EPIC, THE, EPOS

the highest and most dignified form of narrative poetry, usually dealing with great events of past times (hence also called Heroic). he Iliad and Ody ey, at tri butted to Homer (VIII cent. B.C.), are usually regarded as the first epics, but epic stories were undoubtedly repeated orally long before being reduced to writing. Amongst later Gk. epic writers were Par me nides and Hmpedocles. The earliest Latin epics were written by Naevius and Ennius. These were followed by the Beale of Rom. epics, the Aeneid of ergil 70-19 B.C. Later epic poets of eminence were Lucan and Statius. Other famous epics are Beowulf (Old Eng.),. the Chanson de Roland (mediaeval Fr.), Nibelungenlied (Teutonic) the Mahabharata (Ind.), Ta o’s Jerusalem DeLusiads, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Spenmay be instanced Butler’s Hudibras. comic dramatist; 6. Cos; celebrated writer of the Dorian school, many of whose subjects were drawn from the Sicilian life of his day; survives only in fragments; highly esteemed by Plato.