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In deciding to write an epic, Milton consciously places himself in the tradition of prior epic writers, such as the ancients Homer and Virgil, and the Medieval and Renaissance poets Dante, Tasso, Ariosto, and Spenser. By doing this, he raises specific sets of expectations both for himself and for readers. Formally, Paradise Lost contains many classical and Renaissance epic conceits: it begins in medias res; it concerns heavenly and earthly beings and the interactions between them; it uses conventions such as epic similes, catalogues of people and places, and invocations to a muse; and it contains themes common to epics, such as war, nationalism, empire, and stories of origin.
Milton is patterning this epic poem after the classical epics of Homer and Virgil. He was quite aware of the epic conventions (the elements expected as part of an epic). He also knows that his audience will know what those epic conventions will be. Here is a list of major epic conventions:
1. The work begins in medias res (in the middle of things) — PL begins after the War in Heaven, which will be described in later books.
2. The poem will open with an invocation of the muse. Generally, this would be the muse of epic poetry (Calliope); here, theres a different sort of “muse” that is invoked.
The Invocation of the Muse
….Milton opens Paradise Lost by asking a muse to inspire his writing. In ancient Greece and Rome, poets had always requested “the muse” to fire them with creative genius when they began long narrative poems, called epics, about godlike heroes and villains. In Greek mythology, there were nine muses, all sisters, who were believed to inspire poets, historians, flutists, dancers, singers, astronomers, philosophers, and other thinkers and artists. If one wanted to write a great poem, play a musical instrument with bravado, or develop a grand scientific or philosophical theory, he would ask for help from a muse.
…….When a writer asked for help, he was said to be “invoking the muse.” The muse of epic poetry was named Calliope [kuh LY uh pe]. However, in Book 7, Milton identifies Urania-the muse of astronomy-as the goddess to whom he addresses his plea for inspiration.
In Miltons time, writers no longer believed in muses, of course. Nevertheless, since they symbolized inspiration, writers continued to invoke them. So it was that when Milton began Paradise Lost, he addressed the muse in the telling of his tale, writing, “I thence invoke thy aid to my adventurous Song.”
3. The work will include long “epic similes”–long, involved, complex comparisons (see the comparison of Satan to large legendary creatures such as Leviathan, Bk. I, lines 197-209)
4. You should expect frequent long monologues (I hardly need to point out examples of this). Indeed, the language in general will be elevated in tone.
5. At some point in an epic there will be a journey to the underworld (which is where PL begins)
In Paradise Lost, Satan journeys across the great abyss to the new world that God has created to wreak havoc on man.
6. The gods will intervene in human affairs (plenty of examples of supernatural intervention in PL).
7. There will be a catalog (in this case, the catalog of fallen angels in Bk I)
8. There should be a scene describing the arming of the hero.
9. Indeed, there should be a clear hero, and the theme of the epic is generally focused on the heros adventures. This hero is normally a national hero (as were the heroes of the great classical epics)
According to Websters Dictionary, an epic is “a narrative poem of some length telling of heroic deeds or events.” While this is an accurate definition, there are also several other characteristics that tie them together as a literary format. Virtually all epics demonstrate an invocation of the gods, have a statement of the theme and begin in “medias res.” This can be demonstrated in Homers Iliad, Miltons Paradise Lost, and Dantes Inferno from The Divine Comedy.
Leaving the realm of lyric poetry, we return now to narrative poetry to examine briefly the longest, the most impressive, and the most complex of narrative forms, the epic. Though variously defined, the major elements of the epic are enough. A useful definition is that given by W. F. Thrall and A. Hibbard in A Handbook to Literature (New York, Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1936): “a long narrative poem presenting characters of high position in a series of adventures which form an organic whole through their relation to a central figure of heroic proportions and through their development of episodes important to the development of a nation or race.” One of the distinguishing marks of the epic, then, is bigness-of character, of deed, of total conception. For our purposes, it is not necessary to distinguish here between the so-called folk epic-the product of the oral transmission of shorter stories and lays welded into a unified whole in the course of timeand the literary epic, the product of a single poet writing in accordance with certain literary conventions. The two forms at the point of their highest development are similar enough to be considered as one.
The earliest epics to influence English epic poets are those ascribed to Homer (sixth or fifth century B.c.), The Iliad and The Odyssey. The Iliad deals with the story of the Trojan War and The Odyssey with the journeys of Ulysses after the Trojan War. Many of what have come to be conventional characteristics of the epic stem from these poems. Of major importance in firmly establishing these characteristics for English poets is Vergil, the Latin poet who lived just before the Christian era. His epic is The Aeneid, the story of Aeneas, who fled from fallen Troy and after journeys and adventures settled in Italy where his immediate descendants founded Rome. Though relatively few poets in English have attempted to write epics, the few epics or fragments of epics that have been produced make important a knowledge of the characteristics of the form. To bear out this statement, we need mention only such major works in our literature as Spensers The Faerie Queene and Miltons Paradise Lost.
What, then, are the conventional characteristics of the epic? First, the story itself deals with an event of significance for a nation, or, indeed, for all mankind. Thus, in The Aeneid,