List of epic poems explained
This is a list of epic poems.
Ancient epics (to AD 500)
Before the 8th century BC
8th to 6th centuries BC
- Iliad, ascribed to Homer (Greek mythology)
- Odyssey, ascribed to Homer (Greek mythology)
- Works and Days, ascribed to Hesiod (Greek mythology)
- Theogony, ascribed to Hesiod (Greek mythology)
- Shield of Heracles, ascribed to Hesiod (Greek mythology)
- Catalogue of Women, ascribed to Hesiod (Greek mythology; only fragments survive)
- Cypria, Aethiopis, Little Iliad, Iliupersis, Nostoi and Telegony, forming the so-called Epic Cycle (only fragments survive)
- Oedipodea, Thebaid, Epigoni and Alcmeonis, forming the so-called Theban Cycle (only fragments survive)
- A series of poems ascribed to Hesiod during antiquity (of which only fragments survive): Aegimius (alternatively ascribed to Cercops of Miletus), Astronomia, Descent of Perithous, Idaean Dactyls (almost completely lost), Megala Erga, Megalai Ehoiai, Melampodia and Wedding of Ceyx
- Capture of Oechalia, ascribed to Homer or Creophylus of Samos during antiquity (only a fragment survives)
- Phocais, ascribed to Homer during antiquity (only a fragment survives)
- Titanomachy ascribed to Eumelus of Corinth (only a fragment survives)
- Danais (written by one of the cyclic poets and from which the Danaid tetralogy of Aeschylus draws its material), Minyas and Naupactia, almost completely lost
5th to 4th centuries BC
3rd century BC
2nd century BC
1st century BC
1st century AD
2nd century
2nd to 5th centuries
Cilappatikāram, Manimekalai, Cīvaka Cintāmaṇi, Valayapathi, Kundalakēci
3rd to 4th centuries
4th century
5th century
Medieval epics (500–1500)
6th century
7th century
8th to 10th centuries
- Beowulf (Old English)
- Waldere, Old English version of the story told in Waltharius (below), known only as a brief fragment
- Alpamysh, a Turkic epic
- Karolus magnus et Leo papa (Carolingian, Latin, before 814)
- Daredevils of Sassoun (Armenian)
- Bhagavata Purana (Sanskrit) "Stories of the Lord", based on earlier sources
- Lay of Hildebrand and Muspilli (Old High German,)
- Kakawin Ramayana, Javanese version of the Ramayana (c. 870)
- Shahnameh (Persian literature; details Persian legend and history from prehistoric times to the fall of the Sassanid Empire, by Ferdowsi)
- Waltharius by Ekkehard of St. Gall (Germany, Latin); about Walter of Aquitaine
- Poetic Edda (no particular authorship; oral tradition of the North Germanic peoples)
- Vikramarjuna Vijaya and Ādi purāṇa (c. 941), Kannada poems by Adikavi Pampa
- Ajitha Purana and Gadaayuddha (c.993 and c.999), Kannada poems by Ranna
- Neelakesi (Tamil Jain epic)
11th century
- Ali Nameh by Rabi' (Persian), it's an Epic Poem about Caliphate of Imam Ali and it's the First Shia Epic Poem Ever seen, it has been composed of in 12,000 verses (c. 1080).
12th century
13th century
14th century
15th century
Modern epics (from 1500)
16th century
17th century
18th century
19th century
- The Tale of Kiều by Nguyễn Du (c. 1800)
- Thalaba the Destroyer by Robert Southey (1801)
- Madoc by Robert Southey (1805)
- Psyche by Mary Tighe (1805)
- The Columbiad by Joel Barlow (1807)
- Milton: A Poem by William Blake (1804–1810)
- Marmion by Walter Scott (1808)
- Alipashiad by Haxhi Shehreti (before 1817)
- Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Lord Byron, narrating the travels of Childe Harold (1812–1818)[11]
- Queen Mab by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1813)
- Roderick the Last of the Goths by Robert Southey (1814)
- The Lord of the Isles by Walter Scott (1813)
- Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1815)
- The Revolt of Islam (Laon and Cyntha) by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1817)
- Harold the Dauntless by Walter Scott (1817)
- Manuscripts of Dvůr Králové and Zelená Hora, forged epic published in 1818
- Endymion (1818) by John Keats
- Hyperion (1818) and The Fall of Hyperion (1819) by John Keats
- The Battle of Marathon by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1820)
- Phra Aphai Mani by Sunthorn Phu (1821 or 1822–1844)
- Don Juan by Lord Byron (1824), an example of a "mock" epic in that it parodies the epic style of the author's predecessors[11]
- Camões by Almeida Garrett (1825), narrating the last years and deeds of Luís de Camões
- Dona Branca by Almeida Garrett (1826), the fantastic tale of the forbidden love between Portuguese princess Branca and Moorish king Aben-Afan
- Tamerlane by Edgar Allan Poe (1827)
- The Gypsies (poem) by Alexander Pushkin (1827)
- The Free Besieged by Dionysios Solomos (1828–1851)
- The Fall of Nineveh by Edwin Atherstone (1828–1868)
- Creation, Man and the Messiah by Henrik Wergeland (1829)
- The Bronze Horseman by Alexander Pushkin (1833)
- Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus, translated by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1833)
- Messiah's Kingdom by Agnes Bulmer (1833)
- Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz (1834)
- The Baptism on the Savica (Krst pri Savici) by France Prešeren (1836)
- Florante at Laura, an awit by Francisco Balagtas (1838)
- Haidamaky by Taras Shevchenko (1841)
- King Alfred by John Fitchett (completed by Robert Roscoe and published in 1841–1842)
- Horatius by Thomas Babington Macaulay (1842)
- Germany. A Winter's Tale by Heinrich Heine (1843), a "mock" epic
- János Vitéz by Sándor Petőfi (1845)
- Smrt Smail-age Čengića by Ivan Mažuranić (1846)
- Toldi (1846), Toldi szerelme ("Toldi's Love", 1879) and Toldi estéje ("Toldi's Night", 1848) by János Arany, forming the so-called "Toldi trilogy"
- Evangeline by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1847)
- The Mountain Wreath by Petar II Petrović-Njegoš (1847)
- The Tales of Ensign Stål by Johan Ludvig Runeberg (first part published in 1848, second part published in 1860)
- Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot (1849 Finnish mythology)
- I-Juca-Pirama (1851) by Gonçalves Dias
- Kalevipoeg by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald (1853; Estonian mythology)
- The Prelude by William Wordsworth
- Song of Myself by Walt Whitman (1855)
- The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1855)
- A Confederação dos Tamoios by Gonçalves de Magalhães (1856)
- The Saga of King Olaf by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1856–1863)
- Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1857)
- Os Timbiras by Gonçalves Dias (1857)
- Meghnad Badh Kavya by Michael Madhusudan Dutta (1861)
- Terje Vigen by Henrik Ibsen (1862)
- La Légende des siècles (The Legend of the Centuries) by Victor Hugo (1859–1877)
- The Earthly Paradise by William Morris (1868–1870)
- Ibonia, oral epic of Madagascar (first transcription: 1870)
- Martín Fierro by José Hernández (1872)
- Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson (c. 1874)
- Clarel by Herman Melville (1876)
- The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs by William Morris (1876)
- L'Atlàntida by Jacint Verdaguer (1877)
- The Light of Asia by Edwin Arnold (1879)
- The City of Dreadful Night by Bysshe Vanolis (finished in 1874, published in 1880)
- Tristram of Lyonesse by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1882)
- The Rape of Florida by Albery Allson Whitman (1884 later republished as Twasinta's Seminoles)
- Eros and Psyche by Robert Bridges (1885)
- La Fin de Satan by Victor Hugo (written between 1855 and 1860, published in 1886)
- Canigó by Jacint Verdaguer (1886)
- Lāčplēsis ('The Bear-Slayer') by Andrejs Pumpurs (1888; Latvian Mythology)
- Tabaré by Juan Zorrilla de San Martín (1888; national epic of Uruguay)
- The Wanderings of Oisin by William Butler Yeats (1889)
- Kotan Utunnai, Ainu epic, recorded in the 1880s, published in 1890
- Host and Guest by Vazha-Pshavela (1893)
- The 9th of July 1821 by Vasilis Michaelides (1893–1895; national epic of Cyprus written in Cypriot Greek)
- The Tale of Balen by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1896)
- Lục Vân Tiên by Nguyễn Đình Chiểu
- Amir Arsalan, narrated by Mohammad Ali Naqib al-Mamalek to the Qajar Shah of Persia
20th century
21st century
Other epics
- Canaäd, an epic poem reconstructing Canaanite mythology, set during the Late Bronze Age.
- Epic of Bamana Segu, oral epic of the Bambara people, composed in the 19th century and recorded in the 20th century
- Epic of Darkness, tales and legends of primeval China
- Epic of Jangar, poem of the Oirat people
- Epic of Köroğlu, Turkic oral tradition written down mostly in 18th century
- Epic of Manas (18th century)
- Epic of the Forgotten, Bulgarian poetic saga
- Gesta Berengarii imperatoris
- Heavensfield, alliterative epic on the life of medieval king Oswald of Northumbria.
- Hikayat Seri Rama, Malay version of the Ramayana
- Hinilawod, Filipino epic from the island of Panay
- Hotsuma Tsutae
- Khun Chang Khun Phaen, a Thai poem
- Klei Khan Y Dam San, a Vietnamese poem
- Koti and Chennayya and Epic of Siri, Tulu poems
- Kutune Shirka, sacred yukar epic of the Ainu people of which several translations exist
- Lay of Mouse-fate (Musurdvitha), a fantasy epic inspired by animal fable and Arthurian legend.
- Mu'allaqat, Arabic poems written by seven poets in Classical Arabic, these poems are very similar to epic poems and specially the poem of Antarah ibn Shaddad
- Parsifal by Richard Wagner (opera, composed 1880–1882)
- Pasyón, Filipino religious epic, of which the 1703 and 1814 versions are popular
- Popol Vuh, history of the K'iche' people
- Ramakien, Thailand's national epic derived from the Ramayana
- Der Ring des Nibelungen by Richard Wagner (opera, composed 1848–1874)
- Siribhoovalaya, a unique work of multi-lingual literature written by Kumudendu Muni, a Jain monk
- Yadegar-e Zariran (Middle Persian)
- Yama Zatdaw, Burmese version of the Ramayana
- Al Silsilah al Dahabiyah: Malhamat Ahlil Bayt by Fartosi, It's a Poetic Encyclopedia about 12 Imam's sacred Hadith and summary of their biographies in 50,000 verses.
- Al Alawiyah al Mubarkah by Abdul Masih al Antaki, Poetic work based on Imam Ali's biography in 6000 verses.
- Eid al Ghadir by Pulus Salamah, Poetic work based on Bani Hashim History in Early Islam in 3000 verses.
- Salasil al Dahab by Muhammad ben Shames al Battashi al Omani, Poetic Encyclopedia about Ibadi Fiqh contains History of early Islam and of Oman in 120,000 verses, considered as the longest Arabic Poem ever seen.
- Arajiz It's a Poetic works of Arabic language about many forms of education History, Feqh, Hadith, Medicine and grammar like Sirat al Mu'tadid of Ibn Mu'taz, Tarikh of Ibn Jahm and Alfiyat ibn Malik, however, the erliest form of it was Kitab Kalila wa dimna of Aban Lahiqi.
References
12. https://www.rokomari.com/book/213367/nabinama
Notes and References
- Fallon, Oliver. Bhatti's Poem: The Death of Rávana (Bhaṭṭikāvya). New York 2009: Clay Sanskrit Library, http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org/ . .
- Book: Terjanian . Pierre . Bayer . Andrea . Brandow . Adam B. . Demets . Lisa . Kirchhoff . Chassica . Krause . Stefan . Messling . Guido . Morrison . Elizabeth . Nogueira . Alison Manges . Pfaffenbichler . Matthias . Sandbichler . Veronika . Scheffer . Delia . Scholz . Peter . Sila . Roland . Silver . Larry . Spira . Freyda . Wlattnig . Robert . Wolf . Barbara . Zenz . Christina . The Last Knight: The Art, Armor, and Ambition of Maximilian I . 2 October 2019 . Metropolitan Museum of Art . 978-1-58839-674-7 . 18 February 2022 . en . 18 February 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220218060419/https://books.google.com/books?id=X-anDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA60 . live .
- Book: Sofroniou . Andreas . PHILOLOGY, CONCEPTS OF EUROPEAN LITERATURE . Lulu.com . 978-1-291-49148-7 . 86 . 18 February 2022 . en . 18 February 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220218060422/https://books.google.com/books?id=YLegBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA86 . live .
- Michaud . Claude . Hispania- Austria. Die Katholischen Könige, Maximilian I. und die Anfänge der Casa de Austria in Spanien/Los Reyes Catolicos, Maximiliano I. y los inicios de la Casa de Austria en España . Revue d'Histoire Moderne & Contemporaine . 1996 . 43 . 2 . 371–373 . 18 February 2022 . 16 February 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220216194238/https://www.persee.fr/doc/rhmc_0048-8003_1996_num_43_2_1824_t1_0371_0000_1 . live .
- Book: Roberts . Thomas Duval . Area Handbook for Laos . 1967 . U.S. Government Printing Office . 125 . 18 February 2022 . en . 18 February 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220218060421/https://books.google.com/books?id=sXYsAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA125 . live .
- Web site: The Lusiads . . 1800–1882 . 2013-08-31 . 2015-12-17 . https://web.archive.org/web/20151217213203/http://www.wdl.org/en/item/11198/ . live .
- Book: Phan . Đăng Nhật . Nghiên cứu sử thi Việt Nam . 2001 . Khoa học xã hội . 292 . 18 February 2022 . vi . 18 February 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220218060421/https://books.google.com/books?id=5W1kAAAAMAAJ . live .
- Book: học (Vietnam) . Viện văn . Đam Săn: sử thi Ê-đê . 1988 . Khoa học xã hội . 9 . 18 February 2022 . vi . 18 February 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220218060423/https://books.google.com/books?id=cYIxAAAAMAAJ . live .
- Book: Pender, Patricia. Early Modern Women's Writing and the Rhetoric of Modesty. 2012. Palgrave Macmillan. 9781137008015. 166.
- Baker. Chris. Phongpaichit. Pasuk. The Career of Khun Chang Khun Phaen. Journal of the Siam Society. 97. 2009. 1–42. 2017-10-11. 2017-10-12. https://web.archive.org/web/20171012044526/http://www.siam-society.org/pub_JSS/jss097BakerPasuk.pdf. dead.
- Stephen Greenblatt et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, volume D, 9th edition (Norton, 2012)
- Book: Pearce . Joseph . Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile . 2011 . Ignatius Press . San Francisco . 9781681494432 . Ch. 9 . 3rd . 24 July 2022 . 4 June 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230604205154/https://books.google.com/books?id=I4xHDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22prussian+nights%22+%22epic%22&pg=PT118 . live .
- Book: Aldama, Frederick Luis. Poets, Philosophers, Lovers : On the Writings of Giannina Braschi. U Pittsburgh. Savans, Ilan; O'Dwyer, Tess.. 2020. 978-0-8229-4618-2. Pittsburgh, Pa.. 1143649021. 2020-09-08. 2021-10-09. https://web.archive.org/web/20211009153646/https://www.worldcat.org/title/poets-philosophers-lovers-on-the-writings-of-giannina-braschi/oclc/1143649021. live.
- Web site: Autobiography of Red. www.read poetry.com. December 26, 2023.
- Book: Kellman, Tony. Limestone : an epic poem of Barbados. 2008. Peepal Tree Press. 978-1-84523-003-6. Leeds. 149151329.
- Web site: Iovis Trilogy. www.read poetry.com. December 26, 2023.
- Web site: Our Lady of the Ruins. www.read poetry.com. December 26, 2023.
- Web site: Brand New Ancients. www.read poetry.com. December 26, 2023.