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peppericusjensenicus

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  1. Adding to this thread 10 years later, lol. Hoping your daughter wrote her epic and is continuing to write. If it's published out there let me know. If it's not, maybe encourage her to pick it back up, now that she has a few more years of writing under her belt, she may enjoy the meter more now. My understanding of epics as I work on my own epic poem is the need for verse seems to be driven by higher linguistic prowess needed to out-write, and write into, the literary collective of epics proceeding it. Homer wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey, two stories one about a war, and one about a man going on a journey. Virgil came and tried to one-up Homer doing just one story incorporating both a journey and a war, and the formation of the greatest nation. Dante came along and tried to one-up Virgil by having himself go on a journey to the darkest nation - hell - led there by none other than... Virgil, who then couldn't go as far as Dante could in the story, indicating that Dante was taking the Epic beyond the reach of Virgil or Homer. Milton then wrote Paradise Lost flipping everything on it's head, and having the hero be none-other-than Satan, starting in hell, going on the greatest journey, to conquer the greatest kingdom, all of humanity, and creating the origin of all wars. There has arguably been no great epic since Milton's Paradise Lost almost 600 years ago. So I would say one nature of the Epic poem (as is also evidenced in Spencer's Faire Queen, and Ovid's Metamorphosis, and any other writer's attempt at an epic) is the goal of out-writing the great works before them. I think partially because of this, verse has been primary, in its elevated linguistic format. In fact Paradise Lost begins with an explanation of verse's superior nature not being rhymed to counter current culture's default to rhyme, and making the argument that high linguistic's is paramount to great works. "The Measure is English Heroic Verse without Rime, as that of Homer in Greek, and Virgil in Latin; Rhime being no necessary Adjunct or true Ornament of Poem or good Verse, in longer Works especially, but the Invention of a barbarous Age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meeter; grac't indeed since by the use of some famous modern Poets, carried away by Custom, but much to thir own vexation, hindrance, and constraint to express many things otherwise, and for the most part worse then else they would have exprest them. Not without cause therefore some both Italian, and Spanish Poets of prime note have rejected Rhime both in longer and shorter Works, as have also long since our best English Tragedies, as a thing of itself, to all judicious ears, triveal, and of no true musical delight; which consists onely in apt Numbers, fit quantity of Syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one Verse into another, not in the jingling sound of like endings, a fault avoyded by the learned Ancients both in Poetry and all good Oratory. This neglect then of Rhime so little is to be taken for a defect, though it may seem so perhaps to vulgar Readers, that it rather is to be esteem'd an example set, the first in English, of ancient liberty recover'd to heroic Poem from the troublesom and modern bondage of Rimeing." The reason for meter had and still has great significance. The nice thing is it can be played with, and in my opinion, adds a greater freedom to writing. Putting parameters to form, frees the writer in a sense. Many works like Lord of the Rings (a favorite of mine) is epic as a story, and has many elements of an epic. But at this point a work would not be considered epic without tying into the compendium of epic poems before it and attempting to add or surpass those works proceeding it. That I suppose would not necessitate verse, if it can be justifiably higher linguistic structure. T.S. Elliot's writing style, were it turned into a story, could then I suppose be considered an epic, if it fit other barometers of the epic style. An epic, is synonymous with epic poem, and poem by nature usually has a form. So one could write a Haiku poem, and tamper with the form and style, sticking within the bounds of recognizable Haiku, and still have their work labeled as such. But one could not write a free-verse 2 page poem, and label it a Haiku. Likewise, in order to be considered an Epic it would need the high linguistics, and if not in verse, need it some justifiable reason it is superior linguistic structure. Even then many may not consider the work an epic without the verse.
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