This assignment comes out of my course, "Epic Tradition," which investigates uses, misuses, and reenvisionings of that most esteemed literary genre: epic. Scholars have characterized epic as the genre of nation building and imperialism: the genre defines the essential characteristics of a race of people and attempts to legitimize one race of people conquering another. We begin with two classical epics—The Odyssey and The Aeneid—and analyze how their formal and thematic elements contribute to the definition of what it means to be Greek and Roman, respectively. We explore the following topics: anxieties caused by love and erotic desire, the cost of military conquest and territorial expansion, the relationship between individual and collective identities, and other topics that emerge from class discussion. We then turn to William Shakespeare (Henry V and Antony and Cleopatra) and Edmund Spenser (The Faerie Queene, Book 1 and canto 12 of Book 2). We examine how and to what purposes these two authors replicate, revise, and/or reject the conventions, tropes, and ideological positions of the epics that influenced them, including those by Italian Renaissance authors. Our task when reading Shakespeare and Spenser is to figure out how they characterize the English as a race. We end the class by collaboratively writing an epic, considering as we do so both the possibilities and limitations of the epic genre for defining who we are—or want to be—in our present moment. 

Epic Assignment

In this course, students will write an epic poem. This assignment provides us with another opportunity to reflect on the goals and operations of the epic genre, but this time from the perspective of the author.  

Does the epic provide us with what we need to define who “we” are?   

This assignment first requires a small group of volunteers (3-4) to produce the epic’s argument, outline the plot, and divide the plot by the number of students in the class. Each student will then write approximately 20 lines of verse in a form of their choice (e.g., ottavarima, Spenserian stanza, blank verse) that cover their portion of the plot. I will put all of the lines/stanzas together, and on the last day of class we will read and discuss our epic. 

For the group constructing the argument and plot

1. If you are interested in being a part of this group, please email me no later than [Date].  If there are more volunteers than people needed, members of the group will be chosen by lottery.  
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2. It will not be possible for the class epic to include as many episodes as we have seen in the ancient and Renaissance epics. So, this is really a mini epic, or perhaps a canto of a longer epic.  
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3. Be thoughtful about what can be done in the total number of lines (number of classmates x ~20). 
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4. Remember our class discussions of imitatio.   
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5. Please send me the argument and plot divisions no later than [Date].   

For those writing lines/stanzas 

1. I will use a randomizer to assign the portions of the plot. You will find your portion of the plot posted to Canvas no later than [Date].  
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2. Choose a verse form. 
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3. Remember our class discussions of imitatio, and this includes thinking about rhetorical devices and figures of speech. Your lines/stanzas should include a variety of literary and rhetorical devices.  
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4. Please send your lines/stanzas to me no later than [Date].