Epic Novel ~ Literary Hunt

Q. 15. What is an Epic Novel?

Ans:

An Epic novel, says E.M.W. Tillyard is an attempt to select and comment on those works of prose fiction in the English language which approximates the spirit of the epic rather than that of a different kind of literature. An epic poet, says Lascelles Abercrombie, is one who is-"accepting, and with his genius transfiguring, the general circumstance of his time symbolizing, in some appropriate form, whatever sense of the significance of life he feels acting as the accepted unconscious metaphysic of the time."

While the dimension of timelessness is present in a tragedy, an Epic has typical or chronic consistency and is typically a reflection of age. "The book," says an esteemed critic, "is similar to epic, but it's younger to the poem, Epic or Drainage. It's come on its own as a method of accentuating prose-life."An Epic is a verse tale, while the novel is a prose narrative. The author who succeeds in mixing the techniques of epic and novelistic literature can be credited with having written an epic novel. Emile Zola is such an author who likes an epic poet experiencing a social struggle, delineating personal details of character and intimate feelings like a novelist. He is not alone though. Defoe's Robinson Crusoe can reasonably be called an Epic book. Like a Heroic hero, Robinson has to struggle against the island's physical conditions all by himself. The character of the hero possesses ample resources. There is also a rich suggestiveness to the events. Tom Jones, of Fielding, is an epic book. The Homeric explanations and parallels and the heroic romance echoes are distinctly epical. Tom Jones shares a generation's spirit, as an epic. "No one man," says Tillyard, "had been able to grasp all the inequalities in England in the early and mid-eighteenth centuries; and Fielding may have grasped enough for "an epic.

Some of Walter Scott's books on Waverley are epical. "Scott's Scottish novels," says Walter Allen, "coalesce in the mind into one great epic." The novels mentioned are Waverley, Rob Roy, and The Heart of Midlothian, and they are all distinguished from Scott's other novels in their range of interests and ostensibility. The Nostromo of Joseph Conrad has epic dimensions. A novel with a tremendous human range, it portrays "a wide body of people.... and reflects and reinforces the expectations of those who want to find a reason to live firmly in a world that continues to baffle them at every stage." Commenting on Nostromo, Muriel Bradbrook says it merits the majestic epithet. The great theme of action and contemplation is a reminder of the Homeric theme. Ulysses, by James Joyce, is an epic of the modern age. Joyce himself says it's "a public epic for his own private profit." Its wide range of matter and lavishness has epic touches."Granted," says Tillyard, "the epic is possible when dealing with from the irony, satire, and farce side, Ulysses does not fall short in terms of sheer content." Odyssey's comparisons in the novel have contributed to the epic charm.

Epic Novel

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