Chapter 18 - Epic (and Historiography)

Summary

Ever since its inception, Western epic has been concerned with the narration of the past, be it human, cosmic or mythic. From Homer’s siege of Troy and Virgil’s foundation of Rome, down to Milton’s “first disobedience,” epic discourse has retraced key episodes in the historical memory of the West, generally shaping them around figures who have been cast into heroic relief. Recalling that “Mnemosyne, the rememberer, was the Muse of the epic art among the Greeks,” Walter Benjamin wondered “whether historiography does not constitute the common ground of all forms of the epic,” over and above the formal qualities traditionally associated with the genre – considerable length, elevated diction, supernatural machinery, rhetorical devices such as series and similes, set pieces like the invocation to the Muse and prophetic visions.