Do you know what an epic is?

2025 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2025-01-24 17:46

In the old days, people accumulated their wisdom over the centuries and passed it on to the next generations. Fairy tales, epics, sayings, fables are a storehouse of worldly wisdom of a hardworking people. Through folklore, people conveyed their aspirations for a good future, talked about the past, and warned about mistakes. Often fantastic plots helped to instill in children love for the motherland, the right moral values.

What is an epic? This is a special form of oral folk art in the epic genre. It is characteristic of the Russian tradition and tells about some remarkable episode from history. The name comes from the word "truth", that is, what was actually in the old days. Russian epics are distinguished by their peculiar techniques, poetics, melodiousness of speech, as well as the way they are performed. Scientists believe that in ancient times, storytellers accompanied the epic by playing the harp, and later they began to perform it in recitative. They used only a few melodies, but changed the timbre of the voice, intonation. The epic was presented in an emphatically solemn style: it was most suitable for narrating the heroic events of the past, quite often tragic ones.

So, what is epic,already clear. Now let's talk about the techniques used in this genre. The first thing you pay attention to when you read or listen to this work is repetition. Ancient authors repeated words (for example, a long time ago, far, far away), and also widely used several synonyms in one place (tribute-duties, fight-rattling). Sometimes the end of one line became the beginning of another, whole episodes could be repeated three times. Techniques such as alliteration and assonance are also widely used. All this made it possible to more emotionally and accurately convey the details of the event, to enhance the effect of the words.

What is an epic in the work of the population of Kievan Rus? This is an ode to the defenders, the glorification of good fellows, their heroism and selflessness. Hyperbole is often used to describe the character or appearance of characters. The attitude of the narrator towards them can be understood by epithets that are often stable: hot blood, violent head, burning tears. Favorite characters are often called diminutive and affectionate names (Alyoshenka, Dobrynushka).

What is an epic? As a rule, this is a work that consists of three parts: the sing-along (an introduction that is not connected with the further part of the content), the beginning (the main part where the actions unfold) and the ending. The narrator does not turn to the past and does not look into the future, his gaze is completely riveted to the hero and his exploits. He seems to live the life of his character, following along with him, moving from one event to another.

According to the plot, epic stories can be varied. Todayabout a hundred plots are known, except for different versions of the same work. The main ones are: the struggle for a wife or her search, the struggle with fabulous monsters or foreign invaders. A special category are epics-parodies or satirical epics (Competition with Churila, Duke Stepanovich).

Look into the well of folk wisdom, which is a thousand, maybe more years old!