Pl Secondary/literary Epic Conventions

Front 1

narrator states his argument (aka)

Back 1

epic theme

Front 2

narrator invokes a ___ to inspirre him

Back 2

muse

Front 3

narrator states his _______, the answer to which inagurates the narrative proper

Back 3

epic question

Front 4

narrative starts _________, at a critical point in the action

Back 4

in medias res

Front 5

_____ of some of the principal characters, intro'd in formal detail. these characters often give set ______ revealing their temperaments and moral attitudes

Back 5

speeches

Front 6

Conventions of a Literary Epic
(5 in order)

Back 6

1. narrator states his argument - epic theme
2. narrator invokes a muse to inspire him
3. narrator states epic question, the answer to which begins the narrative proper
4. narrative starts in medias res, at a critical point in the action
5. catalogues of the principal characters, who give speeches, intro'ing their temperaments and moral attitudes

Front 7

Milton's Grand style

Back 7

1) Formal diction
2) Elaborate, complex, and stylized syntax
3) Lists of names (not just people- places, too)
4) Wide ranging allusions (indicative of his humanism)
5) imitation of epic simile and epic epithet

Front 8

romance

Back 8

refers to any imaginative adventure concerned with noble heroes, gallant love, chivalric code of honor, daring deeds, and supernatural. they usually have faraway settins, depict events unlike ordinary life, and idealize the heroes as well as the eras in which the heroes live

Front 9

literary epic (definition)

Back 9

composed by individual poetic craftsmen in deliberate imitation of the traditional form; it is the most ambitious of poetic enterprises; makes immense demands on the poet's knowledge, invention and skill to sustain the scope, grandeur, and authority of a poem that tends to encompass the world of its day and a large portion of its learning. Highly conventional, following conventions that are derived from traditional epics and revised to meet the author's purpose

Front 10

lyric poetry

Back 10

a fairly short poem, consisting of the utterance by a single speaker, typically in solitude, who expresses a state of mind or a process of perception, thought and feeling

Front 11

pastoral

Back 11

a conventional form in which the purity and simplicity of the country, particularly the life of the shepherd, is contrasted with the corruption of the court or city

Front 12

elegy

Back 12

elaborately formal lyric poem lamenting the death of a person, the decline of asituation, or reflecting seroiusly on a solemn subject