Any person who seeks self-education has heard of such a thing as "epic." What is this, everyone must know. After all, already from school, we get acquainted with such masterpieces of world literature as the Iliad and War and Peace. However, not everyone knows about the distinctive features and features of this genre.
What is an epic
In the literature, this concept is used for a significant volume of work, both poetic and prosaic, which affects a national theme. During the formation of literature, such literary works described the most important events for the people of that time. Among the main topics were heroic biographies, military clashes, mythological motives.
Examples
Later epic novels depict no longer the formation of society, but its terrible situation with the help of comic means. Among such novels, the poem Dead Souls by the world-famous Ukrainian writer N.V. Gogol stands out especially.
The epic novel as a phenomenon of literature went through a long development, which caused the appearance of many of its varieties. There are two types of such works. The first includes novels in which the characters of the main characters develop under the influence of events of a national-historical scale. For example, “War and Peace”, “After the Storm”, “Quiet Don”. Another type includes works in which the evolution of heroes occurs during their participation in important historical events. For example, Red Wheel, Peter the Great.
Specific traits
Any variety of works has its own distinctive features, and the novel epic was no exception. What it is, was said above, but in order to be able to attribute the work to this type, it is necessary to familiarize yourself with its features, among which are listed below.
- The epic novel depicts the national past of the people.
- Very often, such a work is based on national traditions.
- Typically, the time of the novel is separated from the present.
Such distinguishing features were distinguished by a well-known researcher and literary critic M. M. Bakhtin.
Classic epics
The novels, which have become classic examples of the epic, include such works as The Iliad and Odyssey (epic of Ancient Greece), Ramayana and Mahabharata (epic of Ancient India) and The Song of Roland (France).
Roman + epic
That this concept combines elements of both a novel and an epic is clear even from the name. From the novel, such works adopted descriptions of the fate of specific individuals, from the epic - the formation of heroes against the backdrop of nationally significant historical events that affect the fate of the whole people. This leads to the fact that in the epic novel you can often find not only mass scenes and descriptions of specific historical events, but also the disclosure of the inner world of certain heroes.
"War and Peace"
The most famous epic novel not only in Russia but throughout the world is the work of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy “War and Peace”. The author personally wrote an article about which genre he relates his creation to. It was published in the Russian Archive in March 1868.
In his article, Tolstoy says that he considers his novel neither a poem, nor a historical chronicle. However, it is in this work that one can observe the outline of the evolution of the inner world of heroes, which takes place against the backdrop of historical events, that is, exactly what the epic usually describes. That this is precisely so is evidenced by the fact that the author wrote the history of the people, and not of a specific person.
Summing up, it should be noted that the works mentioned above not only have historical value, they captured the very important moments of the development of civilizations. It is not in vain that these works are still studied in schools and universities, everyone has heard about them, since the epic novel is a very significant phenomenon in the development of all world literature.
Influenced by similar epic works on many other spheres of art. The genre also found its reflection in the cinema. For example, “Battle for Moscow” directed by Yuri Ozerov is a real epic. The film describes the largest confrontations of the Great Patriotic War. Genre features of the epic: a combination of historical authenticity, accuracy with a wide artistic generalization and romantic pathos.