Word Finder - epic

definition

An extended narrative poem in elevated or dignified language, celebrating the feats of a deity, demigod (heroic epic), other legend or traditional hero.

example

The Icelandic epic took all night to recite.

definition

A series of events considered appropriate to an epic.

example

The book was an epic in four volumes.

definition

In software development, a large or extended user story.

definition

Of, or relating to, an epic.

example

Beowulf is an epic poem.

synonyms

• epical

definition

Momentously heroic; grand in scale or character

example

The epic defense was rewarded with the highest military decorations

definition

Extending beyond the usual or ordinary.

example

The after-prom party was truly epic.

synonyms

• extraordinary
• momentous
• remarkable

In early times the war of the Epigoni was a favourite subject of epic poetry.

His bond to Katie tempered what was otherwise a disaster of epic proportions.

He also drew up select lists of epic and lyric poets.

The period we have briefly traversed was immortalized by Dante in an epic which from one point of view might be called the poem of the Guelphs and Ghibellines.

In its final form, the outcome of an extended and complicated literary process, the Gilgamesh Epic covered twelve tablets, each tablet devoted to one adventure in which the hero plays a direct or indirect part, and the whole covering according to the most plausible estimate about 3000 lines.

I knew something epic happened the first time it occurred.

Hence the battle has been explained as the necklace myth in epic form.

A separate stratum in the Gilgamesh epic is formed by the story of Eabani - introduced as the friend of Gilgamesh, who joins him in his adventures.

Several of the already mentioned lyric and epic poets were occasional writers also for the drama.

He also attempted to write another epic poem, but the time was not favourable for such an undertaking.

In the epic of Firdousi Khazar is the representative name for all the northern foes of Persia, and legendary invasions long before the Christian era are vaguely attributed to them.

The next step in the development of epic narrative was the single lay of an episodic character, sung by a single individual, who was frequently a member of a distinguished family, not merely a professional minstrel.

The chief remains of the Spanish heroic epic are some poems on the Cid, on the seven Infantes of Lara, and on Fernán Gonzalez, count of Castile.

Although the Finns are not Sla y s, on topographical grounds mention may here be made of Wainamoinen, the great magician and hero of the Finnish epic Kalevala (" land of heroes ").

Morawski (1783-1861) published some excellent Fables (1800) in the manner of Krasicki, and in 1851 an epic entitled My Grandfather's Farm.

He wrote a number of short love-poems in epic metre, called Daphniaca.

Considered as a " prose epic," or a vivid utterance of the thought of the period, it has a permanent and unique value.

While the consultation of authorities had been no less thorough, his style had become more free and less self-conscious; and the epic qualities of the theme were such as to call forth in the highest degree his powers of picturesque narration.

It 's an arrogant sound, near epic in construction, and clearly steeped in mythology of early 80's scouse pop.

Even so, it adds a nice feature that may aid you in your epic journey.

But in the epic battle of good versus evil, Anakin is seduced by the Dark Side.

The two narrative poems which succeeded the early lyrics, Jocelyn and the Chute d'un ange, were, according to Lamartine's original plan, parts of a vast "Epic of the Ages," some further fragments of which survive.

The rise of speculative philosophy in Greece was coincident with the beginning of prose composition, and many of the earliest philosophers wrote in the prose of the Ionic dialect; others, however, and especially the writers of the Greek colonies in Italy and Sicily, expounded their systems in continuous poems composed in the epic hexameter.

One of the most famous of these was the Epic of Gilgamesh, in twelve books, composed by a certain Sin-liqi-unninni, and arranged upon an astronomical principle.

In many passages his work gives the impression of being not so much an imitation of the ancient Germanic epic, as a genuine example of it, though concerned with the deeds of other heroes than those of Germanic tradition.

In the Heliand the Saviour and His Apostles are conceived as a king and his faithful warriors, and the use of the traditional epic phrases appears to be not, as with Cynewulf or the author of Andreas, a mere following of accepted models, but the spontaneous mode of expression of one accustomed to sing of heroic themes.

As has been said above, the tone of many portions of the Heliand is that of a man who was no mere imitator of the ancient epic, but who had himself been accustomed to sing of heroic themes.

Her work was a prose epic of real life, the life of her hero, Genji.

He wrote an epic, Charlemagne, ou l'Eglise delivree (2 vols., 1814), also La Verite sur les Cent _Tours and Memoirs, which were not completed.

The Argonautica is an epic in eight books on the Quest of the Golden Fleece.

She was the subject of a tragedy by Euripides and an epic by Colluthus.

His story was the subject of an old epic and of several tragedies, but none of these has been preserved.

What Petofi had done for lyrical he did for epic poetry.

It has already been noticed how vehement and abrupt they are where they ought to be characterized by epic repose.

Although the whole conception of the work implies that confusion of the provinces of poetry and history which was perpetuated by later writers, and especially by Lucan and Silius Italicus, yet it was a true instinct of genius to discern in the idea of the national destiny the only possible motive of a Roman epic. The execution of the poem (to judge from the fragments, amounting to about six hundred lines), although rough, unequal and often prosaic, seems to have combined the realistic fidelity and freshness of feeling of a contemporary chronicle with the vivifying and idealizing power of genius.

Foremost among epic poets, though not equally successful as a dramatist, was Mihaly Vorbsmarty (q.v.), who, belonging also to the close of the last period, combines great power of imagination with elegance of language.

The laborious John Garay in his Szent Ldszlo shows considerable ability as an epic poet, but his greatestmerit was rather as a romancist and ballad writer, as shown by the, " Pen Sketches " or Tollrajzok (1845), and his legendary series Arpddok (1847).

Joseph Kiss in 1876 brought out a few lyric and epic poems of considerable merit.

Of the epic fragments, the more important are those in which he attacks the "anthropomorphic and anthropopathic polytheism" of his contemporaries.

In 1848, while making a tour in Cornwall, Tennyson met Robert Stephen Hawker of Morwenstow, with whom he seems - but the evidence is uncertain - to have talked about King Arthur, and to have resumed his intention of writing an epic on that theme.

These were fragments of the epic of the fall of King Arthur and the Table Round which Tennyson was so long preparing, and which he can hardly be said to have ever completed, although nearly thirty years later he closed it.

The noble poem Lucretius, one of the greatest of Tennyson's versified monographs, appeared in May 1868, and in this year The Holy Grail was at last finished; it was published in 1869, together with three other idyls belonging to the Arthurian epic, and various miscellaneous lyrics, besides Lucretius.

In 1798 he published a long and worthless so-called epic on the conquest of Mexico.

On the whole, the Hebrew statement of the successive stages of creation corresponds so nearly to that in the Babylonian epic that we are bound to assume that one has been influenced by the other.

These had their origin in the same impulse which ultimately found its full gratification in Roman history, Roman epic poetry, and that form of Roman oratory known as laudationes, and in some of the Odes of Horace.

They may have contributed to the formation of the style of comedy which appears at the very outset much more mature than that of serious poetry, tragic or epic. They gave the name and some of the characteristics to that special literary product of the Roman soil, the satura, addressed to readers, not to spectators, which ultimately was developed into pure poetic satire in Lucilius, Horace, Persius and Juvenal, into the prose and verse miscellany of Varro, and into something approaching the prose novel in Petronius.

He was, however, the first to familiarize the Romans with the forms of the Greek drama and the Greek epic, and thus to determine the main lines which Latin literature followed for more than a century afterwards.

Still more important service was rendered by him in his long Saturnian poem on the first Punic war, in which he not only told the story of contemporary events but gave shape to the legend of the settlement of Aeneas in Latium, - the theme ultimately adopted for the great national epic of Rome.

His greatest work, which made the Romans regard him as the father of their literature, was his epic poem, in eighteen books, the Annales, in which the record of the whole career of Rome was unrolled with idealizing enthusiasm and realistic detail.

The idea which inspired Ennius was ultimately realized in both the national epic of Virgil and the national history of Livy.