Ancient poetry has in no doubt been the foundation of the both oral and written poetry. These poets all made a mark in literature and still outplay the modern poetry which at times seems to leave out the basics of writing poems. This list is a selection of the most prestigious and eminent epic poems from
before the 20th century. In other words I have left 20th century poetry for
another list.
10. Aeneid
Virgil
Virgil
“The Aeneid” (Lat: “Aeneis”) is an epic poem by Vergil (Virgil), the pre-eminent poet of the Roman Empire. It is written in dactylic hexameter (considered to be the Grand Style of classical poetry). The first six of the poem’s twelve books tell the story of Aeneas’ wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem’s second half treats the Trojans’ ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed.Virgil was still working on revising the Aeneid when he died in 19 BC.
The poem contains a few lines which are only half as long as they
should be, which confirms thdwee traditional belief that the work is
unfinished. The poem is not, however, incomplete; it was meant to end
where it ends. The tradition also says that Virgil was so dissatisfied
with the Aeneid that on his death bed he gave orders for the manuscript
to be burned, but the executors of his estate did not comply.
It was basic to the education of generations of Romans, and has stirred
the imaginations of such writers and artists as St. Augustine, Dante,
Milton, and countless others.
9. Don Juan
Lord Byron
Lord Byron
Byron's satirical masterpiece Don Juan is written in groups of eight lines of iambic
pentameter that follow an ABABABCC rhyme scheme, which is known as
ottava rima. The dedication, sixteen cantos, and fragmentary
seventeenth canto make up the poem, which Byron insisted was unfinished.
Unfortunately, Byron died shortly after the publication of the last
cantos and was therefore unable to complete the entire mock epic. Byron claims that he had no ideas in his mind as to what would happen in
subsequent cantos as he wrote his work. Byron’s Don Juan, the name comically anglicized to rhyme with “new one” and “true one,” is a passive character, in many ways a victim of predatory women, and more of a picaresque hero in his unwitting roguishness. When the first two cantos were
published anonymously in 1819, the poem was criticised for its “immoral
content,” though it was also immensely popular.
8. Paradise Lost
John Milton
Paradise Lost (1667, 1674) is an epic poem by the 17th century English poet John Milton.
The poem concerns the Christian story of the fall of Satan and his
brethren and the rise of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by Satan
and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Paradise Lost is the first epic of English literature written in the
classical style. John Milton saw himself as the intellectual heir of
Homer, Virgil, and Dante. This is an epic poem in blank verse. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books; a second
edition followed in 1674, redivided into twelve books (in the manner of
the division of Virgil’s Aeneid) with minor revisions throughout and a
note on the versification. The poem grapples with many difficult theological issues, including fate, predestination and the Trinity.
7. The Divine Comedy
Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri
Dante’s The Divine Comedy is the beginning of Italian
literature and the single most significant work of the Middle Ages
because its allegory emphasizes the importance of salvation and divine
love in a work that is inclusive and tightly structured.
The Divina Commedia (Italian for "divine comedy") is Dante’s masterpiece and is the best literal expression of medieval culture. The poem is written in the first person, and tells of Dante’s journey
through the three realms of the dead, lasting during the Easter Triduum
in the spring of 1300. The Roman poet Virgil guides him through Hell and
Purgatory; Beatrice, Dante’s ideal woman, guides him through Heaven. Dante’s main purpose in writing the Commedia was to preach the
necessity of a moral and religious renew for everybody, in order to get
ready for the after-life and to ascend to Heaven, eternally saved.
Dante acts as a prophet who speak in behalf of God to the whole mankind.
In this sense, he’s strongly medieval and his poem is the higher
expression of this culture.
6. Mahabharata
Vyasa
Mahabharata is an ancient historical work written in sanskrit by Krishna-Dvaipayana ( aka veda vyasa). The Mahabharata is not a mere epic; it is a romance, telling the tale of heroic men and women, and of some who were divine; it is a whole literature in itself, containing a code of life, a philosophy of social and ethical relations, and speculative thought on human problems that is hard to rival. It contains more than 74,000 verses, long prose passages, and about 1.8 million words in total. The book's popularity is such that it has run into forty two reprints.
5. Beowulf
Anonymous
Metamorophoses” (“Transformations”) is a narrative poem in fifteen books by the Roman poet Ovid, completed in 8 CE. It is an epic (or “mock-epic”) poem describing the creation and history of the world, incorporating many of the best known and loved stories from Greek mythology, although centring more on mortal characters than on heroes or the gods. It is a classical work best known to medieval writers and thus having a great deal of influence on medieval and Renaissance poetry.
3. The Odyssey
Homer
This is one of the greatest work of literature to be written and attributed to the blind poet Homer. It is written predominantly in Dactyllic Hexameter: each line consists of six metrical feet, each of which consists of a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables. By no means are dactyls used exclusively. Odyssey is anbepic mythological journey of the Greek hero Odysseus (Ulysses in Roman). It is based on his departure to the Trojan war and the events that followed on his return. Homer’s style is famous for its flow and pacing.
2. Epic of Gilgamesh
Anonymous
The Epic of Gilgamesh is, perhaps, the oldest written story on Earth. It comes to us from Ancient Sumeria, and was originally written on 12 clay tablets in cunieform script. It follows the story of Gilgamesh, the mythological hero-king of Uruk,(somewhere between 2750 and 2500 BCE) and his half-wild friend, Enkidu, as they undertake a series of dangerous quests and adventures, and then Gilgamesh’s search for the secret of immortality after the death of his friend. It also includes the story of a great flood very similar to the story of Noah in "The Bible" and elsewhere.
Research also indicates that Gilgamesh was a real-life king of Uruk, a city-state in Mesopotamia, in about 2700 BC. After his death, unidentified authors and storytellers presented accounts of his life that grew into legends that greatly exaggerated his powers—so much so that he was described as two-thirds divine and one-third human.
Between 1400 and 1200 BC, an author of the priestly caste read the tablets about Gilgamesh and compiled the stories about him, taken mostly from the Akkadian accounts, into a single work. His name was Sin-leqi-unninni. Although he retained much of the wording on the clay tablets, he made some revisions and introduced original wording of his own.
1. The Iliad
Homer
Written in the mid-8th Century BCE, “The Iliad” (Gr: “Iliás”) is usually considered to be the earliest work in the whole Western literary tradition, and one of the best known and loved stories of all time. Through its portayal of the epic subject matter of the Trojan War, the stirring scenes of bloody battle, the wrath of Achilles and the constant interventions of the gods, it explores themes of glory, wrath, homecoming and fate, and has provided subjects and stories for many other later Greek, Roman and Renaissance writings. The meter (rhythmic pattern of syllables) of Homer’s epic poems is dactylic hexameter.
The Iliad was a truly remarkable accomplishment. Even though its author had no similar literary model on which to base his work, he wrote a masterpiece that ranks with the greatest works of all time. No student of literature can ignore Homer. No writer's education is complete unless he has read Homer.
6. Mahabharata
Vyasa
Mahabharata is an ancient historical work written in sanskrit by Krishna-Dvaipayana ( aka veda vyasa). The Mahabharata is not a mere epic; it is a romance, telling the tale of heroic men and women, and of some who were divine; it is a whole literature in itself, containing a code of life, a philosophy of social and ethical relations, and speculative thought on human problems that is hard to rival. It contains more than 74,000 verses, long prose passages, and about 1.8 million words in total. The book's popularity is such that it has run into forty two reprints.
5. Beowulf
Anonymous
Beowulf probably was composed in England sometime in the eighth century
ad and written down circa 1000 ad by a literate scop (bard) or perhaps a
Christian scribe who was possibly educated in a monastery. The poem was
created in the oral-formulaic tradition (or oral poetic method),
probably developing over a period of time with roots in folk tales and
traditional stories until a single, very talented poet put it in
something very near its current form.
Beowulf is written in Anglo-Saxon, the language spoken in Britain before the Norman Conquest in 1066—that is, before the extensive influence of French on the language we speak today. Still, Beowulf has come to be recognized as the foundational epic of English and British culture, in much the same way that the Iliad and the Odyssey are the foundational epics for ancient Greece.
4.Metamorphoses
Ovid
4.Metamorphoses
Ovid
3. The Odyssey
Homer
This is one of the greatest work of literature to be written and attributed to the blind poet Homer. It is written predominantly in Dactyllic Hexameter: each line consists of six metrical feet, each of which consists of a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables. By no means are dactyls used exclusively. Odyssey is anbepic mythological journey of the Greek hero Odysseus (Ulysses in Roman). It is based on his departure to the Trojan war and the events that followed on his return. Homer’s style is famous for its flow and pacing.
2. Epic of Gilgamesh
Anonymous
The Epic of Gilgamesh is, perhaps, the oldest written story on Earth. It comes to us from Ancient Sumeria, and was originally written on 12 clay tablets in cunieform script. It follows the story of Gilgamesh, the mythological hero-king of Uruk,(somewhere between 2750 and 2500 BCE) and his half-wild friend, Enkidu, as they undertake a series of dangerous quests and adventures, and then Gilgamesh’s search for the secret of immortality after the death of his friend. It also includes the story of a great flood very similar to the story of Noah in "The Bible" and elsewhere.
Research also indicates that Gilgamesh was a real-life king of Uruk, a city-state in Mesopotamia, in about 2700 BC. After his death, unidentified authors and storytellers presented accounts of his life that grew into legends that greatly exaggerated his powers—so much so that he was described as two-thirds divine and one-third human.
Between 1400 and 1200 BC, an author of the priestly caste read the tablets about Gilgamesh and compiled the stories about him, taken mostly from the Akkadian accounts, into a single work. His name was Sin-leqi-unninni. Although he retained much of the wording on the clay tablets, he made some revisions and introduced original wording of his own.
1. The Iliad
Homer
Written in the mid-8th Century BCE, “The Iliad” (Gr: “Iliás”) is usually considered to be the earliest work in the whole Western literary tradition, and one of the best known and loved stories of all time. Through its portayal of the epic subject matter of the Trojan War, the stirring scenes of bloody battle, the wrath of Achilles and the constant interventions of the gods, it explores themes of glory, wrath, homecoming and fate, and has provided subjects and stories for many other later Greek, Roman and Renaissance writings. The meter (rhythmic pattern of syllables) of Homer’s epic poems is dactylic hexameter.
The Iliad was a truly remarkable accomplishment. Even though its author had no similar literary model on which to base his work, he wrote a masterpiece that ranks with the greatest works of all time. No student of literature can ignore Homer. No writer's education is complete unless he has read Homer.
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