Epic Story Research Articles

The Epic Story of Every Living Thing by Deb Caletti

The Epic Story of Every Living Thing by Deb Caletti

Bernard Bailyn's Barbarous Modernity

Bernard Bailyn's Barbarous Modernity

Our Team: The Epic Story of Four Men and the World Series That Changed Baseball by Luke Epplin

Our Team: The Epic Story of Four Men and the World Series That Changed Baseball by Luke Epplin

NETWORK ANALYSIS OF THE KYIV BYLYNY CYCLE — EAST SLAVIC EPIC NARRATIVES

In recent times, the advent of network science permitted new quantitative approaches to literary studies. Here, we bring the Kyiv bylyny cycle into the field — East Slavic epic narratives originating in modern-day Ukraine. By comparing them to other prominent European epics, we identify universal and distinguishing properties of the social networks in bylyny. We analyze community structures and rank most important characters. The method allows to bolster hypotheses from humanities literature — such as the position of Prince Volodymyr — and to generate new ones. We show how the Kyiv cycle of bylyny fits very well with narrative networks from other nations — especially heroic ones. We anticipate that, besides delivering new narratological insights, this study will aid future scholars and interested public to navigate their way through Ukraine’s epic story and identify its heroes.

Temporal Intertwining in a Slovenian Narrative

This article, based on the assumption that narrativity and temporality are closely related, explores the Chronotope of the Slovenian historical tale Martin Krpan z Vrha (1858) by Fran Levstik. It focuses on the narrative time as presented by the epic story, as well as on the time frame in which this narrative was published. According to the assertion that literary time and place are intrinsicallysss connected, the time-line of this epic text is viewed as a constituent part of the setting and therefore the geographical location is also highlighted. The analysis of the story-line reveals that the tale, presenting three time frames clearly separated by centuries, when viewed from a historical perspective, displays cohesion and credibility despite the intermingling of two temporal settings. It is significant that the story was published in the aftermath of the Spring of nations (1848) in which Slovenians demonstrated the increasing awareness of their ethnic identity. Since scrutiny of the author’s biography reveals that this text was heavily influenced by the time-related issues, my premise is that the narrative time, viewed in the network of connections, can best be elucidated by the concepts of Chronos and Kairos. They can foreground the relationship between the narrative period of this tale, the date of its publication and even highlight the specificity of the time when the protagonist of this tale became the best known Slovenian national hero.

The Homeric Διὸς ἀπάτη and its reuse within the seventeenth-century Portuguese epic poem Ulisseia ou Lisboa Edificada

Abstract Ulisseia ou Lisboa Edificada (Ulysseia or Lisbon Founded) is a seventeenth-century epic poem written by Gabriel Pereira de Castro, which celebrates the mythical arrival of Ulysses in Lusitania and the subsequent foundation of Ulisseia by him. This city built by Greek hands comes to be Lisbon, the head of a great navy empire at the time of Portuguese Discoveries. This epic reshapes both the Odyssean sea voyages and Iliadic warfare, whereas Ulysses, the same crafty wanderer as the Homeric Odysseus, is also the bearer of a god-given mission like the Virgilian Aeneas. In this article, I examine the refashioning of the Homeric Διὸς ἀπάτη (‘Deception of Zeus’) in Ulisseia book 10 from a comparative and literary perspective. Castro follows his Greek model very closely, but at the same time it departs from it in important ways. In portraying the deceitful planning of Hera, with its erotic and humorous tone, he adapts it to the nationalistic purposes of his own epic story. Juno’s plan is granted a more serious tone, since its effects on the war between Greeks and Lusitanians are directly linked to the glorious Destiny of the Portuguese people.

Жанрово-стилевое своеобразие украинской народной думы и вопросы ее современного изучения

Among the epic genres of Ukrainian folklore, duma occupies a special place. Genetically connected with such traditional genres as bylina (epic story), lamentation, spell and other earlier varieties of folk oral poetry, it spreads mainly in the 17th and 18th centuries. However, later, it continues to exist in folklore and actively influences the literary process that can be vividly observed in the works by Taras Shevchenko and other writers of the 19th century. Contemporary authors productively employ and develop characters, motifs and style profoundness of this ancient genre. Genesis of duma to our time remains an actual problem. Its persistence in the tradition of Kievan Rus culture has been pointed out by M. Maksymovych, M. Hrushevsky and other researchers. The poetics of dumas, particularly their artistic structure, has been explored quite substantially, although this research is far from exhaustive. What strikes one’s eye right from the first acquaintance with dumas is the non-strophic composition. This uninhibited verse flow, as if not limited by anything, distinctively echoes an unceasing flow of life. Resembling the dynamics of recreated highly dramatic events, it contributes to emotional expressiveness, as well as to meditative reflections of their poetic comprehension. At the same time, F. Kolessa, followed by other researchers, noticed more or less detached periods (tirades, fragments) of this generally free non-strophic flow. These periods clearly represent a specific structure of such verse. They principally have quite an appreciable prosodic tint in a musical text, and also their own specifics in a verbal text. This specificity — primarily by the example of concrete works — is expected to become the subject matter of thorough research. A subtle combination of long and shorter lines, alternation between diverse regular rhythms and no less diverse rhythms of a free, often queer nature — all this gives a particular vividness to the texts of dumas. These are the evidence of that uniqueness, which was discussed by T. Shevchenko in regard to Ukrainian duma, and to which many researchers drew our attention. However, this unquestionable uniqueness doesn’t contradict the genetic and typological bond of Ukrainian folk dumas and world epic tradition.

Senjski uskoci - zbilja i usmenopoetska fikcija

The paper examines Uskok poems, especially those dedicated to the Uskoks of Senj, primarily from the point of view of the relationship between epic poems and history. The people of Senj worked from 1537 to 1617, fighting as paid soldiers or volunteers on the side of the Austrian Monarchy, but also going on campaigns on their own, fighting almost to the same extent with the Turkish invaders and the Christians from the wider region. In contrast to the relatively short period of eight decades of their historical presence, the people of Senj have survived in the oral epics in a very wide Balkan area over a long period of time covering a wide anachronistic field. The paper presents an assumption that the Uskoks of Senj were a warrior-patriarchal world, one that has created and spread oral epics. There were many events in their real lives that were themed in the oral epics. In addition, those who jumped from the mainland to the Austrian territory and settled in Senj probably carried some songs/ poems in their spiritual baggage, primarily those about Hajduks. And they were ready to create new ones. Thus, the first known records are proof that the early poetic narrative was suitable for depicting the Uskoks of Senj, and then that it survived in time and space. In certain interpretations, to which the second part of the work is dedicated, it is shown on the basis of anthological examples of poems, how the mythical, ritual and the historical intersect in the poetics of oral epic poetry; how the anachronistic field of a particular poem is formed, whether it is about gathering "power and dominance" in wedding processions, about concentrating heroes around certain events, personalities or spaces important for national history, or about opposing worthy opponents, and how it affects the aesthetic values and meanings that are shaped in the poems; how different genre features intertwine in such poems (epic and epic-lyric poetry, for example); and form complex and witty, full of twists novelistic plots. All this contributes to the meaning of the epic story: it seems that the past of one's own community is brought into a meaningful, paradigmatic order, which can serve as a basis for future actions.

Мотивы космогонического мифа о небесном охотнике и трех маралах в фольклоре калмыков

Introduction. There are a great number of “familiar” motifs and plotlines in Kalmyk folklore that originate from mythology. One such archaic story of a universal character in the Turkic-Mongolian world is a cosmogonic myth of the heavenly hunter and the three red deer. The article aims to attempt at reconstructing this cosmogonic myth in the Kalmyk epic heritage. Importantly, such reconstruction requires typological comparisons because the story is easily “identified” in a variety of traditions. The research materials used are the texts of early Baga Tsokhur cycle sagas of Kalmyk heroic epic “Djanggar”. The analysis was based on structural-semantic, structural-typological, and comparative methods. As a result, the author comes to the following conclusions. The structural-semantic analysis of the motif manifests its archaic roots originating from the ideas of cosmogonic beginnings of the universe. The epic story relating of Savar Warrior following the moon path while hunting deer and red deer originates from a cosmogonic myth of the heavenly marksman [Sirius] and the three red deer [the stars from the belt of the constellation Orion]. Moreover, the character of Savar Warrior shows some elements that may be associated with the archaic myth of a bear-hunter chasing the deer that stole the sun. The results of the present study agree with other researchers’ views, according to which, the principal symbols that the archaic calendar of the Kalmyk ancestors included were the images of a hoofed animal and a bear and that the image of the heavenly hunter of the ancient myth relating of the world beginning characteristic of a number of folklore traditions was a substitute of the mythological bear, the liberator of the sun.

Princess Sodara Kartika frees Amir from prison; The epic of Amir Hamza (?16th century)

MS Jav. b. 2 (R) is among the earliest Javanese manuscripts brought to Europe by seafarers. It was presented to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, in 1629. Its text – titled Stories of Amir ( Caritanira Amir ) – sheds new light on the literary and cultural history of Java and the wider Java Sea world. Probably composed in the 1500s, possibly in Banten, the text contains part of an adaptation of the Malay Hikayat Amir Hamzah , itself a rendition of an eleventh-century text in Persian. The protagonist Hamza was an uncle of the Prophet Muhammad. His epic story used to be told across Islamic Asia in a range of literary and performance genres. The text is Javanized not only in its language but also its poetics and (selectively) its natural and cultural settings. Among other things, Caritanira Amir helps to clarify the relationship between Middle and Modern Javanese, and it problematizes social, political, and religious issues that were evidently of concern in the early modern Java Sea world. Several appear in the excerpt presented here.

The Design comes as we build

This essay discusses urbz' 'The Design Comes As We Build Project' which recognizes local builders in homegrown settlements by providing them a space to showcase their design imagination. The project started in Dharavi, Mumbai, a settlement populated by self-taught experts with a strong, practice-based, and experience-rich learning background. By recognising the agency of local actors in the production of their own habitats, this essay focuses on the processes at work in this context. We employ an ethnographic lens informed by the language of architecture to illustrate how artisans imagine and build thousands of tiny houses on a daily basis. These anonymous “contractors”, usually blamed for operating illegally and without formal education, are shown to be the heroes of an epic story in which neighbourhoods are created out of nothing through the transformation of meager local resources. Typically selected on the basis of previous work and common acquaintances, these artisans belong to the same community as their clients, often living in close proximity. Together, they design and build without formal plans or contracts, using trust and reputation as the cornerstones of their professional relationship. As a result of their collaboration in all stages of the project, unpredictable features become an inherent part of the structures that emerge organically from this process.

Books and Other Reviews

KEY POINTS Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment — Glenn Suter A Series of Fortunate Events: Chance and the Making of the Planet, Life, and You — Glenn Suter The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon — Robert Stevenson

Contribution of Branch Stories to The Structure of The Epic: A Study Based on The Silappathikaram

Epic is the Tamil form of the word epic. It is a literary form structured with various elements. Among them the branch is the main component. It is created to support the purpose of coffee. This is the storyline that lies within the central story. Silappathikaram also presents several branch stories with them as a consensual literary form. The central story is the life struggle story of Kovalan - Kannaki - Madhavi, the pioneer of Tamil coffee, Ilangovadikal and Silappathikaram. Several episodes interspersed with the Silappathikara central story expand the scope of the epic story. In particular, 32 episodes co-exist with Kovalan Kannaki's biography, giving a twist, emphasis, clarity and significance to the elemental. These stories complement the silappathikaram storytelling and copy structure. Anecdotes are used in the silappathikaram to reinforce the author's ideas, to advance the narrative and the personality of the characters, and to identify the context and silappathikaram of the narrative and its use. The study focuses on scholasticism with a view to revealing and documenting the role of branch stories in such copywriting. The scholastic epic of the juveniles has been used primarily for this study and related essays, journals, and electronic commentary have also been used as research data. The study also emphasizes that many more such studies should be carried out by researchers in view of the importance of branch stories and their contribution to copywriting.

Zulu Empire Decolonised: The Epic Story of the Zulu from Pre-Colonial Times to the 21st Century by Shalo Mbatha Johannesburg, South Africa: iZigi Publishing, 2021, p. 392. ISBN: 978-0-620-89782-2

The Zulu Empire is one of the well-known empires in Africa and the world. It is well-known for having resisted and militarily defeated the English army in the battle of Isandlwana. However, history writers who predominantly wrote from the outsider perspective distorted a lot of historical events. This article reviews a book written by Shalo Mbatha entitled “Zulu Empire Decolonised: The Epic Story of the Zulu from Pre-colonial Times to the 21st Century”. The article argues how the title remains true to the project of decolonisation. It further demonstrates how Shalo reverses the popular history created by colonisers by presenting events as known by those who lived through them. Her greatest success is in writing the history in the language of the colonised, thus restoring their dignity and having them rewrite their own history.

Literature in Layers: An Early Theory of Retelling the Sanskrit Epics

Abstract This essay reconstructs an early chapter in the history of theorizing the diverse Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata literature of South Asia. Drawing upon the tenth-century literary theorist Kuntaka’s discussions of the Udāttarāghava, Uttararāmacarita, Veṇīsaṃhāra, Kirātārjunīya, and Abhijñānaśākuntala—all Sanskrit poetic (kāvya) compositions that depict stories from the Rāmāyaṇa or the Mahābhārata—I show how, in Kuntaka’s understanding, these works repair certain narrative inconsistencies and ethical ambiguities in the epics themselves. Building on the foundation laid by his predecessor, Ānandavardhana, Kuntaka illuminates the various layers of meaning that a work of literature can encompass. He shows that the epics’ different narrative layers send conflicting messages about proper conduct. He suggests, moreover, that an audience experiences a kāvya retelling of an epic story as a layered entity—a layer of epic narrative beneath a layer of kāvya—and argues that an awareness of these layers can contribute to the audience’s ethical self-cultivation. Kuntaka’s theory of retelling (truly re-telling: telling again, purposefully, and differently from a previous accepted telling) represents an important theoretical account of the relationships between South Asia’s many Rāmāyaṇas and many Mahābhāratas.

Habitat of birds in Kambaramayana

Kambar one of the great epic story writer. In his one epic gives more importance about marine aquatic animals and their life styles. He also sang naturals beauty things like trees, animals, reptiles and give more or less, information about 50 types of birds. He tells about both animals and birds, but particular give clear information related to birds. His information almost related to sangam literature works. So this present work give information about aquatic birds and their life habits based on kambar’s given information.

Towards the Epic Story of Bangladesh

The second volume of Rehman Sobhan’s memoirs, Untranquil Recollections From Dawn to Darkness Political Economy of Nation Building in Post- Liberation Bangladesh (Sobhan, 2022), deals primarily with the years 1972- 1975, which comprise probably the most difficult period of the nation’s history. Titanic battles were fought during this period over the country's policy direction. Over a short period of about 3.5 years, the epochal triumph of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman ended in a tragedy, which was captured by the title of S. A. Karim’s book, Sheikh Mujib: Triumph and Tragedy (Karim, 2009). The second volume of Sobhan’s memoirs, dealing with this period, thus, deserves special attention. The memoir begins with Sobhan’s return to liberated Bangladesh and ends with his going to exile (at the end of December 1975) after the coup of August 15 changed the political landscape of the country altogether. The heart of the story lies in the narration of his experience

An Analysis of Santiago’s Character in Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea : A Saga of Indomitable Human Spirit

This article explores the epic story of an old fisherman and his experience at the sea that portrays the physical and emotional strength of a man called Santiago and will analyse his motivation to reclaim his lost reputation and dignity of not catching a fish for 84 days. Santiago confronted each day with poise and dignity for many days without catching a fish and was made fun of by many fishermen. He was called unlucky (salao) by the fellow fishermen. Hemingway illustrates the daring resolution of the old man through this tale. The story deals with the vital issues of mortality, hope, despair, and determination, where an old fisherman fights back against a huge fish to reclaim his honour and dignity. Ernest Hemingway rejoices over this heroic man who goes through life’s challenges alone with fierce courage and tenacity, exhibiting what Hemingway views as an indestructible spirit of man at its best. In addition, Hemingway reminds us about the human spirit and the importance of human dignity in our everyday struggle for survival. Hemingway compels us to acknowledge courage, tenacity, skill, expertise, and strength through this story. He recalls a tale of valour, daring, and heroism, of one man's struggle against his own doubts and about his success and failure, and his ultimate triumph. The novel brings forth man’s understanding of his own mortality and his power to overcome it. The objective of this study is to analyse the character of Santiago, based on the structural elements,using qualitative research.The primary data of the research is The Old Man and the Sea and the secondary data of the research are the other materials related to the study. The result of the study shows following conclusion.Based on the research the character of Santiago’s struggle displays the aptitude of the indomitable spirit of man that endures suffering and adversity in order to succeed. The story illustrates Santiago’s adventure and resolution, hardship and perseverance.

Ethics and Governance in the Time of Ramayana

This paper employs the epic story of Ramayana for having better understanding of good governance, leadership and strategies for development of organization. Good governance is basic requirement for maintaining peace and harmony in any society. However, good governance has become a rarity in today’s world. A large majority of political, business and other leaders are increasingly engaged in self -serving pursuits of personal glorification and enrichment. By realizing significance of Ramayan for good governance and leadership, young generation can learn from history and this will encourage various management teachers to develop indigenous case studies based on similar incidences to bring new ideas into management discipline. The practicing managers can find new ideas and strategies for their development and their organisational development.

Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad. By Gordon H. Chang

<i>Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad</i>. By Gordon H. Chang