Examines how epic poetry reflects cultural values, and how, in epic poems, the heroes must meet supernatural beings to find answers to essential questions. This book explores the nearly-universal themes of duty, obligation, and personal fulfillment in ancient epic poetry, including the ""Epic of Gilgamesh"", and the ""Bhagavad-Gita"", among others.
This book examines how epic poetry reflects cultural values, and how, in epic poems, the heroes must meet supernatural beings to find answers to essential questions. It begins with three chapters on ancient poetry (including The Iliad and The Odyssey, the Mahabharata, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Aeneid and the Bhagavad Gita). Subsequent chapters take up the main subject of the book, examining the evolution of English epic poetry from the anonymous Old English Beowulf to Spenser's The Faerie Queen, Milton's Paradise Lost, Blake's Milton, Wordsworth's The Prelude, Barett Browning's Aurora Leigh and Derek Walcott's 1990 poem Omeros.
