Editing Epic poetry (section)

== Overview ==
[[File:Kalevala1.jpg|thumb|upright|The first edition (1835) of the Finnish national epic poem ''[[Kalevala]]'' by [[Elias Lönnrot]]]]
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 the epic as received in tradition and add to the epic in their performances. Later writers like [[Virgil]], [[Apollonius of Rhodes]], [[Dante Alighieri|Dante]], [[Luís de Camões|Camões]], and [[John Milton|Milton]] adopted and adapted Homer's [[Parallels between Virgil's Aeneid and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey|style and subject matter]], but used devices available only to those who write.

The oldest epic recognized is the ''[[Epic of Gilgamesh]]'' ({{circa|2500–1300 BCE}}), which was recorded in ancient [[Sumer]] during 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.<ref>{{cite book
 |editor1-last=Lawall |editor1-first=Sarah N.
 |editor2-last=Mack |editor2-first=Maynard
 |date=1999
 |title=Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces: The Western Tradition
 |edition=7 |volume=1 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/nortonanthologyo0001unse_z9t3/page/10 10–11]
 |location=New York, NY
 |publisher=W.W. Norton
 |isbn=978-0-393-97289-4
 |url=https://archive.org/details/nortonanthologyo0001unse_z9t3
}}</ref>

The longest written epic from antiquity is the ancient Indian ''[[Mahabharata]]'' ({{Circa|3rd century BC}}–3rd century AD),<ref>Austin, [https://books.google.com/books?id=4jCoDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA21 p. 21] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221225145847/https://books.google.com/books?id=4jCoDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA21 |date=25 December 2022 }}.</ref> which consists of 100,000 [[śloka]]s or over 200,000 verse lines (each shloka 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.<ref>{{cite book
 |author=Lochtefeld, James G.
 |year=2002
 |title=The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism
 |volume=A-M |page=[https://archive.org/details/illustratedencyc0000loch/page/n405 399]
 |publisher=The Rosen Publishing Group
 |isbn=978-0-8239-3179-8
 |url=https://archive.org/details/illustratedencyc0000loch
 |url-access=registration
}}</ref><ref>{{cite book
 |author1=Sharma, T.R.S.
 |author2=Gaur, June
 |author3=Akademi, Sahitya
 |year=2000
 |title=Ancient Indian Literature: An anthology
 |location=New Delhi, IN
 |publisher=Sahitya Akademi
 |isbn=978-81-260-0794-3
 |page=137
 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IRp1PKX0BXoC&pg=PA137
}}</ref><ref>{{cite book
 |author1=Spodek, Howard
 |author2=Richard Mason
 |title=The World's History
 |publisher=Pearson Education
 |year=2006
 |place=New Jersey
 |page=224
 |isbn=0-13-177318-6
}}</ref>

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, the Persian ''[[Shahnameh]]'', the Ancient Greek ''[[Odyssey]]'' and ''[[Iliad]]'', [[Virgil]]'s ''[[Aeneid]]'', the Old English ''[[Beowulf]]'', [[Dante Alighieri|Dante]]'s ''[[Divine Comedy]]'', the Finnish ''[[Kalevala]]'', the German {{Lang|de|[[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 the Mongols]]'', the Kyrgyz [[Epic of Manas|''Manas'']], and the Malian [[Epic of Sundiata|''Sundiata'']]. Epic poems of the modern era include [[Derek Walcott]]'s ''[[Omeros]]'', [[Mircea Cărtărescu]]'s [[The Levant (poem)|''The Levant'']] and [[Adam Mickiewicz]]'s ''[[Pan Tadeusz]]''. ''[[Paterson (poem)|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]].<ref>{{cite news
 |first=Herbert |last=Leibowitz
 |date=29 December 2011
 |title=Herbert Leibowitz on William Carlos Williams and Ezra Pound: Episodes from a sixty-year friendship
 |department=News
 |type=blog
 |url=https://www.loa.org/news-and-views/814-herbert-leibowitz-on-william-carlos-williams-and-ezra-pound-episodes-from-a-sixty-year-friendship
 |access-date=2020-10-12
 |website=Library of America (loa.org)
 |language=en-US
}}</ref>