Long-form Narratives

Hi Exelebes. Image me, a modern minimalist, sharing this link. I hope this is a good start.

Mike


http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Epic_poetry

I think you have made an error in dismissing the Wikipedia article as it at least gives a comprehensive listing of those poems that have been considered Epics in the past and thus given you a wealth of material to study and compare too.

I don't beleive anyone has actually written out a guide as to how to create epic, although that Wikipedia article lists all the conventions that were employed in the Greek Epics.

For myself, I can't say I've written any epics but I have written a number of long narrative poems, including "Teiresias". "Atalan", (The story of the rise and fall of Atlantis), "Dragon's Tale", "Knight's Tale", (a parody of the Arthurian Legends) and "Railroads", (which follows the history of the railroads from their beginnings up to the present), and I have depended on having a good basic story to work with and a lot of research, in order to flesh that story out, and I believe that that's the best advice anyone can give you. The rest you have to do on your own, and my poems are proof that it can be done.

James R. Hoye (JRH)

You should be able to find "Teiresias", "Knight's Tale", and "Dragon's Tale by searching under JRH & you might also check out the following site. http://pages.ripco.net/~clevin/epos.html (Which has nothing to do with me but does have an article on writing epics, which I found by searching the web for that subject).

I'm sorry I let you down, Xelebes. I was only trying to help. This is not my realm. Good luck in your endeavors.


Mike

Xelebes said:

By long-form narratives, I mean rhapsodies and epics and other narrative poems of similar length. I don't really know much about this - the only real exposure to it is Shakespeare, Chaucer and Beowulf. I know I have Homer and Milton to read and probably a few others if I can get my paws on them

I haven't really had the opportunity to take literature courses so I really don't know the rules to going about this. I mean, I did cover Shakespeare in high school but we only ever did go over the symbolism employed and only really discussed the meter used. No real discussion of structure and the sort. So what are the rules? Is there any good sources or books that discuss this?

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What about Spenser, who wrote The Faerie Queene? But I warn you- it's very long.

I recommend Idylls of the King by Tennyson and Don Juan by Byron. I found The Prelude difficult to read, and have never been able to get all the way through Paridise Lost, though I keep trying.

I notice the list in the link Mike gave does not include Chaucer's epics, The Cantebury Tales and Trolius and Cressida (the later of which I'm working on now--well, sort of). Possibly they are not listed as the article includes this as essential to epics: "The setting is vast, covering many nations, the world or the universe." Chaucer's don't do that, having a narrower setting. Still, I think they should have been listed.

DAT