Epic

The Nuttall Encyclopedia

A poem that treats of the events in the life of a nation or a race or the founder of one, agreeably to the passion inspiring it and in such form as to kindle and keep alive the heroism thereof in the generations thereafter; or a poem in celebration of the thoughts, feelings, and feats of a whole nation or race; its proper function is to disimprison the soul of the related facts and give a noble rendering of them; of compositions of this kind the "Iliad" of Homer, the "Æneid" of Virgil, and the "Divine Comedy" of Dante take the lead.