| Description |
1 online resource (xiii, 216 pages) : illustrations |
| Series |
Anthem world epic and romance |
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Anthem world epic and romance.
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| Contents |
Whatever happened to the epic? -- Leaving paradise -- An epic told in letters -- Prospects and living pictures -- Analyzing a soul -- Epic heroinism -- Cinematic spectacle and the hero -- Paradise sought : the African American odyssey --Imaginary history and epic fantasy -- The epic in future tense -- Heaven and hell reimagined -- Translating and recentering old epics |
| Summary |
"Epic Ambitions in Modern Times explores how artists in varied genres and media have aimed for, in Milton's phrase, "things unattempted yet" in epic creation. Starting with the last books of Paradise Lostas a farewell to the ancient tradition of epic and extending to an assessment of four twenty-first-century women writers retelling canonical epics in the voices of marginalized characters, the book's intervening chapters consider epic in the forms of an epistolary novel, a work of history, a poetic autobiography, an opera, a silent film, a series of paintings, two literary fantasies, three poems set in the future and a play." |
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<I>Epic Ambitions in Modern Times</i> seeks neither to be a comprehensive history of the modern epic nor to construct a theoretical framework for understanding how epics work. Its twelve chapters range from a consideration of the final books of <i>Paradise Lost</i> to an assessment of a quartet of twenty-first-century women writers who have retold the ancient epics in the form of novels voiced by marginal characters in the original poems. Between those goalposts the book takes up epic in the forms of an epistolary novel, a work of history, a poetic autobiography, an opera, a silent film, a series of paintings, two literary fantasies, three long poems set in science-fictional futures, and a play. <br><br>The book explores how artists in the past three centuries, working in varied forms and media, have aimed for, in Milton's phrase, 'things unattempted yet' in epic creation. The ambition of artists to produce epic and the persistent desire of audiences for epic experience constitute the alternating current that stimulates the analysis of the representative selection of modern epics |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Subject |
Epic literature -- History and criticism
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Epic literature -- Adaptations -- History and criticism
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Epic literature
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| Genre/Form |
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9781839985492 |
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1839985496 |
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9781839985478 |
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183998547X |
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