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• journey large scale events • long periods of time (generations ) includes

• epic similes lists / ÷ long epic catalogue battle scenes

• dactylic hexameter 1- - fu luv f - luv luv

• 12 books

• invocation of the muse

• epithets

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Word rhyme meter choice scheme

Manhattan Don Quixote - -Tropics

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Homer’s Odyssey and Dante’s Inferno What is an Epic?

◦ “Several features of Beowulf make its genre problematic: the vivid accounts of battles with monsters link it to folktale, and the sense of sorrow for the passing of worldly things mark it as elegiac. Nevertheless, it is generally agreed to be the first postclassical European epic. Like the Illiad and the Odyssey, it is a primary epic, originating in oral tradition and recounting the legendary wars and exploits of its audience's tribal ancestors from the heroic age.” – The Longman Anthology of British Literature What are the characteristics of an Epic?

◦ Opening invocation ◦ Invocation of the muse ◦ Oral tradition ◦ In Media Res ◦ Scope ◦ Battle scenes ◦ Epic similes ◦ Long lists ◦ Length ◦ No specific rhyme scheme Opening Invocation

◦ Most epics begin with an opening section that implores a greater power for aid for themselves or to help tell the story of a particular individual ◦ In the case of Homer’s Odyssey, the opening invocation is for a Muse to help tell the tale of Odysseus who had been lost for ten years after the Trojan War. The Muse who answers the call is none other than the goddess Athena. ◦ In the case of Dante’s Inferno, the muse called upon is actually the poet Virgil who acts as the guide throughout Dante’s Divine Comedy which spans into 2 other epics, Purgatorio and Paradiso Oral Tradition

◦ Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey were part of an oral tradition ◦ Their great length makes this aspect amazing! People could remember so much back in the days! ◦ Elements of song and repetition to help aid that memorization ◦ Benefits of building a world within understood paradigms of Greek faith and history in the aid of memory ◦ Though whether the Trojan War was historical is a topic that is often debated by scholars ◦ Due to this trait, one of the best ways to experience epics is to hear them told, so I bought both the Kindle book and audiobook versions of these epics to get the full experience. In Media Res

◦ As mentioned earlier, this epic recounts Odysseus journey through the Trojan War in the Illiad and after the Trojan War in the Odyssey ◦ Also in the middle of what could be viewed as the plays for power between the Gods ◦ Athena, the patron goddess of war and wisdom empathizes with Odysseus plight for he is a wise and cunning king and commander ◦ Poseidon, being the brother of Zeus, is outraged when his son Polyphemus is blinded by Odysseus, and thus he punishes Odysseus by turning the tides against him, forcing him to wander for 10 years ◦ Zeus is the one to who Athena must make her case as king of the gods it falls to him to mediate disputes between gods ◦ Zeus is somewhat duplicitous in this role… ◦ He doesn’t challenge his brother’s punishment of Odysseus or his right to seek justice in the situation ◦ He does allow Athena to intervene on Odysseus’ behalf several times ◦ He also personally uses his own power to intervene for Odysseus ◦ He also punishes Odysseus for slaying the god Helios’ calves Scope

◦ Epics have a tendency to cover great large-scale events and systems ◦ Trojan War ◦ Faith ◦ Battles between Gods ◦ The Afterlife: Hell, Purgatory, Heaven ◦ Typically not for more mundane smaller scale events, though the battle of the gods waging over my spilled milk would be dramatically funny! What’s in a Translation Anyways?

◦ Translator’s notes are essentially the strategy the translator brought to bear in order to translate a text ◦ I wish that I could have previewed the translator’s notes on these texts before I purchased because that matter ◦ To illustrate the complexity involved on the part of the translator in the translation process, I’d like to share 2 translator notes Translator Note: Manhattan Tropics

◦ Written by Guillermo Cotto-Thorner ◦ Translated by Professor J. Bret Maney here at Lehman ◦ During his class on Latinx Literature, he really drove home this point that translation matters and the painstaking process and decision making he had to make to both translate but honor the spirit and words of Cotto-Thorner’s text ◦ The translation process is much more involved that translating verbatim what is on the page. ◦ “In translating this novel into English, almost seventy years after it was first published, I have sought to retain Cotto-Thorner’s lexicon of mid-twentieth century New York…. To preserve the novel’s linguistic texture, I have outfitted Manhattan Tropics with an English similarly moored in the middle of Manhattan’s twentieth century, where, for example, travelers may still carry a “valise” or chat with their neighbors in the “parlor” ◦ Professor Maney also kept in words Spanglish words that reflected the weaving of Puerto Rican culture into the fabric of New York City in the 50s Translator Note: Fitzgerald Translation of the Odyssey

◦ Translation by Robert Fitzgerald ◦ Fitzgerald’s translator note was over 50 pages! ◦ He actually broke down word decisions he made about the Greek language in every section of his translation ◦ He took many things into consideration that someone not versed as I am in Greek that frankly went over my head ◦ He comes across as well informed not only about how the language, culture, and history interplay and these considerations are things he wrestled with throughout his translator note ◦ This is one of the premier translations that scholars think does a great job and the compromise inherent in translation ◦ Brings to mind the Heresy of Paraphrase we read in the beginning of the semester Challenges Selecting Translations

◦ The challenges I faced when selecting the readings for today ◦ Realized that I was dealing with translations of major texts, the Odyssey and Inferno ◦ Conundrum: Am I doing rhyme and scansion like we do in class? Whose words would I be interpreting? What is more important in translation: capturing the prose or delivering the message? How does one tread that line? ◦ Conclusion: I could not just go to the first recommended pick on Amazon and be done with it… ◦ I had to be selective. I had to go to reviews. I had to ask Professor Moy for the respected versions by scholars. ◦ I ended up with 3 samples of the invocation to the Muse, 1 being a scholarly approved version, and two others that tried to recapture the Homer’s words and prose with different strategies ◦ There are definitely poetic moments throughout the epic, however rhyme and scansion the way we do in class does not really work when discussing an epic. An epic has a lot of moving parts, at times there is rhyme and scansion patterns to find, but they are not consistent in the sense you get a rhyme and scansion from the start to the end of the epic. It is however present at certain times that lend themselves to poetic language, particularly in the large moments and songs. Homer’s Odyssey

◦ 3 different approaches for translating the Odyssey’s Invocation of the Muse ◦ Robert Fitzgerald, Samuel Butler (Listed as Fagles, difficulty acquiring a Fagles translation), Alexander Pope ◦ We’ll begin with the Fitzgerald translation, one of the most respected translations of the Odyssey ◦ We’ll then look at the other translations and talk about the differences we pick up Dante’s Inferno

◦ Dante Alghieri’s Divine Comedy ◦ Encompasses Inferno, Purgartorio, and Paradiso ◦ Invocation is to Vergil the Greek poet who acts as the guide through the many levels of Hell, Purgartory, and Heaven Epics!

Jason and Alexandra Epic Forms:

A long narrative poem having to do with a journey, extraordinary circumstances, and a “hero” with usually superhuman capabilities that faces against gods and mighty creatures despite being merely human.

Two Types of Epic Poems-

*folk epic: oral compositions- based on mythology and locality, has changed over time. (Beowulf, The Odyssey)

*literary epic- written compositions that may may not have been changed over time (ex: Paradise Lost) Characteristics

-Legendary Hero

-Superhuman strength

-Supernatural elements- Dealing with gods?

Expansive setting

Omniscient Narration Common Epics

The Odyssey

Beowulf

The Epic of Gilgamesh

John Milton- Paradise Lost

Dante- The Divine Comedy

Lord Byron- Don Juan

Ezra Pound- The Cantos All Great Epics Have: Battle Scenes

Homers’ Iliad has scene after scene of battles and warfare between creature and god alike. Beowulf is a more condensed version with battles against one (or three) particularly powerful creatures.

These are almost blow-by-blow descriptions illustrated in Beowulf, illustrating everything from the blood to the weapon used and the tactic painted by the “hero” of the story.

What ends up happening is bloodshed- and an Epic is not one to shy away from death either, as even our own beloved Beowulf dies at the end of his epic: SEE PASSAGE

These battle scenes seem to be the most important part of the narrative, usually the core of the plot and are only won and finish the poem with the turnout of a battle. Some battles are several years old and some are several days old.

There are typically several large battle scenes and several small battle scenes that tend to be structured. Epic Similes

“Homeric Simile””

A detailed comparison in the form of a simile that are typically a paragraph. Its an extended version of a regular simile. example from The Iliad:

“As when the shudder of the west wind suddenly rising scatters across the water, and the water darkens beneath it, so darkening were settled the ranks of Achaians and Trojans in the plain.” (Iliad).

An Epic Simile is typically used to embellish the heroism of the main character. Long Lists or an “Epic Catalogue”

The best comparison to modern day is during those World of Warcraft or Fate games and you look into your inventory, except everything you’re seeing inside your inventory bag is being stated for the sake of the story.

These epic catalogues are simply just long and detailed lists of objects, places, or even people.

Like in The Odyssey when Homer comes to an island and the crew members are unloading everything to be given as a gift to the king of that country. These things would be listed within the poem. Length

The longest epic poem is from ancient India, which has over 200,000 verse lines in addition to a long prose. it’s considered over 1.8 million words.

For the sake of Literature students everywhere, Beowulf and Paradise Lost are simply three thousand and ten thousand lines respectively.

Considered to be long enough for its bulk to carry meaning or can even as Ezra Pound elected his Cantos to be: a story that encompasses a whole culture's values and history. However, typical epics do not have a specified end game that either the speaker or the poem is directed. We’re just along for the ride. Rhyme Scheme

While no rhyme scheme per se-

Classically, eastern and greek/roman based epic poetry goes through a meter “dactylic hexameter” which typically has six couplets, each couplet would a long and then two short syllable stressor.

it looks like this and seems kind of complicated lol:

–⏕ | –⏕ | –⏕ | –⏕ | –⏑⏑ | –X Paradise Lost Example

An example of the Literary Epic is Paradise Lost

Where in Book 1, Milton challenges the reader’s views of the Book of Genesis from the bible. Relating back to when Ezra Pound illustrated that the epic poems challenge culture and history.

Putting the reader instead within the shoes of Satan, or at least to feel some sympathy for him.

There I have the very first paragraph illustrating the type of epic poem we have, and another paragraph farther in illustrating more about the social cues he’s challenging.