University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Faculty Publications -- Department of English English, Department of 1982 Black Elk Speaks as Epic and Ritual Attempt to Reverse History Paul Olson University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/englishfacpubs Part of the Comparative Literature Commons, English Language and Literature Commons, Indigenous Studies Commons, Modern Literature Commons, Other Religion Commons, and the Reading and Language Commons Olson, Paul, "Black Elk Speaks as Epic and Ritual Attempt to Reverse History" (1982). Faculty Publications -- Department of English. 159. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/englishfacpubs/159 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the English, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications -- Department of English by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. PAUL A. OLSON Black Elk Speaks as Epic and Ritual Attempt to Reverse History CONVENTIONAL CRITICISM of the epic in the Western world has described it as a mixed fiction in which the actions of the gods are to be read as allegory and the actions of the hero as history which teaches by example.1 The actions of the gods are not seen as "events" that occurred in the sky, outside the histori cal world; they are, rather, metaphors for forces operating in, or ideas giving meaning to, the history. Achilles, Aeneas, and Odysseus are said to ha ve actually walked the earth and done the deeds recounted when they appear in household or battle contexts; but the Venus who appears as messenger, goddess, temple figure, and guide is described as the planet, the force of passion, or the love that binds the elements.