Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Epic by Paul Innes

2015; Scriptoriun Press; Volume: 25; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/art.2015.0046

1934-1539

Anthony Adams,

Literary and Philosophical Studies

Reviewed by: Epic by Paul Innes Anthony Adams paul innes, Epic. The New Critical Idiom. London and New York: Routledge, 2013. Pp. x, 173. isbn: 978–0–415–58739–6. $26.95 Epic narrative conjoins national and poetic history, justifying a people or cause while looking back anxiously upon the poems that have preceded it. These two factors make defining epic and describing its purpose difficult, and the sprawling nature of epic makes successful summary unlikely. It is unsurprising, then, that Paul Innes achieves [End Page 114] perhaps mixed success; the confines of Routledge’s New Critical Idiom series prohibit expansiveness and encourage brevity even when breadth is preferable. Nevertheless, Innes has written a learned volume that will serve students well and will introduce its readers to works we should all know better. Chapter One serves as an introduction to the complex dynamics of epic, discussing its debts to both oral and written traditions, and elaborating motifs common to many (though not all) epics, including warfare and sacrifice, heroic achievement and fame, difficult journeys, celestial intervention, and—arguably its most important feature—connection to a national (or religious) narrative of origins. Innes notes that the periods that have been most conducive to epic have come during or immediately following moments of transition and conquest, as if nurtured by the reflections of the retiring hero. Chapter Two considers parts of the Bible, Sumerian and Akkadian epic (including Gilgamesh), the creations of Homer, Hesiod, and Apollonius, and the Latin verse of Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, Valerius Flaccus, and Statius, concluding with a generous treatment of the Sanskrit Ramayana and Mahabharata. Chapter Three is concerned with medieval literature, which I will expand on below. Chapter Four considers Spenser, Milton, and Sidney alongside Boiardo, Ariosto, and Tasso, with an interlude on Camões’s Lusiads; it ends with a look at ‘early novels’ (15, 127–33) by Rabelais, Cervantes, and Behn; considering the titans involved, Innes manages this material superbly, with an exceptional and succinct discussion of The Faerie Queene. Chapter Five offer an invigorating look at epic in the modern (and postmodern) world, and ranges from the rise of the novel to science fiction and Star Trek, considering Joyce and Brecht alongside authors such as Walcott, Atwood, and Moorcock. From a medieval perspective, Chapter Three will be of most interest and will present several points for debate. Readers might object to Innes’ mixing of epic and romance, and more significance might have been given to the distinction between poetry and prose (or prosimetric) forms, which Innes considers side-by-side. The treatment of epic, romance, and allegory in this chapter raises doubts concerning terminology, if works as diverse as Lanval and Purgatorio can be examined on the same table. I am not sure I accept Innes’ labeling of Njál’s Saga as an epic in the same vein as Beowulf, let alone the Aeneid; however, even granting certain common heroic elements or motifs in the texts, in order to maintain the valuable link between epic and national identity formation, consideration of one of the kings’ sagas, perhaps Sturlunga saga, or arguably even Egil’s Saga, would have been preferable; The Saga of the Völsungs, a work of romantic fantasy, is an odd choice for epic consideration. However, Innes devotes welcome space to the Persian epic Shah-Namah, a late tenth-/ early eleventh-century work which elaborates Persian history from the beginning of the world to the fall of the Sasanian empire and the Islamic conquest. Further, Innes does not clarify one important aspect of the form, epic space-time, which moves chronologically forwards and backwards, while ranging widely across new geographies. Epics tell of new beginnings and new endings, often within the same heroic speech or thrust. Old Beowulf reflects upon his glorious youth while preparing for his last battle with the dragon; Aeneas’s last sword blow initiates in ovo the Roman imperium while terminating both Turnus and his own Trojan past. [End Page 115] There are also some typographical problems within the text. Diacritics, particularly regarding Icelandic names, are treated haphazardly: so Halldór Laxness, Cú Chulaind, and Llýr, but not Vésteinn Ólason, Jón Helgason, or Nj...