Uploaded June 2024 | Updated September 2026, 12 hours ago

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Epic poetry tells the story of heroes, gods, and battles. Sometimes their stories inspire the building of a nation, but that same inspirational power can be harnessed for political or ideological ends. The former I call "organic" epics, while the latter category are "constructed" epic. This lecture explores three "organic" epic poems that built their respective nations: Homer's Iliad for Classical Greece, Firdawsi's Shahnameh for Persia, and the Kalevala for Finland.

In contrast, we will explore "constructed" epics starting with Virgil's Aeneid to legitimize the Caesars' rule over Rome and Rome's rule over the world, as well as English epics written with similar ideological ends: Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Tennyson's Idylls of the King.

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