EPIC Quick reference
A Dictionary of Travel and Tourism
... Electronic propulsion integrated control system aviation term...
epic Quick reference
World Encyclopedia
... Long, narrative poem in grandiose style. The earliest known form of Greek literature, epics were originally used to transmit history orally. Using highly formalized language, epics tend to involve gods, men and legendary battles. Homer is the author of two of the most famous epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey , which effectively established the scope and conventions of the...
epic Reference library
The Oxford Dictionary of the Renaissance
... . An epic is a long narrative poem, usually distinguished from the ballad by its greater length and by the use of stichic rather than stanzaic verse. The history of epic in the Renaissance is intertwined with the survival and rediscovery of classical epic and ancient critical analysis of the genre, with the development of romance, and with the inheritance of Dante 's Divina commedia , which is in some respects an epic without a hero. The recovery of Homer and Hesiod (first published in Milan in 1493 ) gave access to the earliest surviving epics, and the...
epic Reference library
Hardie Philip Russell
The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization (2 ed.)
...of epic particularly appealed to the Romans; for a century and a half the classic Roman epic was Ennius ’ Annals , the hexameter narrative of Roman history (finished before 169 bc ). Republican generals and statesmen had themselves commemorated in both Greek and Latin epics; Cicero gives a portrait of a typical Greek epic panegyrist in his speech in defence of Aulus Licinius Archias, and himself composed autobiographical epics on his own successes. Virgil revolutionized the genre by combining the legendary and the historical strands of epic in the...
Epic Reference library
Alexander Kazhdan
The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium
... . Several types of epic flourished in the late Roman period: (1) patria , or histories of cities such as Tarsos , Berytus, and Nicaea; Christodoros of Koptos wrote patria in epic verses on Constantinople, Thessalonike , and other cities (Al. Cameron , Historia 14 [ 1965 ] 489); (2) epic enkomia of famous persons, primarily emperors and high officials, by such authors as Claudian (who wrote both Latin and Greek epics), the empress Athenais-Eudokia , Kyros of Panopolis, and Corippus ; (3) mythological epics by Nonnos , Quintus of Smyrna , ...
epic Quick reference
A Dictionary of Critical Theory (2 ed.)
... A long, narrative poem praising the deeds and person of a hero, often for their efforts in either founding or saving a particular community. The epic is an extremely old form in literature. Indeed, the oldest known written text is The Epic of Gilgamesh , whose origin is put at more than 3000 years bc . Other well-known epics include: Homer ’s Trojan War poems, The Iliad and The Odyssey , thought to date from around 800 bc , the slightly later Indian work, Mahābhārata , and the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf from ad 800 . The principal defining feature...
epic Quick reference
The Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World
...with the gods, and for the omniscience of the inspired epic narrator. Acc. to Herodotus (2. 53), Homer and Hesiod established the names, functions, and forms of the Greek gods. Epic in Rome begins with Livius Andronicus ' translation in Saturnian verse of the Odyssey (3rd cent. bc ). This was followed by Naevius ' historical epic in Saturnians, his Punic War . The commemorative and panegyrical functions of epic esp. appealed to the Romans; for a century and a half the classic Roman epic was Ennius ' Annals , the hexameter narrative of Roman...
epic Reference library
Hardie Philip Russell
The Oxford Classical Dictionary (4 ed.)
...of epic particularly appealed to the Romans; for a century and a half the classic Roman epic was Ennius ' Annals , the hexameter narrative of Roman history (finished before 169 bc ). Republican generals and statesmen had themselves commemorated in both Greek and Latin epics; Cicero gives a portrait of a typical Greek epic panegyrist in his speech in defence of A. Licinius Archias , and himself composed autobiographical epics on his own successes. Virgil revolutionized the genre by combining the legendary and the historical strands of epic in the ...
epic Reference library
The Oxford Companion to English Literature (7 ed.)
... Originally a lengthy poem recounting in elevated style the exploits of a legendary hero or heroes, especially in battles or voyages. This is also known as a heroic poem. In modern times the term is sometimes extended to certain prose works, especially to large‐scale historical novels. In the poetic sense, the major examples in English are John Milton 's Paradise Lost , unusual in its biblical subject, and the Old English Beowulf . Others include the alliterative Morte Arthure , while John Keats 's Hyperion is an unfinished attempt at an epic poem....
epic Quick reference
The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (4 ed.)
... in medias res (for other epic conventions, see epic simile , formulaic , machinery ). The Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf (8th century ce ) is a primary epic, as is the oldest surviving epic poem, the Babylonian Gilgamesh ( c .3000 bce ). In the Renaissance , epic poetry (also known as ‘heroic poetry’) was regarded as the highest form of literature, and was attempted in Italian by Tasso in Gerusalemme Liberata ( 1575 ), and in Portuguese by Camoëns in Os Lusiadas ( 1572 ). Other important national epics are the Indian Mahābhārata (3rd...
epic Quick reference
The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature (4 ed.)
...richer in its tradition of mock‐epic poems (e.g. Alexander Pope 's Dunciad , Lord Byron 's Don Juan ), which make fun of the classical epic conventions derived from Homer and Virgil . http://www.auburn.edu/~downejm/hyperepos.html Hyperepos—epic poetry...
Epic Reference library
Herbert F. Tucker
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Literary Theory
... Nekuia as a Site of Epic Dialogization in New World Epics,” in Elle s’étend, l’épopée: Relecture et ouverture du corpus épique , ed., Vincent Dussol (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2012), 267–276. 12. Thomas M. Greene sketches the epic case against sorcery in “The Natural Tears of Epic,” in Epic Traditions , ed. Beissinger, Tylus, and Wofford, 194, a case also embraced by the volume’s editors (p. 2). On the shamanic or spirit-journey roots of the epic quest motif see Paul Merchant, “Epic in Translation,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Epic , ed. Catherine Bates...
epic Reference library
The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature (3 ed.)
...history of Rome, was a work in which the dactylic hexameter was applied to Latin epic for the first time. The greatest Roman epic was the Aeneid of Virgil, who was influenced in its composition not only by the Homeric Greek epics but also by Ennius and other Latin hexameter poets. In the Silver age Latin epic became rhetorical in character and seems written with the intention that it should be declaimed. The best epic of that age was Lucan's Pharsalia . Other epic poets of the empire whose works survive in part were Silius Italicus , Valerius Flaccus , ...
Epic Reference library
The Oxford Companion to Italian Literature
...epic hero to the knight errant of romance , in a long digression in which he abandons the French army for a series of adventures in the Orient. The Entrée and its French antecedents provided the basis for the prose narratives of Andrea da Barberino and the verse of La Spagna , which for all their warlike subject matter can only loosely be defined as epics. [ See also French Influences , 1.] Alongside this elaboration of the Carolingian material, Dante , Petrarch , and Boccaccio all sought in different ways to re-create for their own time the epic...
epic Reference library
An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age
...accommodations invoke the more ambitious engagements with the epic during the period, in which the ‘ heroics ’ that the epic poet celebrates are often what *Blake called the artist's own ‘mental fight’ to generate cultural and political renewal as a form of creative *prophecy . The poets of the period saw Milton as the great model for this kind of revisionism and, in turn, set out to adapt or subvert his example. Blake sought to wrest the epic spirit from the dead letter of the epic tradition and to rescue Milton from his classical predecessors. ...
Epic Reference library
Christopher Doll
The Grove Dictionary of American Music (2 ed.)
... . Record company. It was established by CBS in 1953 as a subsidiary of Columbia Records. Although from the start its issues included jazz and pop, Epic for many years was known primarily for its recordings of George Szell conducting the Cleveland Orchestra (including those made with a young Leon Fleisher as piano soloist). In the latter part of the 1950s, as rock and roll began to overtake the industry, the company struggled to find itself artistically and commercially, accumulating an odd assortment of American, Australian, and European performers...
EPIC Quick reference
A Dictionary of Food and Nutrition (4 ed.)
... European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition; investigating the relationships between diet, nutritional status, life-style and environmental factors and the incidence of cancer and other chronic diseases. The largest study of diet and health yet undertaken, with more than 520 000 people in ten European countries. The EPIC's...
Epic Reference library
T. B. Gregory, J. K. Newman, and T. Meyers
The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (4 ed.)
...Epic (1991) ; J. B. Hainsworth , The Idea of Epic (1991) ; A. Lord , Epic Singers and Oral Tradition (1991) ; A. Ford , Homer: The Poetry of the Past (1992) ; S. Wofford , The Choice of Achilles: The Ideology of Figure in the Epic (1992) ; C. Burrow , Epic Romance: Homer to Milton (1993) ; P. Hardie , The Epic Successors of Virgil (1993) ; D. Quint , Epic and Empire (1993) ; M. Desmond , Reading Dido (1994) ; M. Murrin , History and Warfare in Renaissance Epic (1994) ; J. Watkins , The Specter of Dido: Spenser and Virgilian Epic ...
Ālhā Epic Quick reference
A Dictionary of Asian Mythology
...Epic A popular epic cycle sung among the Hindi-speaking peoples of Northern India, the Ālhā epic tells of twelfth century wars in and around the city of Mahoba. Ālhā is the sole surviving warrior of...
Alim Epic Quick reference
A Dictionary of Asian Mythology
...Epic Part of a larger epic cycle, the Hudhud ( see Hudhud ), this work is sung among the Ifugao people of the Philippines. Its primary subject is the Ifugao...
