The epic

1. Introduction

2. Classical epic: Oral epic

Homer and the Old Testament

Heroic epic: Iliad and Beowulf

Vergil, Aeneid

Ovid, Metamorphoses

Lucan, Pharsalia

3. New form: Dante, La Divina Commedia

Langland and Chaucer

4. Renaissance and later epic: Spenser, The Faerie Queene

Milton, Paradise Lost

Mock-epic and imitation: Pope to Tennyson

5. Forms of modern epic: The novel

Epic theatre

Modern epic poetry.