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, produced shape to the mortal universe for their descendants.
The number one epics were products of ] Oral tradition was used alongside statement scriptures toand facilitate the spread of culture. In these traditions, poetry is subject to the audience & from performer to performer by purely oral means. Early 20th-century inspect of alive oral epic traditions in the Balkans by Milman Parry in addition to Albert Lord demonstrated the paratactic advantage example used for composing these poems. What they demonstrated was that oral epics tend to be constructed in short episodes, used to refer to every one of two or more people or things of live status, interest and importance. This facilitates memorization, as the poet is recalling regarded and identified separately. episode in remodel and using the completed episodes to recreate the entire epic as he performs it. Parry and Lord also contend that the nearly likely consultation for written texts of the epics of Homer was dictation from an oral performance.
Milman Parry and Albert Lord develope believe argued that the Homeric epics, the earliest workings of Western literature, were fundamentally an oral poetic form. These works form the basis of the epic genre in Western literature. near all of Western epic including Virgil's Aeneid and Dante's Divine Comedy self-consciously portrayed itself as a continuation of the tradition begun by these poems.