Lit2Go

Epic

The epic story is centered around heroic figures and usually involves struggles of great scope and size over long periods of time.

Books

Beowulf

by Francis Barton Gummere

Beowulf, the epic tale of adventure that follows Beowulf as he battles Grendel, Grendel's Mother, and later becomes king. Beowulf was originally written in Old English by an unknown Anglo-Saxon poet sometime between the 8th and 11th centuries. It is one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature. This translation, by Professor Francis Gummere, was first published in 1910.

The Iliad

by Homer

The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set in the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of Ilium by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles. Although the story covers only a few weeks in the final year of the war, the Iliad mentions or alludes to many of the Greek legends about the siege.

The Story of Siegfried

by James Baldwin

The Story of Siegfried is James Baldwin's retelling of ancient yet perpetually popular Norse and Germanic tales about the hero Siegfried. The stories tell of a young man who had many adventures that readers might find familiar from modern movies and books, such as forging a legendary sword, rescuing a beautiful woman from a deep sleep, fighting dragons and armies, and so forth. Baldwin's sources included the Eddas, the Volsung Saga, and the Nibelungenlied, some of the oldest surviving references to the legends.

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