. The Iliad culminates in a race: at the climax of the narrative, in Book XXII, Achilles chases Hector three times around the walls of Troy, in a pursuit that Homer specifically likens to a foot-race or a chariot-race. The image then returns in the following book, at the funeral games for Patroclus, which are dominated by actual races. Similar games, again with races as their most prominent feature, appear in both the Odyssey and the Aeneid. In Ovid's Metamorphoses the same motif – one character running after another – becomes not just an incident in the plot, as in earlier epics, but in a sense the main plot itself: of the different types of recurrent episode in Ovid's poem, the most conspicuous involves (typically) a male god chasing a nymph across the countryside. And in Dante's Inferno – to look no further – the motif becomes so central as to be nearly invisible. Almost every canto of the Inferno features sinners running, or trudging, after each other, round and round in a perversely endless, unwinnable race.

The Female Homer: An Exploration of Women’s Epic Poetry (review)

Reviewed by: The Female Homer: An Exploration of Women’s Epic Poetry Wendy Whelan-Stewart (bio) Downes, Jeremy. The Female Homer: An Exploration of Women’s Epic Poetry. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2010. Downes is one of those rare scholars writing from a position where competing interests intersect—The Classical Tradition, Genre Studies, Feminist Criticism and Theory, English and American Literature Studies, and Creative Writing. Living a double existence as a creative writer and an academic, Downes is well-suited to offer a much-needed redefinition of the epic as a genre in literature, especially in light of much contemporary poetry, and to uncover a women’s hidden epic tradition. His tasks, which he finds personally fulfilling, are to identify or create (vis à vis Judith Shakespeare) the female progenitor of woman’s epic poetry, Anyte, the Female Homer; uncover the multiple lineages of women’s epics; and identify the consistencies and mutual “affinities” in these varied works. The chapters that follow one another do not fail to inform on Downes’ seemingly straightforward thesis, but they demonstrate and perform the fragmented, sometimes chaotic nature of such an open, experimental approach as reconsidering Eastern and Western, oral and written, prehistoric and dated narratives in three hundred pages. But certainly, this too is part of Downes’ thesis: for contemporary scholars and writers of epic to seek a history of women’s epic writing on their own—without a trailblazer—is to hazard such an arduous journey that they risk never engaging the genre or the tradition at all. The organization of The Female Homer is provocatively experimental, and its twenty-two chapters contain discussions that move backward and forward in time and that shift from setting to setting (from Sumerian prehistory to American modernity). Moreover, because the chapters are more like strands in an intricate braid, picking up and dropping discussion as though Downes were weaving, a traditional summary of the chapters will not do for this review. While its chapters seem random, The Female Homer consistently offers two critical practices for scholars: first, viewing a “difference” in the traditional elements used in women’s epic, and second, attending to new elements that crop up in women’s epics. Examples of “difference” in women’s use of traditional elements include a hero’s descent into hell but with the difference of her eventual rebirth(s), and correspondingly, an emphasis not on linear time but on cyclical and even monumental time; a focus on war but from the vantage point of the domestic sphere; an epic hero who values communal interdependence over solitary independence and who occasionally shares the spotlight with other “heroes,” a quest that privileges love over war and produces a hero’s interior growth as well as her community’s social growth; and contemporary epics’ intertextual appropriation of not merely earlier epics but fore-mother epics. More exciting are the new elements Downes considers representative of women’s [End Page 81] epics. For instance, women writers’ familiarity with textiles means studying the degree to which a figurative “quilting” influences construction of epic, the augmented role of clothing (rather than battle gear) in epic, and a reconsideration of how quilts, tapestries, and fascicles are themselves epics. Also fresh is Downes’s attention to paternal and maternal influences over the creation of women’s epics. A character’s ambivalence over father-figures often parallels her writer’s ambivalence over a real father who initially may have supported then stymied he daughter’s creative efforts (161). Maternal influence means attending to how later writers like H.D. are writing through their literary foremothers by redeploying, for example, Aurora Leigh’s structure or point of view or turning to Psyche’s quest to recover Cupid as an ur-narrative. Finally, attention to the way many women writers make material the body in epic as well as the body of their work is a welcome “new” reading practice. Women’s epics often foreground the relationship of women’s bodies to the men and children around them, calling attention to bodily processes like breastfeeding, menstruating, or even masturbating. Linked to an analysis of how the body functions anew in women’s epic is Downes’s discussion...

The King's Daughter: Medea in Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica

Medea's awakening love for Jason is the great theme of the third book of Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica. At the opening of that book—that is to say, at the very centre of the four-book epic—the Hellenistic poet signals a programmatic redirection, invoking the Muse Erato to inspire his tale of Jason's winning of the golden fleece, aided by the love of the Colchian princess (Мηδείηϛ ὑπ' ἔϱωτι, Ap. Rhod. 3.3). This is the first mention of Medea in the poem. Writing a few centuries later, the Flavian poet Valerius Flaccus for the most part adheres closely to Apollonius' narrative outline. As we shall see, however, he manifests comparatively little interest in the love story between Jason and Medea, and takes a different approach to the problem of integrating Medea into the plot. Though, as with the earlier epic, she will not appear as a dramatis persona until the second half of the epic, she is mentioned at the very outset of the narrative (1.61-63), and a number of times thereafter in the early books. Thus by the time the Argonauts reach Colchis and Medea enters the narrative proper, she has already been presented to the reader in a number of ‘previews’.

War in the Mahabharata

The Mahabharata, composed in sanskrit, is generally described as an epic. Other sanskrit texts refer to it occasionally as a kavya, or poem, and more often as an itihasa, which literally means “thus indeed it was,” suggesting an element of history. As with many early epics, it carries a consciousness of history but does not claim historicity. It evokes a past society of clans and narrates the events that bound them together or tore them asunder, focusing on the actions of those regarded as heroes.

In the image of the ancestors: narratives of kinship in Flavian epic

Only four Roman epic poems survive from the Flavian period (69-96 AD): Valerius Flaccus's Argonautica, Statius's Thebaid and Achilleid, and Silius Italicus's Punica. Neil W. Bernstein argues that these poems contain depictions of kinship that are significantly different from earlier epic and examines these representations in the context of the social, political, and aesthetic changes of the early Imperial period. The author analyses various kinds of kinship, including biological relationships, elective relationships such as marriage and adoption, and the symbolic bonds of social and political allegiances, to illuminate the complex ways in which the Roman upper class asserted their status with or without noble lineage. A fresh and fascinating look at not only Roman poetry, but the epic tradition itself, In the Image of the Ancestors is essential reading for classicists and literary historians.

The Writer's Truth: Representation of Identities in Indian Fiction

It is widely believed that nationalism in India stemmed from European domination. Imperialism, for the first time, generated the sentiment of ‘nationhood’ that brought together people of diverse religions, languages, and lifestyles to demand home rule. The process involved cultural revivalism, yet retained strong ties with the inheritance of two centuries of foreign domination. The spur to the writing of cultural tracts was sharp and the attempt to rewrite the ‘true’ history of their country became the leading preoccupation of intellectuals. Consequently, indigenous histories of different kinds emerged over a period of years preceding independence and in the years after 1947. Different generic models were used in an attempt to replace the ‘inauthentic’ historical accounts compiled by Europeans, featuring instead themes or motifs of writing that emphasized an assertion of a culture which was comparable, if not superior, to that of their European peers. Correspondingly, historiography and fiction-writing depicted national heroes, full of deeds of valour and bravery, engaged in wresting their ‘nation’ from the aggressor by an emphasis on indigenous themes. Models of writing structured around the earlier epics, the use of local dialects, the emphasis on ancient rituals and practices, all went into the making of a ‘pure’ tradition.

Ending epic: Statius, Theseus and a merciful release

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.Nietzsche,Beyond Good and EvilStatius'Thebaidis a rarity. More of the surviving Latin epics of the classical period are incomplete or unfinished than not: Lucan'sBellum civile, Valerius Flaccus'Argonautica, Statius'Achilleid, perhaps Silius Italicus'Punicaand of course Virgil'sAeneid(although his dissatisfaction may relate to polish rather than scope: we do not know). Only Ovid'sMetamorphosesand Statius'Thebaidseem complete. Yet the question of epic endings casts a fascination upon critics, especially perhaps where the ending does not exist or where there is evidence that it is not the ending planned by the author. Critics use their interpretations of the endings to inscribe meaning in the preceding text and to clinch one reading against another. The readings advanced enact different kinds of closure or refuse to see any closure at all.It seems paradoxical that one of the few epics to survive complete has not yet received a full stint of attention devoted to its ending. In this paper, my purpose is to situate the end of theThebaidin its literary and ideological context. This involves examining how the close of the poem interacts with earlier epic, particularly with theAeneid. My argument is that Statius offers a supplement to, or even a critique of, the open-endedness of theAeneidin the form of a triptych of resounding endings. I shall then suggest that there are other elements in Statius' closural strategy which are highlighted by a consideration of his Romanisation of his Greek material.

Natural Law and Poetic Justice: A Carneadean Debate in Cicero and Virgil

Previous articleNext article No AccessNatural Law and Poetic Justice: A Carneadean Debate in Cicero and VirgilJames E. G. ZetzelJames E. G. Zetzel Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Classical Philology Volume 91, Number 4Oct., 1996 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/367522 Views: 15Total views on this site Citations: 8Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1996 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Jed W. Atkins, Thomas Bénatouïl The Cambridge Companion to Cicero's Philosophy, 22 (Dec 2021).https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108241649Daniel Kapust Roman Patriotism, (Jul 2020): 47–67.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54484-7_42Charles Martindale, Fiachra Mac Góráin The Cambridge Companion to Virgil, 5 (Jul 2019).https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316756102Syrithe Pugh “Gods that faine to be”: Political Euhemerism in Spenser’s Mutabilitie Cantos, English Literary Renaissance 49, no.11 (Dec 2018): 28–73.https://doi.org/10.1086/700304Michael C. Hawley Cicero on the Problem of Unjust Origins, Polity 50, no.11 (Dec 2017): 101–128.https://doi.org/10.1086/695356Daniel Kapust Roman Patriotism, (Aug 2017): 1–21.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30534-9_42-1A. Dirk Moses Das römische Gespräch in a New Key: Hannah Arendt, Genocide, and the Defense of Republican Civilization, The Journal of Modern History 85, no.44 (Jul 2015): 867–913.https://doi.org/10.1086/672532Benjamin Straumann Ius erat in armis: The roman and spanish empires and their discontents, International Journal of the Classical Tradition 13, no.44 (Mar 2007): 597–607.https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02923029

Physical conditions on early earth: Implications for the origin of life

The history of the earth can be divided into the earlier part of the accretion, the later part of accretion and core formation, and the remaining history. The early part of accretion is irrelevant to the origin of life because of the extreme conditions associated with the late stages of accretion. The impact of several lunar to Mars-sized objects appears inevitable. These large impacts surrounded the earth with rock vapor tens to hundreds of kilometers thick. Although the solid surface was quickly reestablished any ocean or atmosphere existing before the last very large impact was either buried or lost. The iron core of the earth formed during accretion and released enough gravitational energy to melt the interior of the earth. Moderate sized impacting bodies formed local pockets of impact melt. Following the last very large impact the earth (and the moon) were near their present sizes and the energy flux from impacts was sufficiently less than the present solar heat flux. A cool surface with oceans and an atmosphere then could persist. The internal tectonics and degassing mechanisms of the earth were different than during the rest of earth history. In particular, the eruption of total ly melted rock to the surface was a much more efficient means of heat loss than plate movements and the return of the frozen material to the interior may have efficiently cooled the interior. Once the last pockets of very hot material in the mantle erupted and were used up, plate tectonics became the dominate mode of heat transfer from the earth 's interior. The interior temperature at the s tar t of plate tectonics need not have been particularly high as cold total ly frozen material acted to cool the mantle during the early epic of total melting and volcanism. Mare-sized impacts were infrequent during the period of heavy bombardment and mare formulation on the moon that the surface geology of the earth was probably dominated by internal processes rather than cratering. In particular, the resurfacing of the earth was probably comparable to that of present-day active volcanic regions where life is abundant in spite of frequent disasters. The mare-forming imparts on the earth would have produced heavy casualities in any life that existed, but the worst effects were local and not a danger to life globally. Conversely, impacts were sufficiently infrequent that meteoritic iron, shocked or melted rocks, and shock-induced atmospheric gasses were not dependable material for the sustenance of early life. The origin of an atmosphere and an ocean following the last major impact was probably rapid, but quantitative observations exist only for radiogenic rare gasses and not for CO 2 and H20. As at present, competing processes tended to degas volatiles and to return them to the earth 's interior. Volcanic activity and metamorphism released gasses and lower temperature alteration particularly at mid-oceanic ridges returned volatiles into the interior. Although the

Damedieus: The Religious Context of the French Epic. The Loherain Cycle Viewed against Other Early French Epics. J.-L. Roland Bélanger

<i>Damedieus: The Religious Context of the French Epic. The Loherain Cycle Viewed against Other Early French Epics</i>. J.-L. Roland Bélanger

Some Allusions to Earlier Hellenistic Poetry in Nonnus

Nonnus, as well as being soaked in Homer and, no doubt, earlier epics on his particular theme (enough survives of Dionysius, Bassarica, to show the debt), had a great affection for the Hellenistic master—above all Callimachus, Apollonius, Theocritus, and Euphorion. For this reason he can provide valuable help towards the study of fragments and new papyri. Pfeiffer, in his edition of the Callimachus fragments, is of course fully alive to this point, and regularly quotes Nonnus. From the other side there is a useful collection of parallels in Keydell's Dtonysiaca (1959) and the new Nonnus lexicon (ed. Werner Peek) will be invaluable, though not a complete substitute for actually reading the poem because imitation need not involve more than a small amount of verbal reminiscence.