Epic. The word Epic is used in many ways today. The Epic Food Battle, An Epic Failure, etc. But what is an epic?
In my own words, an Epic is a tale filled with action, heroes and surreal events. Usually an epic is a long story, or a very lengthy poem, with an intense theme to it.
1. In an Epic, you have to have a theme. In the Iliad, the theme is that violence is not the way to solve conflicts. If you solve an issue with words, good things will come.
From lines 217-224, the Goddess Athena gives a speech to Achilles before he destroys Agamemnon.
"I came to see it I could check this temper of yours,
Sent from heaven by white-armed goddess
Hera, who loves and watches over both of you men.
Now come on, drop this quarrel, don't draw your sword.
Tell him off instead. And I'll tell you,
Achilles, how things will be: You're going to get
Three times as many magnificent gifts
Because of his arrogance. Just listen to us and be patient."
2. Epics need to have a conflict in it. That's what make it EPIC. If an epic involves Heroic deeds, then a conflict brings in the Hero.
In the Iliad, the conflict is Agamemnon arrogance and greed. Agamemnon has Chryses' daughter and refuses to give her back. Because of his greed, Chryses prays to the God Apollo and asks him to rain plague among the Danaans. Lines 24-51 shows the conflict heating up.
3. A Protagonist and an Angtagonist. If an epic includes a conflict, a lot of action and heroic events, then a good guy (Hero/Heroine, Protagonist) and a bad guy (Villan/Villainess, Antagonist) must have a enormous role in an epic.
Examples of Heroes/Heroines in the Iliad are Athena, Hera and mainly Achilles. Hera is a heroine in the Iliad because she sent Athena to talk to Achilles to help stop the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles. Athena is another e because she announced her speech (Lines 217-224) to Achilles which made him descide to put his sword away and tell Agamemnon off.
Achilles in a protagonist because he choose to listen to Athena and put his sword away. He also gave up Briseis to Agamemnon so he would give back Chryses' daughter.
This is shown in lines 357-361. It says:
"Thus Achilles.
Patroclus obeyed his beloved friend
And brought Briseis, cheeks flushed, out of the tent
And gave her to the heralds, who led her away.
She went unwillingly."
Because Achilles gave up Brisies and returned Chryses' daughter, Chryses then prayed to Apollo again and asked him to lift the plague of the Greeks.
while the villian is Agamemnon.
The picture I have posted above represents an epic in many ways. The picture is from the Twilight Movie, which is based off the book Twilight. Twilights theme is love conquers all. The main protagonist in Twilight is Edward Cullen, a vampire and the main Antagonist is James, who is also a vampire. The conflict is that James, is out to kill Bella, the one Edward loves. To save Bella, Edward attacks James. While doing so, James bites Bella (which would transform her into a vampire.) Edward defeats James, and to save Bella from becomeing a vampire, he sucks out James vampire venom from her.
The picture pisted is a scene from Edward and James fight in the upcoming Twilight Movie.
3 comments:
it's really great,
it tells you what an epic is in dumby terms, that way everybody can understand it!!!
That is indeed one definition of epic, but I think that you will find that the more common definition and use of the word epic is more along the lines of "very imposing or impressive; surpassing the ordinary". Therefore the context in which it is commonly used (in an evolved form from the common internet phenomenons epic win, epic fail, and so on) to be correct and though your definition is not wrong in any way it is more of a secondary definition in the eyes of most. This is to say that I do not disagree with you per sey, but rather in hopes of enlightening you to the alternative, albeit more popular use of the word.
Oh nooooo. You should have said "spoiler alert!" I'm going to have to erase everything you said about Twilight from my memory now!
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