“…men and God still interacted, the epic weaves myth, history, religion, science, philosophy, superstition and statecraft…” Indian writer Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni quote.
Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975), “Epic and Novel”, 1975 was the topic of an earlier blog post.
Here I present: John Milton (1608-1674), “Paradise Lost: A Poem written in Ten Books”, 1667 AD which was an epic.
The first five books of the Bible were written by Moses in 1500 BC. The first Bible book “Genesis” is the topic of John Milton’s, “Paradise Lost, 1667 AD epic.
The story of Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden is told in the Biblical book of Genesis. God has placed the couple in the garden we are told.
An epic is characterized by three constitutive features: (1.) a national epic past serves as the subject of the epic, (2.) a national tradition serves as the source of the epic, (3.) an absolute epic distance separates the epic world from contemporary reality, that is, from the time of the singer (author and his audience) lives.
Since, 1. “epic past”, 2. “epic tradition” & 3. “epic distance” define the literary form of the epic it is a complete genre, that is now antiquated.
वाल्मीकि Valmiki, “Ramayana”; and, व्यासः Vyasa, “Mahabharata”, ancient Indian “epic poems”, written 500 BC were the topic of an earlier blog post.
Here I presented: John Milton, “Paradise Lost: A Poem written in Ten Books”, 1667 AD which was an epic.
