Epic Poetry: Did you mean...?

The Enuma Elish (also known as The Seven Tablets of Creation) is the Babylonian creation myth whose title is derived from the opening lines of the piece, "When on High". The myth tells the story...

The Roman Empire and its predecessor the Roman Republic produced an abundance of celebrated literature; poetry, comedies, dramas, histories, and philosophical tracts; the Romans avoided tragedies. Much of it survives to this day...

Bai Juyi (l. 772-846) was one of the greatest poets of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) along with Li Po (l. 701-762) and Du Fu (l. 712-770). He was a government official who got in trouble with authorities a number of times for not following...

Courtly Love (Amour Courtois) refers to an innovative literary genre of poetry of the High Middle Ages (1000-1300 CE) which elevated the position of women in society and established the motifs of the romance genre recognizable in...

The gods of the Mesopotamian region were not uniform in name, power, provenance or status in the hierarchy. Mesopotamian culture varied from region to region and, because of this...

Sometimes it is the smallest discoveries that have the largest impact. When Alexandra Kleinerman and Alhena Gadotti found a new fragment of the Epic of Gilgamesh in 2015 CE, it did not seem to be...

In this gallery, we cross the ancient Mediterranean world four times to follow the adventures of four great heroes from Greek and Roman mythology. Here are visual representations of timeless tales of heroism, divine...

The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest surviving work of epic literature, originating in Mesopotamia with its earliest Sumerian poems composed around c. 2100 BCE, during the period of early city-states in southern...

Anthology of Persian Poetry with the poems of Hafez Shiraz Folios 33r-32v Iran, 17th century CE

Gregory of Tours is forced to listen to the bad poetry of King Chilperic I (r. 561-584) of Neustria. Illustratuon by Jean-Paul Laurensfor the work of Augustin Thierry, Récits des temps mérovingiens...