The Idea of Epic

The idea of epic is elusive. The classical tradition of epic poetry emerged from the heroic poetry of one tribe of one people, the Ionian Greeks. The fame of the Iliad and Odyssey inspired emulators and created a genre which remained in high favor throughout the classical epoch and was revived in the Renaissance. Modern literature, however, has neglected it and the word "epic" no longer connotes a literary form. J. B. Hainsworth explores the development of the epic genre, the causes of its success in classical literature, and the reasons for the failure of the genre after its triumphs in the Renaissance.

The idea of epic, Hainsworth argues, is composite. As the offspring of a tradition of heroic poetry, it is a narrative of historical or fictional events. However, the Homeric epics try to make sense of events by relating them to some theme, for example heroism, and explaining them in terms of a metaphysical idea such as destiny or the will of God. In the literary epic of the classical period the narrative element divided into historical and mythological forms; authors exploited national, political, and romantic themes. Hainsworth examines the way in which these ideas intersect in classical criticism and in Hellenistic and Roman epic.

Hainsworth demonstrates that after its first flowering the epic became an artificial literary form justified by the authority of the Homeric poems. When the poetic form was abandoned the idea of epic dissolved, leaving as its ghost the expression in other forms of the metaphysical ideas of the Greek and Roman epics.