Editing Romantic nationalism (section)

===National epics===
[[Image:BattleofRoncevauxWvBibra.jpg|thumb|300px|A painting of an episode from the [[Song of Roland]], a French national epic]]
{{Main|National epic}}
The concept of a "[[national epic]]", an extensively mythologized legendary work of poetry of defining importance to a certain nation, is another product of Romantic nationalism. The "discovery" of ''[[Beowulf]]'' in a single manuscript, first transcribed in 1818, came under the impetus of Romantic nationalism, after the manuscript had lain as an ignored curiosity in scholars' collections for two centuries. ''Beowulf'' was felt to provide people self-identified as "[[Anglo-Saxon]]" with their missing "national epic",<ref>The section "III.Early National Poetry" of ''The Cambridge History of English and American Literature'' (1907–21) begins "By far the most important product of the national epos is ''Beowulf''...</ref> just when the need for it was first being felt: the fact that Beowulf himself was a [[Geat]] was easily overlooked. The pseudo-Gaelic literary forgeries of "[[Ossian]]" had failed, finally, to fill the need for the first Romantic generation.{{cn|date=August 2018}}

The first publication of ''[[The Tale of Igor's Campaign]]'' coincided with the rise in Russian national spirit in the wake of the [[Napoleonic wars]] and [[Suvorov]]'s campaigns in Central Europe. The unseen and unheard ''[[Song of Roland]]'' had become a dim memory, until the antiquary [[Francisque Michel]] transcribed a worn copy in the [[Bodleian Library]] and put it into print in 1837; it was timely: French interest in the national epic revived among the Romantic generation. In Greece, the ''[[Iliad]]'' and ''[[Odyssey]]'' took on new urgency during the [[Greek War of Independence]]. Amongst the world's Jewish community, the early [[Zionism|Zionists]] considered the [[Bible]] a more suitable national epic than the [[Talmud]].<ref>[[Moshe Halbertal]] (1997), [https://books.google.com/books?id=7ewY9764Wv8C&pg=PA132 People of the Book: Canon, Meaning, and Authority], p.132: "With the rise of Jewish nationalism, the relation of many Jews to the Bible and the Talmud took another turn. The Zionists preferred the Bible to the Talmud as the national literature, for the Bible tells a heroic story of the national drama whose focus is the Land of Israel. While they objected to the Haskalah politics of emancipation, Zionist thinkers also stressed the role of the Bible, but they thought of it as an element in building a particular national consciousness rather than as the basis of a shared Judeo-Christian heritage enabling the integration of Jews in Europe. Unlike the Talmud, they held, the Bible had the potential to become a national epic. Its drama unfolded in the hills of Judea, and it connected the national claim to the land with a historical past. Nothing in the Talmud, in contrast, appealed to the romanticism vital to national movements. It does not tell the glorious story of a nation, it has no warriors and heroes, no geography which arouses longing in the reader or a sense of connection to an ancient home."</ref>

Many other "national epics", [[epic poetry]] considered to reflect the national spirit, were produced or revived under the influence of Romantic nationalism: particularly in the [[Russian Empire]], national minorities seeking to assert their own identities in the face of [[Russification]] produced new national poetry&nbsp;– either out of whole cloth, or from cobbling together folk poetry, or by resurrecting older narrative poetry. Examples include the [[Estonia]]n ''[[Kalevipoeg]]'', [[Finland|Finnish]] ''[[Kalevala]]'', [[Poland|Polish]] ''[[Pan Tadeusz]]'', [[Latvia]]n ''[[Lāčplēsis]]'', [[Armenia]]n ''Sasuntzi Davit'' by [[Hovhannes Tumanyan]], [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]]n ''[[The Knight in the Panther's Skin]]'' and [[Greater Iran]], ''[[Shahnameh]].''