Epic poetry

In the early thirteen hundreds, the poet Dante Alighieri completed his magnum opus, the Divine Comedy. This epic poem follows the Pilgrim, who is led by Virgil and Beatrice, through every aspect of the Christian afterlife according to Catholic tradition. The Pilgrim is Dante himself, who was chosen to bear witness the evils of hell and wonders of heaven and, by doing so, change the hearts of his readers. Additionally, the pilgrim was chosen because some secret sin, of which he need only to…

spirits. Despites that all national heroes are extraordinarily distinctive, one universal trait was shared in all individuals: The Ofermod, or Pride, a dignified sense of one’s identity. For example, In the Battle of Maldon, the orally transmitted poetry that illustrated the grand battle led by English earl Byrhtnoth against invasion of Viking raiders, the tragic hero Byrhtnoth was portrayed to represent the ideal definition of Anglo-Saxon heroism with both his self-dignity and national pride.…

The Odyssey is well-known, and critically acclaimed ancient collection of mythical poetry. Homer, does a fantastic job of bringing the main character, Odysseus to life, and expressing the traits of an epic hero inside him. Reading the Odyssey, notice how ancient Greek society and its philosophical ideals and how they play a key role in the many stories. The selection expresses a wide range of the ideas of loyalty, respect, and integrity taught in Ancient Greece. One example if the many…

important aspect in epic poetry such as Beowulf. In speaking to Hrothgar of his intended battle against Grendel, Beowulf acknowledges that whoever dies is facing his predestined fate (Beowulf 440-441, 455). Beowulf believes that whatever is meant to happen will happen and goes through his quest with this mindset. In fact, the concept of fate is mentioned many times in Beowulf separate from that of the title character. However, the most important instance of fate in this epic comes at the end of…

Zayid seizing the Iberian Peninsula for the Islamic Caliphate. The scenes of these heroes’ rousing speeches echo each other both literally and literarily as they open the classic tale of the birth of their cultures. The fictional Aeneas of Virgil’s epic poem as well as Tariq ibn Ziyad, who would be permanently veiled by legend and hyperbole, would become glorified by their supposed descendants them long after the facts had faded from the historical record. Their imposing images were intended to…

Beowulf & Kit Both Christopher Marlowe’s work and the epic poem Beowulf represent great literature from their own times. While Marlowe’s work made him the foremost writer of tragedy in Elizabethan England, in many ways it predates its time in the late Renaissance in categories such as religion and stage drama. On the other hand, Beowulf is an exemplary piece of epic poetry that portrays the culture of the area that is now Britain in the days of Old English. Marlowe’s plays, specifically The…

However, in Anglo-Saxon poetry, a hero’s actions result from their own selfless generosity or from their loyalty to a person or God. Nearing the end of the Anglo-Saxon period dating the late 1400s AD, Christianity had nearly replaced Paganism in morality and law. Hence, an incredibly possible reason for a hero such as Beowulf to fight for others during this time period could be that he or she desires to abide by the laws of Christianity. In Seamus Heaney’s translation of the epic Beowulf, the…

Lessons Learned from Leaders of Legend At the second feast in the epic, Beowulf, poetry is sung to demonstrate a specific moral to the listeners. The singer sang of two rulers of Anglo-Saxon legend Siegmund and Finn. Each illustration of the rulers’ deeds presented crucial lessons for Beowulf. The moral of Siegmund’s story was that greed and arrogance destroy kingdoms. Finn’s moral, on the other hand, demonstrated that cruelty and dishonor bring disrespect to whomsoever acts disreputably.…

metaphors, and symbols while uniquely interpreting these literary devices to reflect character’s individual perspectives. The seventeenth-century author, John Milton, emerged as a crucial and contemporary innovator of the epic genre with his poem Paradise Lost. Milton’s epic is “preeminently a poem about knowing and choosing—for the Miltonic Bard, for his characters, and for the reader” (Lewalski, 460). Principally, Paradise Lost embodies the subject of free will by exemplifying the opposition…

Beowulf, is an epic poem written during the Anglo-Saxon time. It is about Beowulf, who is a warrior that is summoned to battle Grendel, a man eating demon. The tale is told with remnants and style of old Anglo-Saxon poetry writings. The Anglo-Saxons used a figure of speech known as kenning. A kenning substitutes a noun with two other words that, when compounded together, describe the substituted noun. In Beowulf the three words that are described by using kennings are Beowulf, Grendel, and the…