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epic
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Images & Videos
Painting by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo showing crowds pulling the large wooden Trojan Horse into the city of Troy, with excited figures and ancient buildings in the background.
Engraved bust of Homer, a bearded man in a conical cap, overlaid on a painting of a galley with rowers and winged figures.
Neo-Assyrian clay tablet from the 7th century BC inscribed with dense cuneiform writing, known as the Flood Tablet from the Epic of Gilgamesh, displayed in the British Museum.
At a Glance
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epic summary
Quizzes
Row of colorful books on a bookshelf. Stack of books, pile of books, literature, reading. Homepage 2010, arts and entertainment, history and society
The Literary World
Illustration of "The Lamb" from "Songs of Innocence" by William Blake, 1879. poem; poetry
A Study of Poetry
4:043 Dickinson, Emily: A Life of Letters, This is my letter to the world/That never wrote to me; I'll tell you how the Sun Rose/A Ribbon at a time; Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul
Famous Poets and Poetic Form
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) only confirmed photograph of Emily Dickinson. 1978 scan of a Daguerreotype. ca. 1847; in the Amherst College Archives. American poet. See Notes:
Poetry: First Lines
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Painting by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo showing crowds pulling the large wooden Trojan Horse into the city of Troy, with excited figures and ancient buildings in the background.
Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo: The Procession of the Trojan Horse into Troy Oil on canvas by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, c. 1760; in the National Gallery, London.

epic

literary genre
Written by
Atsuhiko Yoshida
Professor of Comparative Mythology, Gakushuin University, Tokyo. Author of Origins of Japanese Myths and others.
Atsuhiko Yoshida
Fact-checked by
Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
Britannica Editors
History

epic, long narrative poem recounting heroic deeds, although the term has also been loosely used to describe novels, such as Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and motion pictures, such as Sergey Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible. In literary usage, the term encompasses both oral and written compositions. The prime examples of the oral epic are Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Outstanding examples of the written epic include Virgil’s Aeneid and Lucan’s Pharsalia in Latin, Chanson de Roland...

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