Epic Poetry: Did you mean...?

Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (39-65 CE), grandson of Seneca the Elder and nephew of Seneca the Younger, was a Roman statesman and Latin poet. Born in Corduba, he came to Rome as an infant and later held the positions of quaestor and augur. Lucan's...

Homer (c. 750 BCE) is perhaps the greatest of all epic poets and his legendary status was well established by the time of Classical Athens. He composed (not wrote, since the poems were created and transmitted orally, they were not written...

Persian literature derives from a long oral tradition of poetic storytelling. The first recorded example of this tradition is the Behistun Inscription of Darius I (the Great, r. 522-486 BCE), carved on a cliff-face c. 522 BCE during the period...

Phillis Wheatley (l. c. 1753-1784) was the first African American woman to publish a book of poetry and become recognized as a poet, overcoming the prevailing understanding of the time that a Black person was incapable of writing, much less...

Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (also given as Jalal ad-did Muhammad Balkhi, best known as Rumi, l. 1207-1273 CE) was a Persian Islamic theologian and scholar but became famous as a mystical poet whose work focuses on the opportunity for a meaningful...

The Aeneid, written by the Roman poet Virgil (70-19 BCE), is a twelve-book-long epic poem that describes the early mythology of the founding of Rome. The eponymous hero Aeneas, a Trojan prince and son of Venus, faces trials and tribulations...

He who saw everything in the broad-boned earth, and knew what was to be known, Who had experienced what there was, and had become familiar with all things. The Epic of Gilgamesh. The tornado has started After the US-led invasion of...

Publius Ovidius Naso, more commonly known to history as Ovid (43 BCE - 17 CE), was one of the most prolific writers of the early Roman Empire. His works of poetry, mostly written in the form of elegiac couplets, influenced many of the great...

Gaius Valerius Catullus (84-54 BCE) was a Roman poet whose poems are considered to be some of the finest examples of lyric poetry from ancient Rome, despite his youth and early death. Catullus wrote in the neoteric style during the high point...

Christine de Pizan (also given as Christine de Pisan, l. 1364 - c. 1430) was the first female professional writer of the Middle Ages and the first woman of letters in France. Her best-known works advocated for greater equality and respect...