Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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 .
The hero is often righteous or moralistically good, especially in the ancient epic, or else above all others in some field such as combat or leadership. The hero is the vehicle by which the epic's long, difficult narrative must be carried. They must therefore be a strong, distinct, and memorable character. [2]
The antonym of hero is villain. [3] Other terms associated with the concept of hero may include good guy or white hat. In classical literature, the hero is the main or revered character in heroic epic poetry celebrated through ancient legends of a people, often striving for military conquest and living by a continually flawed personal honor ...
Beowulf is considered an epic poem in that the main character is a hero who travels great distances to prove his strength at impossible odds against supernatural demons and beasts. The poem begins in medias res or simply, "in the middle of things", a characteristic of the epics of antiquity.
Nostos (Ancient Greek: νόστος) is a theme used in Ancient Greek literature, which includes an epic hero returning home, often by sea. In Ancient Greek society, it was deemed a high level of heroism or greatness for those who managed to return.
This page was last edited on 8 December 2016, at 06:49 (UTC).; Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License; additional terms may apply.
The epic hero? Addressing the issue of heroism in Argonautica, the German classicist H. Fränkel once noted some unheroic characteristics of Jason and his crew. In particular, their frequent moods of despair and depression, summed up in the word helplessness (Ancient Greek: ἀμηχανία). By contrast, the bullying Argonaut Idas seemed to ...
An aristeia or aristia (/ ˌ ær ɪ ˈ s t iː ə /; Ancient Greek: ἀριστεία [aristěːaː], "excellence") is a scene in the dramatic conventions of epic poetry as in the Iliad, where a hero in battle has his finest moments (aristos = "best").