Epic Poems
Last updated: April 13, 2024
Epic poems are amongst the first works of literature that survive, the earliest poems—like the Epic of Gilgamesh—likely part of oral traditions that were written down only after writing developed from the third millennium BCE. Later writers often took inspiration from earlier works and poems like Homer's Iliad have had a huge impact on Western literature into the 21st century. Some relate history (whether real or mythical), others are stories that deliver social commentary or grapple with religion. Like all great poetry, at their best these poems combine beautiful, evocative language with timeless truths about the human condition.
The Odyssey
by Homer and translated by Emily Wilson
"Tell me about a complicated man.
Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost
when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy,
and where he went, and who he met, the pain
he suffered in the storms at sea, and how
he worked to save his life and bring his men
back home."
Odyssey, opening lines (Emily Wilson translation)
If you're interested in Homer and the poem of the Odyssey, the 2017 translation by Emily Wilson, Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, is a great place to start. Not only is it a highly readable translation, but the introduction provides a lot of context and historical background for anyone wondering who Homer was, when the poem was first written down etc.
Many of us would love to listen to the Odyssey, as that's how it was first delivered back in 700 BCE. Fortunately, the American actress Claire Danes has narrated the audiobook—so stick in your headphones, put your feet on the sofa, and press play.
The Mahabharata
by Anonymous & J.A.B. Van Buitenen (translator and editor)
This is volume one of J.A.B van Buitenen’s translation of The Mahabharata. The rest of this epic story can be found in volumes two and three.
“It’s a story about a very, very long war that’s fought between the Kauravas and the Pandavas, cousins all, over a kingdom that was divided into two equal parts and given to the two groups…it starts off as a war about justice because the Pandavs are trying to get their kingdom, which was wrongfully taken from them in this game of dice, back. Then, as things go on, there is no good side and no bad side, because to win this very long and sad war, everybody compromises their morals, their humanity – everybody cheats. As the number of the dead mount, the pain and the anger, and then the thirst for revenge, grow…In the end, there is just one thing, and that is the need to win — which destroys pretty much everything. I find it eternally relevant, this idea of the fragility of morality.” Read more...
Radhika Jha, Novelist
“Gilgamesh is a hero in the ancient mould. He’s half-god, enormously strong, a bit randy, a bit dim, and he goes through adventures which embody the human experience writ large. He starts off as the king of a small kingdom, making a nuisance of himself – enforcing droit du seigneur, sleeping with women on their marriage night, pushing other men around, being a bit of an arse. So the gods make a rival to him in strength, a wild man. They fight, realise neither can win, then become best friends and go off on all sorts of adventures. They kill all sorts of ogres and beasts, until the gods think this is getting a bit much and decide Gilgamesh’s friend has to die. It’s then that Gilgamesh realises the truth of mortality. He sees his friend die, and thinks if this heroic human being, the strongest of the strong, can die, that means I’m going to die too. He faces his own mortality, and it’s terrifying. He leaves his kingdom and roams the wilderness, looking desperately for some solution to the problem of mortality.” Read more...
Stephen Cave, Philosopher
“To question and decide for himself is essential to Milton’s whole sense of what it means to be a free human being…In his astonishing intervention in the Adam and Eve story, Milton considers how it was possible not for ignorant children, but for knowing, thoughtful, complex human beings to do what they did. Specifically, he asks, why was the woman alone when she had her fateful conversation with the serpent, and why did she then do what she did? It’s characteristic of Milton that he works out in the most exquisite and excruciating detail the conversation between the man and the woman when they decided briefly to separate. It wasn’t at all accidental that they were apart; it was a choice that Eve made after her conversation with Adam. And so too it wasn’t mere hunger that led her to eat the fruit. Milton gives a brilliant and painful description that anyone who has been in a relationship for more than five minutes will understand, a description of trying to negotiate your separateness from someone you love and to whom you are committed.” Read more...
The best books on Adam and Eve
Stephen Greenblatt, Literary Scholar
“It’s a poem that comes out of conflict in Florence in various ways. In a most literal sense it comes out of Dante’s exile – he was exiled in 1302 as a result of the conflicts between several political factions and he remained exiled, in various parts of Italy, for the remainder of his life (he died in 1321). The Commedia reflects that acute sense of the loss of one’s homeland and the resentment of that – Florence gets attacked quite viciously by characters in the Inferno. And then there’s the epigraph for the Inferno: ‘A Florentine by birth but not by disposition.'” Read more...
Nick Havely, Literary Scholar
“It’s an epic poem. In fact, quite apart from the topic that we’re talking about today, how to be a better person, Pharsalia is one of the best epic poems in the Western tradition. If somebody is interested in Roman/Latin literature, it’s definitely something to read, also because of the history. It’s a historically fairly accurate poem, not like Virgil’s Aeneid, or Homer’s Odyssey…It refers to the civil war between Pompey and Julius Caesar, which happened about a century and a half before Lucan. The title, Pharsalia, refers to a place called Pharsalus which is where, in 48 BCE, the final battle between the two sides took place and Julius Caesar vanquished Pompey, thereby ending the Roman Republic and setting the stage for the onset of the Roman Empire a few years later.” Read more...
The best books on How to Be Good
Massimo Pigliucci, Philosopher
The Aeneid (Robert Fitzgerald translation)
by Virgil
"Arms and the man I sing, who,
forced by fate,
And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate,
Expelled and exiled, left the Trojan shore"
—Aeneid, opening lines (Robert Fitzgerald translation)
The Aeneid was written by the Roman poet Virgil, in the age of Augustus, as a founding myth for the emerging Roman empire. See below why experts picked it as an important book on a variety of subjects. Author Selina O'Grady, author of And Man Created God, specified the translation by the American poet and translator Robert Fitzgerald (1983), though in this New York Times review, you can see the arguments for also reading the translation by Robert Fagles (2006), the late American academic and poet.
If you want to read the Latin alongside the English, you can turn to the Loeb Classical Library, though it inconveniently stretches over two books and the English is a little dated.
In classical times poems were meant to be listened to and rather excitingly the British actor, Simon Callow, has narrated an audiobook of the Aeneid, based on Robert Fagles's translation.
The Iliad
by Homer
"The rage of Achilles—sing it now, goddess, sing through me
the deadly rage that caused the Achaeans such grief
and hurled down to Hades the souls of so many fighters,
Leaving their naked flesh to be eaten by dogs
and carrion birds, as the will of Zeus was accomplished"
—Iliad, opening lines (Stephen Mitchell translation)
The Iliad, a Greek poem dating from around 700 BCE, is a defining text of western literature. If you want to see what academics say about it and its author(s), Homer, start with our interview with Christopher Pelling, Regius Professor of Greek Emeritus at Oxford University, below.
Which translation of the Iliad should you read? British actor and author Stephen Fry recommends either Robert Fagles's translation (1969), or that of poet and translator Stephen Mitchell, which was published in 2011.
Of course all those millennia ago, the Iliad would have been principally listened to, and modern technology means that's once again easily possible by listening to the poem as an audiobook. Our own Iliad audiobook is the Robert Fagles translation, magnificently narrated by the British actor—and veteran of the British Classics scene—Derek Jacobi. You can also opt for the audiobook of the Stephen Mitchell translation, which is narrated by the English-American actor Alfred Molina.
So find a fireside to settle down next to, imagine a bard who has memorised hundreds of lines of poetry, plug in your headphones, and press play.
