storytellers

An epic poem is simply a long poem. How "long" is long? There is no set definition.

How long does a poem have to be to count as an epic poem? That's a bit like asking how "long" a story has to be to qualify as a novel. Tolstoy's War and Peace is definitely a novel. One of Aesop's fables is definitely not. Between these two extremes lie a number of cases which we could argue about. Take Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, for example. It is generally thought of as a novel, but it is short enough to be characterized as something lesser - a novella, perhaps.

Here is a slightly longer definition:-

An epic poem is a long poem typically dealing with events which are legendary, historical, mythical or a combination. It typically involves a struggle of some description, and most certainly involves complex storytelling.

A couple of points about the slightly longer definition:-

"Legendary" means based on fact, although perhaps remotely, whereas "mythical" means made up out of thin air.

The statement that an epic poem "typically involves a struggle of some description" is true but really adds nothing to the definition, since most literature involves a struggle. This statement has just been thrown in to give it pizazz. Leaving us with this: the definition for an epic poem is wide open. Again it's how you utilize your evidence that determines whether you description is valid.

The epic poems which have most influenced English literature are The Iliad and The Odyssey, two poems in Homeric Greek which the ancient world attributed to a poet called Homer, who by tradition is reputed to have been blind.

Scholars have long and fiercely debated the question of whether The Iliad and The Odyssey were in fact composed by Homer, or even whether "Homer" ever existed.

The most significant epic written in English is Paradise Lost by John Milton.

Tomorrow we'll look at Milton, but based on the tentative nature of epic poetry, we'll also look at Springsteen (meaning Bruce) and Tracy Chapman, two contemporary poets who may not be considered epic, but certainly write epic stories.