The Classical Epic Tradition
- Author / Editor
- Newman, John Kevin.
The Classical Epic Tradition
- Published
- Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986.
- Physical Description
- x, 566 pp.
- Description
- Anatomizes the tradition of the classical epic in Western literature, from Homer to Tolstoy and Thomas Mann, tracing the "Alexandrian" mode that originated with Callimachus and his school and runs counter to the more strictly restrained tradition of "pseudo-Homer." Defines the "English tradition" of classical epic through analysis of Chaucer's KnT and Milton's "Paradise Lost" (pp. 339-98), exploring relations of these two epics to their Latin and Italian predecessors, gauging their "Alexandrian" experimentation and stylistic devices, and suggesting that "Celtic" or "British" complexity underlies their characteristic density of "corresponsive numerical balances."
- Chaucer Subjects
- Knight and His Tale
- Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations
- Style and Versification