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47-404: A genre of the troubadours , the planh or plaing ( Old Occitan [ˈplaɲ] ; "lament") is a funeral lament for "a great personage, a protector, a friend or relative, or a lady." Its main elements are expression of grief, praise of the deceased ( eulogy ) and prayer for his or her soul. It is descended from the medieval Latin planctus . The planh is similar to

94-547: A definition as well as the rules for its construction. After the time of Aristotle, literary criticism continued to develop. The first-century Greek treatise " On the Sublime ", for example, discussed the works of more than 50 literary writers and the methods they used to influence their audiences' emotions and feelings. The origins of modern Western genre theory can be traced to the European Romantic movement in

141-619: Is a rhyming verse stanza form that consists of an interlocking three-line rhyme scheme. An example is found in the first lines of the Divine Comedy by Dante , who originated the form: Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita (A) mi ritrovai per una selva oscura (B) ché la diritta via era smarrita. (A) Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura (B) esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte (C) che nel pensier rinnova la paura! (B) In ottava rima , each stanza consists of three alternate rhymes and one double rhyme, following

188-768: Is a couplet), as well as long prose passages, so that at ~1.8 million words it is roughly twice the length of Shahnameh , four times the length of the Rāmāyaṇa , and roughly ten times the length of the Iliad and the Odyssey combined. Famous examples of epic poetry include the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh , the ancient Indian Mahabharata and Rāmāyaṇa in Sanskrit and Silappatikaram and Manimekalai in Tamil,

235-596: Is also classification by format, where the structure of the work is used: graphic novels , picture books , radio plays , and so on. Epic poetry An epic poem , or simply an epic , is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces , gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. With regard to oral tradition , epics consist of formal speech and are usually learnt word for word, and are contrasted with narratives which consist of everyday speech where

282-641: Is as follows: Old English, German and Norse poems were written in alliterative verse , usually without rhyme . The alliterative form can be seen in the Old English " Finnsburg Fragment " (alliterated sounds are in bold): Ac on w acnigeað nū, w īgend mīne e alra ǣ rest e orðbūendra, But awake now, my warriors, of all first the men While the above classical and Germanic forms would be considered stichic , Italian, Spanish and Portuguese long poems favored stanzaic forms, usually written in terza rima or especially ottava rima . Terza rima

329-531: Is commonly accepted that the genre of fiction ("literature created from the imagination, not presented as fact, though it may be based on a true story or situation") is not applied to all fictitious literature, but instead encompasses only prose texts (novels, novellas, short stories) and not fables. There are other ways of categorizing books that are not usually considered "genre". Notably, this can include age categories, by which literature may be classified as adult, young adult , or children's literature . There

376-400: Is not a complete biography of Roland, but picks up from the plot of Orlando Innamorato , which in turn presupposes a knowledge of the romance and oral traditions . Epic catalogues and genealogies are given, called enumeratio . These long lists of objects, places, and people place the finite action of the epic within a broader, universal context, such as the catalog of ships . Often,

423-529: Is often attributed to the social events that were taking place in the Western world in terms of wars, infighting and overthrown leadership. People felt the need for "escapism" to remove themselves from their respective situations. In 1957 Canadian scholar Northrop Frye published "Anatomy of Criticism," in which he proposes a system of genres and a set of rules to describe the constraints of each genre. In this work, he defines methodological classifications of

470-408: Is perhaps Catullus 64 . Epyllion is to be understood as distinct from mock epic , another light form. Romantic epic is a term used to designate works such as Morgante , Orlando Innamorato , Orlando Furioso and Gerusalemme Liberata , which freely lift characters, themes, plots and narrative devices from the world of prose chivalric romance . Long poetic narratives that do not fit

517-645: Is that by Cercamon on the death of Duke William X of Aquitaine in 1137. The latest is an anonymous lament on the death of King Robert of Naples in 1343. The planh was regarded by contemporaries as a distinct genre and is mentioned in the Doctrina de compondre dictatz (1290s) and the Leys d'amors (1341). The following table lists 45 planhz .    great person or patron    other troubadour    lady    friend Literary genre Genres can all be in

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564-550: Is the most popular. In Serbian poetry, the decasyllable is the only form employed. Balto-Finnic (e.g. Estonian, Finnish, Karelian) folk poetry uses a form of trochaic tetrameter that has been called the Kalevala meter. The Finnish and Estonian national epics, Kalevala and Kalevipoeg , are both written in this meter. The meter is thought to have originated during the Proto-Finnic period. In Indic epics such as

611-765: Is typically subdivided into the classic three forms of Ancient Greece, poetry , drama , and prose . Poetry may then be subdivided into the genres of lyric , epic , and dramatic . The lyric includes all the shorter forms of poetry e.g., song , ode, ballad, elegy, sonnet. Dramatic poetry might include comedy , tragedy , melodrama , and mixtures like tragicomedy . The standard division of drama into tragedy and comedy derives from Greek drama. This division into subgenres can continue: comedy has its own subgenres, including, for example, comedy of manners , sentimental comedy, burlesque comedy , and satirical comedy. The genre of semi-fiction includes works that mix elements of both fiction and nonfiction. A semi-fictional work may be

658-471: The sirventes in that both were typically contrafacta . They made use of existing melodies, often imitating the original song even down to the rhymes. The most famous planh of all, however, Gaucelm Faidit 's lament on the death of King Richard the Lionheart in 1199, was set to original music. Elisabeth Schulze-Busacker identifies three types of planh : "the moralizing planh ", in which

705-601: The Iliad ) or both. Epics also tend to highlight cultural norms and to define or call into question cultural values, particularly as they pertain to heroism . In the proem or preface, the poet may begin by invoking a Muse or similar divinity. The poet prays to the Muses to provide them with divine inspiration to tell the story of a great hero. Example opening lines with invocations: An alternative or complementary form of proem, found in Virgil and his imitators, opens with

752-641: The epyllion (plural: epyllia), a brief narrative poem with a romantic or mythological theme . The term, which means "little epic ", came into use in the nineteenth century. It refers primarily to the erudite, shorter hexameter poems of the Hellenistic period and the similar works composed at Rome from the age of the neoterics ; to a lesser degree, the term includes some poems of the English Renaissance , particularly those influenced by Ovid . The most famous example of classical epyllion

799-494: The Neo-Sumerian Empire . The poem details the exploits of Gilgamesh , the king of Uruk . Although recognized as a historical figure, Gilgamesh, as represented in the epic, is a largely legendary or mythical figure. The longest written epic from antiquity is the ancient Indian Mahabharata ( c.  3rd century BC –3rd century AD), which consists of 100,000 ślokas or over 200,000 verse lines (each shloka

846-456: The Ramayana and Mahabharata , the shloka form is used. The primary form of epic, especially as discussed in this article, is the heroic epic , including such works as the Iliad and Mahabharata . Ancient sources also recognized didactic epic as a category, represented by such works as Hesiod 's Works and Days and Lucretius's De rerum natura . A related type of poetry is

893-653: The performative verb "I sing". Examples: This Virgilian epic convention is referenced in Walt Whitman 's poem title / opening line "I sing the body electric". Compare the first six lines of the Kalevala : These conventions are largely restricted to European classical culture and its imitators. The Epic of Gilgamesh , for example, or the Bhagavata Purana do not contain such elements, nor do early medieval Western epics that are not strongly shaped by

940-528: The 16th century the Spenserian stanza and blank verse were also introduced. The French alexandrine is currently the heroic line in French literature, though in earlier literature – such as the chanson de geste – the decasyllable grouped in laisses took precedence. In Polish literature, couplets of Polish alexandrines (syllabic lines of 7+6 syllables) prevail. In Russian, iambic tetrameter verse

987-461: The ABABABCC rhyme scheme . Example: Canto l'arme pietose, e 'l Capitano Che 'l gran sepolcro liberò di Cristo. Molto egli oprò col senno e con la mano; Molto soffrì nel glorioso acquisto: E invan l'Inferno a lui s'oppose; e invano s'armò d'Asia e di Libia il popol misto: Chè 'l Ciel gli diè favore, e sotto ai santi Segni ridusse i suoi compagni erranti. The sacred armies, and

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1034-465: The Homeric epics, the earliest works of Western literature, were fundamentally an oral poetic form. These works form the basis of the epic genre in Western literature. Nearly all of Western epic (including Virgil's Aeneid and Dante's Divine Comedy ) self-consciously presents itself as a continuation of the tradition begun by these poems. In his work Poetics , Aristotle defines an epic as one of

1081-671: The Mongols , the Kyrgyz Manas , and the Malian Sundiata . Epic poems of the modern era include Derek Walcott 's Omeros , Mircea Cărtărescu 's The Levant and Adam Mickiewicz 's Pan Tadeusz . Paterson by William Carlos Williams , published in five volumes from 1946 to 1958, was inspired in part by another modern epic, The Cantos by Ezra Pound . The first epics were products of preliterate societies and oral history poetic traditions. Oral tradition

1128-1152: The Persian Shahnameh , the Ancient Greek Odyssey and Iliad , Virgil 's Aeneid , the Old English Beowulf , Dante 's Divine Comedy , the Finnish Kalevala , the German Nibelungenlied , the French Song of Roland , the Spanish Cantar de mio Cid , the Portuguese Os Lusíadas , the Armenian Daredevils of Sassoun , the Old Russian The Tale of Igor's Campaign , John Milton 's Paradise Lost , The Secret History of

1175-733: The audience they are intended for into: drama (performed works), lyric poetry (sung works), and epic poetry (recited works). Since the Romantic period, modern genre theory often sought to dispense with the conventions that have marked the categorization of genres for centuries. However, the twenty-first century has brought a new era in which genre has lost much of the negative connotations associating it with loss of individuality or excess conformity. Genre categorizes literary works based on specific shared conventions, including style, mood, length, and organizational features. These genres are in turn divided into subgenres . Western literature

1222-546: The caste system of Indian society and the life of the lower levels of society, such as cobblers and shepherds, see C.N. Ramachandran, "Ambivalence and Angst: A Note on Indian folk epics," in Lauri Honko (2002. p. 295). Some Indian oral epics feature strong women who actively pursue personal freedom in their choice of a romantic partner (Stuart, Claus, Flueckiger and Wadley, eds, 1989, p. 5). Japanese traditional performed narratives were sung by blind singers. One of

1269-653: The classical traditions, such as the Chanson de Roland or the Poem of the Cid . Narrative opens " in the middle of things ", with the hero at his lowest point. Usually flashbacks show earlier portions of the story. For example, the Iliad does not tell the entire story of the Trojan War, starting with the judgment of Paris , but instead opens abruptly on the rage of Achilles and its immediate causes. So too, Orlando Furioso

1316-453: The epic as received in tradition and add to the epic in their performances. Later writers like Virgil , Apollonius of Rhodes , Dante , Camões , and Milton adopted and adapted Homer's style and subject matter , but used devices available only to those who write. The oldest epic recognized is the Epic of Gilgamesh ( c.  2500–1300 BCE ), which was recorded in ancient Sumer during

1363-552: The epic, the tragedy, the comedy, dithyrambic poetry, and phallic songs. Genres are often divided into complex sub-categories. For example, the novel is a large genre of narrative fiction; within the category of the novel, the detective novel is a sub-genre, while the "hard-boiled" detective novel is a sub-genre of the detective novel. In the Rhetoric , Aristotle proposed three literary genres of rhetorical oratory: deliberative , forensic , and epideictic . These are divided based on

1410-409: The expression of grief is a point of departure for social criticism; "the true lament", in which personal grief is central; and "the courtly planh ", in which the impact of the death on the court is emphasised. Alfred Jeanroy considered that the common denunciation of the evils of the present age was a feature that distinguished the planh from the planctus . In the conventions of the genre,

1457-683: The form of prose or poetry . Additionally, a genre such as satire , allegory or pastoral might appear in any of the above, not only as a subgenre (see below), but as a mixture of genres. They are defined by the general cultural movement of the historical period in which they were composed. The concept of genre began in the works of Aristotle , who applied biological concepts to the classification of literary genres, or, as he called them, "species" (eidē). These classifications are mainly discussed in his treatises Rhetoric and Poetics . Genres are categories into which kinds of literary material are organized. The genres Aristotle discusses include

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1504-499: The forms of poetry, contrasted with lyric poetry and drama (in the form of tragedy and comedy). Harmon & Holman (1999) define an epic: Harmon and Holman delineate ten main characteristics of an epic: The hero generally participates in a cyclical journey or quest, faces adversaries that try to defeat them in their journey, and returns home significantly transformed by their journey. The epic hero illustrates traits, performs deeds, and exemplifies certain morals that are valued by

1551-461: The genres of myth , legend , high mimetic genre, low mimetic genre, irony , the comic , and the tragic through the constitution of "the relation between the hero of the work and ourselves or the laws of nature." He also uses the juxtaposition of the "real" and the "ideal" to categorize the genres of romance (the ideal), irony (the real), comedy (transition from real to ideal), and tragedy (transition from ideal to real). Lastly, he divides genres by

1598-503: The godly knight, That the great sepulchre of Christ did free, I sing; much wrought his valor and foresight, And in that glorious war much suffered he; In vain 'gainst him did Hell oppose her might, In vain the Turks and Morians armèd be: His soldiers wild, to brawls and mutines prest, Reducèd he to peace, so Heaven him blest. From the 14th century English epic poems were written in heroic couplets , and rhyme royal , though in

1645-412: The importance of line consistency and poetic meter. Ancient Greek epics were composed in dactylic hexameter . Very early Latin epicists, such Livius Andronicus and Gnaeus Naevius , used Saturnian meter. By the time of Ennius , however, Latin poets had adopted dactylic hexameter . Dactylic hexameter has been adapted by a few anglophone poets such as Longfellow in " Evangeline ", whose first line

1692-444: The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, during which the concept of genre was scrutinized heavily. The idea that it was possible to ignore genre constraints and the idea that each literary work was a "genre unto itself" gained popularity. Genre definitions were thought to be "primitive and childish." At the same time, the Romantic period saw the emergence of a new genre, the 'imaginative' genre. The reason for this shift

1739-506: The most famous, The Tale of the Heike , deals with historical wars and had a ritual function to placate the souls of the dead (Tokita 2015, p. 7). A variety of epic forms are found in Africa. Some have a linear, unified style while others have a more cyclical, episodic style (Barber 2007, p. 50). People in the rice cultivation zones of south China sang long narrative songs about

1786-494: The performer has the license to recontextualize the story to a particular audience, often to a younger generation. The English word epic comes from Latin epicus , which itself comes from the Ancient Greek adjective ἐπικός ( epikos ), from ἔπος ( epos ), "word, story, poem." In ancient Greek , 'epic' could refer to all poetry in dactylic hexameter ( epea ), which included not only Homer but also

1833-706: The poet is also paying homage to the ancestors of audience members. Examples: In the Homeric and post-Homeric tradition, epic style is typically achieved through the use of the following stylistic features: Many verse forms have been used in epic poems through the ages, but each language's literature typically gravitates to one form, or at least to a very limited set. Ancient Sumerian epic poems did not use any kind of poetic meter and lines did not have consistent lengths; instead, Sumerian poems derived their rhythm solely through constant repetition and parallelism , with subtle variations between lines. Indo-European epic poetry, by contrast, usually places strong emphasis on

1880-507: The purpose of the orator: to argue for future policy or action (deliberative), discuss past action (forensic), or offer praise or blame during a ceremony (epideictic). In the Poetics , Aristotle similarly divided poetry into three main genres: the epic , tragedy , and comedy . In the case of poetry, these distinctions are based not on rhetorical purpose, but on a combination of structure, content and narrative form. For each type, he proposed

1927-475: The retelling of a true story with only the names changed; at the other end of the spectrum, it may present fictional events with a semi-fictional protagonist, as in Jerry Seinfeld . Often, the criteria used to divide up works into genres are not consistent, and can be subject to debate, change and challenge by both authors and critics. However, some basic distinctions are widely accepted. For example, it

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1974-489: The society the epic originates from. Many epic heroes are recurring characters in the legends of their native cultures. In the Indian mahākāvya epic genre, more emphasis was laid on description than on narration. Indeed, the traditional characteristics of a mahākāvya are listed as: Classical epic poetry recounts a journey, either physical (as typified by Odysseus in the Odyssey ) or mental (as typified by Achilles in

2021-443: The subject's death is announced by the simple words es mortz ("is dead"). By the 13th century, the placement of these words within the poem was fixed: it occurred in the seventh or eighth line of the first stanza. It is perhaps an indication of the sincerity of their grief that the troubadours rarely praised the successors of their patrons in the planh . There are at least forty-four surviving planhz . The earliest planh

2068-568: The traditional European definition of the heroic epic are sometimes known as folk epics. Indian folk epics have been investigated by Lauri Honko (1998), Brenda Beck (1982) and John Smith, amongst others. Folk epics are an important part of community identities. The folk genre known as al-sira relates the saga of the Hilālī tribe and their migrations across the Middle East and north Africa, see Bridget Connelly (1986). In India, folk epics reflect

2115-478: The wisdom poetry of Hesiod , the utterances of the Delphic oracle , and the strange theological verses attributed to Orpheus . Later tradition, however, has restricted the term 'epic' to heroic epic , as described in this article. Originating before the invention of writing, primary epics, such as those of Homer , were composed by bards who used complex rhetorical and metrical schemes by which they could memorize

2162-455: Was that oral epics tend to be constructed in short episodes, each of equal status, interest and importance. This facilitates memorization, as the poet is recalling each episode in turn and using the completed episodes to recreate the entire epic as he performs it. Parry and Lord also contend that the most likely source for written texts of the epics of Homer was dictation from an oral performance. Milman Parry and Albert Lord have argued that

2209-458: Was used alongside written scriptures to communicate and facilitate the spread of culture. In these traditions, poetry is transmitted to the audience and from performer to performer by purely oral means. Early 20th-century study of living oral epic traditions in the Balkans by Milman Parry and Albert Lord demonstrated the paratactic model used for composing these poems. What they demonstrated

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