Lesson video

Hi, everyone.

Welcome to lesson one of Epic poetry, with me, Miss Kuhivchak.

Today, we're going to have an introduction to Epic poetry.

We're going to learn about what Epic poetry is, how you might recognise an Epic poem, and we're going to travel around the world and learn about different Epics from different cultures.

I hope you're ready to learn and I hope you enjoy.

For today's lesson, you're going to need three things.

We're going to need something to write with, something to write on and most importantly your brain.

Now the lesson will still work if you don't have a pen and paper, but it won't work if you haven't got your brain switched on.

If you still need a pen and paper, pause the lesson for a minute, go and get what you need.

I'm going to take you through today's agenda.

Agenda means the things we're going to cover in this lesson.

The first thing we're going to cover is a definition for what Epic poetry is.

We're going to talk about the origins of Epic poetry, so where Epic poetry originally comes from.

We're then going to move on to conventions of Epic poetry, which means the typical features that we would expect to find in Epic poem.

And lastly, I'm going to give you two examples of my favourite Epic poems to show you how those conventions look in real life.

At the end, there will be a little quiz for you to test your knowledge of all the things we've covered today.

So we're starting off with the word Epic.

And often when I start with the word Epic and ask students what they think Epic means, they often say, "Isn't that something that's really big?" It means something that's huge.

And yes, that is part of what Epic poetry is.

Epic poems typically are very long, but that's not the only thing that we know about them.

They are what we call orally composed.

They are part of the oral tradition, and I will talk a bit about that on the next slide.

Typically, they were always set in the past, often a mythical past.

So long ago that we're not even sure when the events actually happened.

And the poems usually involve gods and heroes, at least one hero, if not several.

And it describes the events that happen between these gods and these heroes that happened in the past that are exciting and so exciting that they've been remembered for hundreds if not thousands of years later.

Epic poems are part of what we call the oral tradition.

You might already have watched some of my lessons on the oral tradition, which is great.

But if you don't, don't worry, I'm going to explain what the oral tradition is.

On the side of the screen you can see a little icon with a mouth, with a person speaking, and that's what oral means.

When a poem, a piece of text is spoken.

A story rather than being written down will be learned off by heart, and it will be shared with other people in a particular community.

That means it's from memory rather than being written down.

And in fact, all of the poems we are going to study today were written down a much later than they were originally created.

The way they were created first were through memorization or by speaking or singing them regularly rather than being written and published in books, like we use poetry today.

So to clarify this new word oral which actually comes from the Latin word for mouth, means communicating through speech or song, and Epic poems are often spoken or sung.

They are part of a tradition, which means that these poems have been handed down over time to generations of new people who've learn these poems in their turn and pass them on to the next generation.

They're usually part of a culture that's really important.

That means that the people who learn these poems think it's important to remember them forever.

Now, this oral tradition might have some advantages, but it also has some disadvantages.

I'd like you to pause at this part of the lesson and think, what are the advantages of the oral tradition in Epic and what might the disadvantages of an oral tradition in Epic be? Of you go.

Right, well one of the advantages you might have thought for oral tradition in Epic poetry could be, anybody can share an Epic story if they learn it.

And of course, nobody needs to learn to read or write if these poems are just being spoken.

However, we also have some disadvantages.

If poems are spoken and not written down, sometimes Epics can be forgotten.

They could be lost or they change over time and we get different versions.

And of course, if we don't have a book with the author's name on it, if the poem is just spoken, we don't always know the original author of the Epic poem.

For example, we have the Epic Beowulf.

And yet, even though we have an example of this poem that was written down much later, we don't know who the original author is, and it's almost certain we never will.

That information has been lost in the midst of time.

Now, the next topic is where Epic comes from.

On the screen, you'll see a global map, and I'm going to take you through some of the Epics that exist across the world.

Now, before I do this, it's important to say that the dates I'm showing you are what we call approximate.

That means that we don't always know exactly how old these Epics are.

We don't always know how long they've been around for or when they were eventually written down.

You will see dates on the screen, however, there are some arguments that these are or are not the right dates.

So bear in mind these are just a general suggestion of when we think these might come from.

The oldest Epic that we're going to start with is the Epic of Gilgamesh, and that comes from all the way back in 1,800 BC in what was called ancient Mesopotamia.

That Epic was composed in a language called Acadian, and Mesopotamia is now an area that encompasses Syria and Turkey and was a large expanse.

And we think that this Epic went on to influence a lot of the other Epics that we're going to talk about later.

This includes the Epics of ancient Greece.

You will see that we've got the word Iliad on the screen.

The Iliad is an ancient Greek Epic orally composed we think in about 800 BC, though we're not completely sure.

And along with the other Epic of the Odyssey, is probably the most popular Epic that is taught in the Western world.

However, after this, you will see that we have what is in fact the longest surviving Epic, the Mahabharata from India.

Which took a long time to compose, but we think it was roughly about 200 AD.

The next one is much closer to home for us.

We have the Epic of Beowulf, composed in old English, roughly in 1800 AD in what would now be modern Britain.

And just to show you that in fact, these Epics span even more of the world, we've got the Shahnameh composed in Persian, little bit later than Beowulf, in about 1000 AD.

These are mainly focused on Europe and Asia, but other countries have their own Epics too.

In fact, if we go all the way to the other side of the world to South America, we've got La Araucana, which was a poem composed in Chile in 1589, and then written down to be shared with the rest of the world.

There are of course more Epics than the ones I suggested on here, but these are probably the most famous.

And I'm going to take you through some examples from some of them in the rest of this lesson.

We're also going to discuss the conventions of these Epic poems. Now by conventions we mean the typical features that you would expect to find in any Epic.

So an Epic from ancient Mesopotamia would have the same features as an Epic from ancient Greece.

These features include regular repetition of words and phrases.

If you think about it, it makes sense that if you are composing a poem and remembering it, it's easier to remember a poem that has repetitions in it to remind you of where you are.

These poems often also have very long extended descriptions.

They might be descriptions of a person or descriptions of an object.

For example, in the Iliad, we have an extended description of the shield of the warrior Achilles before he goes into battle.

And we hear about all the details of the design of his shield.

Heroes in Epic often have very long speeches, usually before they're about to go and do something quite violent.

So they might be boasting about their deeds like Beowulf, or they might be explaining their motivations like Achilles.

And often this takes a long part of the poem as they explain who they are and what they're going to do.

Within the poem, you'll also notice a lot of extended similes.

And by similes we mean comparisons using the words like or as.

I'm going to show you some examples of these later in this slideshow.

And finally you'll notice that most Epics have similar themes.

They focus on a war, they focus on combat and some idea of some national struggle, often when one country goes to war with another.

Now, let's do a little quiz and see how much of that you can remember.

On the screen you will see some statements, and I want you to think about whether these are true or false.

I'll read them to you, pause the screen and make a note with a T or an F next to them, whether you think they are correct.

Statement one, Epic poems are part of the oral tradition, which means they are spoken or sung.

Statement two, a key theme of Epic is romantic love.

Statement number three, Epics often feature battles and heroes.

Statement number four, Epic poems can be really short.

And statement number five, nothing ever gets repeated in an Epic poem.

Now, let's look at the answers and see how well you did.

Well done if you put true for number one.

Epic poems are always part of the oral tradition where they are designed to be spoken, read out loud and sung, rather than to be written down.

Well done if you put false for number two.

Romantic love is not actually usually a theme in Epic poetry.

Epic poems are mainly focused on events like war and battle.

There might be a romantic feature, but quite often, that's not as interesting as the war element.

Well done if you put true for number three.

Epics, as we've already said, often feature battles and war and heroes that fight.

And well done if you put false for number four.

There's really no such thing as a short Epic poem.

Epic poems by definition are long narrative poems that encompass a lot of events.

And finally, well done if you put false for number five.

Actually we do get a lot of repetition in Epic poems, that's a key convention that helps the poets to remember what they are singing and what they are saying.

I'm going to show you an example from the Iliad, the ancient Greek Epic, which is about the Trojan War.

In this short extract, we have a scene from a battle.

We have the Greeks fighting the Trojans and the poet is describing how these warriors look on the battlefield.

I've given you some vocabulary to help you to clarify what's going on.

At the bottom you'll see the word crannies, that means a small hole or a hiding place.

The word assailants is used which means attackers, and to contend is a verb meaning to fight.

Now, this is from quite far on within the Epic where a lot of the drama has happened and is building us the end of the poem comes towards the characters.

And as I read to you, this discussion of what the warriors are doing, I would like you to think what conventions of Epic can you notice here.

Look carefully and make notes as I read.

"But like when wasps from hollow crannies drive, To guard the entrance of their common hive, Darkening the rock, while with unwearied wings They strike the assailants, and infix their stings.

A race determined, that to death contend.

So fierce these Greeks their lost retreats defend." Now well done if you noticed the clue which was actually the second word in the first line.

"But like when wasps." As we talked about already, like actually gives us a simile.

"Like when wasps" is comparing the Greek warriors to stinging wasps who were defending their nests.

This tells us then that this must be an Epic poem because not only is the simile very clear, but look how long it is.

And as we know, Epic poems like to be quite long.

The second clue that this is an Epic poem is the topic.

We have the description of these warriors striking their assailants, so striking their attackers.

And we know that, they to death contend, meaning they fight to the death.

This is the theme of war.

And as we've already discussed, war is such a typical topic that turns up in Epic poetry all the time.

We are now going to look at a section from the Odyssey.

The Odyssey is the follow on Epic from the Iliad.

It's the story of the hero Odysseus, who after the Trojan War has to travel for 10 more years to get home.

Now, this is probably one of my favourite Epics out of all the Epics that I've studied.

And on the screen you will see the opening section which I've translated from ancient Greek.

Underneath, you'll see some vocabulary.

I've put the word resourceful, which means clever or cunning, and also the word sacking, which means to burn and destroy a city.

That might be your first clue.

I'm going to read you this opening section, and I'd like you to think about within this, what conventions of Epic do you notice? So have your pens ready and think, "Hmm, is there anything familiar here?" The poem starts, "Sing to me, goddess of the struggles of one resourceful man, the hero who wandered the world on long journeys after battling and sacking the holy city of Troy." Now you've listened to that.

Pause the video and think, what are the conventions of Epic that you noticed.

Now, well done if again, you spotted a clue in the first line.

We had the word "sing to me goddess." Now, gods often feature in Epic poems along with heroes.

That is the first clue that this poem belongs to the Epic tradition.

As you read along, you might also notice the word hero, "One resourceful man." Now, even though we don't have his name mentioned, we are already told that this Epic focuses on one particular person.

And in fact, the fact that we don't know his name makes him even more interesting.

We want to carry on reading and listening in order to find out who he is.

And finally, we're told that he wanders the world after battling and sacking the holy city of Troy.

With the word battle and sack, that gives us again the theme of war.

He survived one Epic war, the Trojan War, and then he has a different kind of journey trying to get home, which involves even more battles and fighting.

Therefore we can already tell from the first few lines that the Odyssey is going to be an Epic poem, with a hero, with gods and with battle.

And that makes us just want to listen to it and find out what happens to our Epic hero.

Now, we've covered two kinds of Epic in detail, as well as talking about Epics from all over the world and the things that they have in common.

I'd like you to pause and just write down three of those conventions of Epic poetry that we covered today.

Now, well done if you got down some of the conventions of Epic poetry, we're going to go through them together.

One of the things you might have written down was that phrases are often repeated regularly.

You get a lot of repetition in Epic poems. You might have remembered they're often long descriptions of people or objects.

In the Iliad you have a long description of the shield of Achilles, for example.

Heroes often have long speeches where they talk about what they're going to do, how are they going to do it.

And you always get these extended similes.

So using like or as to compare things to other things, we saw that example of warriors being compared to stinging wasps in the midst of battle.

And of course the theme of battle is really important.

That theme of war, where countries are going to war with each other and do you have this idea of some kind of deep national struggle that has to be overcome.

You might also have written down some of the facts we learned about Epic at the very beginning about the definition of Epic poetry itself.

You might have noted that these are poems that are orally composed, they're not written down in the first instance.

They're set in this mythical past, so long ago that we can't prove whether the events happened or not.

And they often involve gods, and at least one hero around whom the narrative will centre.

Now we're almost at the end of today's lesson, but I'm quickly going to recap everything we've done just to say and show you how much we learned today.

We talked about what Epic poetry is and the fact that these are these long poems set in a mythical past.

And the fact that they come from the oral tradition, meaning they're composed through speech rather than being written down.

I showed you how Epic poems come from all over the world.

And even though they come from very different places and languages, we notice the same conventions, the same features that are used.

So that could be similes, using descriptive language or just the key themes of war and struggle.

Hopefully you enjoyed your learning today.

And after this lesson, you will test your learning and review your learning with a little quiz that I've set for you.

Well done on listening, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your learning for today.