Have the serious epics lost popular appeal among modern readers and that their interest today has been narrowed to the limited sphere of the academia? Written and presented by Ardhendu De www.ardhendude.blogspot.com

1. Is the epic as a form of literature dead in
modern era?
Sub Topic: Have the serious epics lost popular appeal among modern readers and
that their interest today has been narrowed to the limited sphere of the academia?
Written and presented by
Ardhendu De
www.ardhendude.blogspot.com

2. Keywords: English Literature, Epic, Modern Writer ,
Serious Epics ,Modern Readers , Academia, The Iliad
and The Odyssey, Greek Epics, Homer , The
Mahabharata, The Ramayana, Indian epics , Poet Vyas ,
Wrishi Balmiki, The Aeneid, Roman, Poet Virgil

3. Five Great Epics-
The Iliad and The Odyssey(Greek Epics by Homer) , The Mahabharata
and The Ramayana (Indian epics by Poet Vyas and Wrishi Balmiki), The
Aeneid ( Roman Poet Virgil)

4. A: Can You Tell me Who is he?

5. B: Who is he?

6. C: Who is he Flying through the sky?

7. D. Who is returning from the voyage?

8. E. What is this huge horse?

9. Answers:
A: Can You Tell me Who is he?
He is Rama, the hero of Ramayana.
B: Who is he?
He is Lord Krishna, the principle adviser of prince Arjuna in Mahabharata.
C: Who is he Flying through the sky?
He is Lord Hanumana , the monkey god and disciple of Rama in
Ramayana.
D. Who is returning from the voyage?
In the Odyssey, Odysseus ventures to numerous exotic locations in a
desperate attempt to return home.
E. What is this huge horse?
The Trojan Horse, the symbol for being fooled by an outward show and
appearance.

10. Timeline of Epic
Poems and brief
analytical points.

11. (700s BC)
Greek epic poet Homer composes
the Iliad, an epic set in the Trojan
War, and the Odyssey, which relates
the adventures of Greek hero
Odysseus as he returns home from
the war. Homer, who lived in the
700s BC, is the first epic poet in
Western civilization.
Key Points:
•Oral traditions
•Symbol of traditional rites
•elaborate style

12. (Between 400 BC and AD 400)
The Mahabharata, Hindu epic poem
and one of the great
accomplishments of world literature,
is compiled between 400 BC and AD
400. Seven times as long as the Iliad
and the Odyssey combined, the
Mahabharata recounts the conflict
between two families in India. The
segments of the poem (one of which
is the Bhagavad-Gita) convey deep
moral lessons.
Key Points:
• multicultural society
• power and empowerment
• political awareness

13. (200s BC)
Sanskrit poet Valmiki begins to
compose the great Hindu epic
Ramayana in the 200s BC. One of
the greatest works of world
literature, it recounts the love and
adventures of Hindu deities Rama
and Sita.
Key Points:
• Hindu society is changing
modern
• Shaping and Meditating the
Realm of Power
• Reformist theory of
Hindutya
• Rama Myth

14. Roman poet Virgil, author of
the Eclogues and Georgics, is
commissioned by the emperor
Augustus to write an epic
poem glorifying the founding
of Rome. The result is the
Aeneid, one of the
masterpieces of world
literature.
Key Points:
• a mythological epic in 12 books
describing the seven-year
wanderings of the hero Aeneas
from the fall of Troy to his
military victory in Italy.
•The Aeneid's style and
treatment are derived from the
ancient Greek Homer.
(30 BC)

15. The Analysis

16. Critics have passed the verdict that ‘the
epic as a form of literature is now dead’.
This orbiter dictum is quite justifiable
considering the fact that no modern
writer (barring the exception of James
Joyce, whose Ulysses can justifiably
claim epical stature) embarks upon this
form today. This does not however,
mean that great epics like Homer’s Iliad
and Odyssey or Virgil’s Aenied or Dante’s
The Devina Commedia are no longer
read with interest. But it must also be as
certain that serious epics of the part
have lost popular appeal among modern
readers and that their interest today has
been narrowed to the limited sphere of
the academia.
Rama and Lakshana

17. There are many reasons which is why the epic
in modern literature seems to be a dying and
uncultivated phenomena. Primarily, the epic
deals with the great exploits, partly historical
and partly legendary, of Gods and heroes.
These great heroes of traditional epic poetry
were once identified with their respective
national cultures. For example, Achilles,
Agamemnon, Hector or Odysseus represented
the highest ideals of the Greek culture, while
Rama, Yudhisthir and Arjuna represented the
noblest ideals of the ancient Indian ethos. But
since the modern age is not an age of heroism
and heroes and that because nobility and
grandeur have waned out from this world full
of bathos, it would be anachronistic on the
part of any author to present an epical hero in
our times.Radha and Krishna

18. T. S. Eliot in The Waste Land and Thomas
Mann in The Magic Mountain have both
tolled the death knell of heroism, divinity,
love and all nobler virtues in the post war
modern world which they portrayed, rightly
enough, as a fragmented, hellish,
insubstantial circle of spiritual vacuity and
emotional drought. In such a world, the
glorious ideals presented in, say Iliad or The
Mahabharata would be an anathema.
Modern readers would fail to identify
themselves with such heroes and such literary
forms. An epic without a hero or without a
message of heroism is an impossibility; the
modern age can not, thus, make room for an
epic.
Aenied

19. Secondly, the modern age is an age of artistic
freedom. Modern writers have never been
pinned by conventions. Modern literature is
endlessly involved in innovations in form and
technique. But to be an epic poet one has to
be tied down to conventions. For an epic poet
would have to consciously conform to those
forms and conventions which are age old. For
instance, in order to write an epic poem, one
must begin with an ‘Invocation’ to either a
God or a Muse. The epic poet must also use
the epic or Homeric simile.
Popular TV show of Ramayana

20. There must also be a description of some
kind of athletic contest or games, either in
commemoration of a dead hero or in
celebration of a great victory. Mention must
also be made of a long and dangerous
journey undertaken by the hero while the
poem must begin in medias yes, in the
middle of the action. For a modern poet, to
be clamped down to these essentials and
stylistic conventions is to lose his artistic
freedom and hence the interest in an epic
poem is no longer generates in the 20th
century literature.
Krishna and Arjuna in Mahabharata

21. It should be mentioned that with the
tremendous pressure of speed, which is an off
shoot of cross materialism, and also because of
the explosion of infotainment owing to the
mass escalation of electronic media, modern
life is much more demanding upon the time at
the disposed of modern men. The life of an
educated Englishman of the Elizabethan times
or the life style of an aristocratic reader of
ancient Greece permitted him the luxury of
spending hours over years together to read The
Faerie Queene or The Iliad with leisure and
delectable case. The situations of modern life
having been changed, it is no more possible for
a modern reader to spend all his times on the
epic. These factors have led to the death of the
epic in our times.
From Ramayana

22. The epic has no long been a possible uncertainly in modern
literature; it has become a certain impossibility in
contemporary literature which is so very much shadowed by
the overwhelming up surge of contemporary literary theory.
The emergence of Ferdinand de Sassure and the advent of
Jaeques Derrida, Roland Barths, Stanley Fish and Pierre
Machieray and the theories of ‘De Construction’, ‘Reader
Respons’, ‘Theory of Absence’, the critical position that a
particular text had a more or less cognizable meaning has been
bombard. The death of the author is announced and authorial
intentions or messages have, therefore, been thrown to the
wind. Not only that the very concept of meaning has become
contingent following Perida’s ultimate assertion that the
meaning is always differed and Macheray’s contention that the
meaning is not in the text, but outside, in the ‘absences’. Now,
because an epic has to have a unified message and meaning,
contemporary literature overshadowed by splintered
possibilities in meaning, cannot simply have room for an epic.
Indeed, the epic is now dead.
Homer

23. However, I personally believe that the epic is
one of the most exciting and important literary
forms, that can and should reach the widest
possible readership. However, in the din and
bustle of daily life fewer and fewer people
these days read epic. This is unfortunate--so
few will never experience the joy that reading
such fine work can give. Reading of epic will
excite these people into rediscovering this
excellent source of entertainment.
The End

24. Ardhendu De
Assistant Teacher
Patrahati Ramratan High School (H.S.)
Makarkole; Onda
Bankura
West Bengal
India: 722207
E Mail: ardh.de@gmail.com ; Blog: www.ardhendude.blogspot.com