1.

Record Nr.

UNISA996202479403316

Titolo

The Cambridge companion to the epic / / edited by Catherine Bates [[electronic resource]]

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge : , : Cambridge University Press, , 2010

ISBN

1-139-80166-X

1-139-00292-9

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xiv, 279 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Collana

Cambridge companions to literature

Disciplina

809.1/32

Soggetti

Epic poetry - History and criticism

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 09 Nov 2015).

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 264-273) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Machine generated contents note: Preface Catherine Bates; 1. The Epic of Gilgamesh Andrew George; 2. Greek epic Jasper Griffin; 3. Roman epic Peter Toohey; 4. Heroic epic poetry in the Middle Ages Karl Reichl; 5. Dante and the epic of transcendence John Freccero; 6. Italian Renaissance epic Giuseppe Mazzotta; 7. Camões's Os Lusi;adas: the first modern epic George Monteiro; 8. The Faerie Queene: Britain's national monument Catherine Bates; 9. The seventeenth-century Protestant English epic David Loewenstein; 10. Mock heroic and English poetry Claude Rawson; 11. Romantic re-appropriations of the epic Michael O'Neill; 12. Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, and the modern epic John Whittier-Ferguson; 13. Derek Walcott's Omeros Robert Hamner; 14. Epic in translation Paul Merchant; Guide to further reading; Index.

Sommario/riassunto

Every great civilisation from the Bronze Age to the present day has produced epic poems. Epic poetry has always had a profound influence on other literary genres, including its own parody in the form of mock-epic. This Companion surveys over four thousand years of epic poetry from the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh to Derek Walcott's postcolonial Omeros. The list of epic poets analysed here includes some of the greatest writers in literary history in Europe and beyond: Homer, Virgil, Dante, Camões, Spenser, Milton, Wordsworth, Keats and Pound, among others. Each essay, by an expert in the field, pays close attention to the way these writers have intimately influenced one another to form a distinctive and cross-cultural literary tradition. Unique in its coverage



of the vast scope of that tradition, this book is an essential companion for students of literature of all kinds and in all ages.