greatest american epic: books, movies, comics, tv?

Question

What is the Homer (Ilyad) of the American culture.

(Note: British epics don't count.)

Impressive answers keep em coming

Rare case where all the answers are good.

Should have split question. anyway hope somebody will vote.

Rare case where all the answers are good.

Should have split question. anyway hope somebody will vote.

Answer 1

I think Americans have redefined the need for such an epic.

True, the US has no Homer's Iliad or Tolstoy's War and Peace. These are (1) comprehensive literary works, (2) embodying national character and national history, (3) in a dramatic story of individuals in conflict within themselves, with their intimates (family, friends, lovers), as well as the enemy out-there.

Certainly an American poet or novelist would have had ample material in the American Revolution or the Civil War, and thousands upon thousands of works have been written about both. But none have captured the American imagination in a "epic" way.

Why? I think it's because, from the very beginning, American values have focused on the common person (not national heroes), on individual freedom (not suffering and sacrifice for a national identity), and on personal, everyday concerns (not noble symbolic gestures).

So I would nominate these five works as ones that have captured our "national" imagination and embody our "national" interests:

(1) Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huck Finn (growing up independent; "All right, then, I'll go to hell"; don't try to "sivilise" us, we "been there before")

(2) Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (listen to our "barbaric yawp"; "One's-self I sing—a simple, separate Person")

(3) Henry David Thoreau, Walden (we walk to the beat of a different drum; "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!")

(4) T. S. Eliot, The Four Quartets (but we do seek "the still point of the turning world"; "The only wisdom we can hope to acquire / Is the wisdom of humility")

(5) Orson Welles, Citizen Kane (put all the pieces of the jigsaw together, and what we have is the Great American, Cain in Xanadu, as it were, who wishes he were still Huck Finn; the last missing piece is "Rosebud," a boy with his sled in the innocent snow)

None of these is a US Iliad or War and Peace. They all represent forms which the US actually prefers to the "epic" and, in a sense, invented to replace the epic: from the boys' story of Mark Twain and the I-centered free verse of Walt Whitman to the Great American movie of Orson Welles.

Answer 2

Movies 1. Dazed and Confused 2. Star Wars 3. Beetlejuice 4. Indiana Jones 5. Jurassic Park Albums (I'm not a huge music listener, but I'd have to say anything from the late 70s Books 1. Pet Sematary 2. Jurassic park 3. It 4. The BFG 5. Harry Potter Tv shows 1. Veronica Mars 2. X files 3. Rizzoli and isles 4. Greys Anatomy 5. Roseanne

Answer 3

hasn't been written yet. All of the really good books come from England, unless you have a sort of "serial writer" like Vonnegut or Robbins or something.
But if i had to take a guess, I'd say The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Most everyone over 18 in America has read it, and there's no doubt it's a great piece of literature.

Answer 4

Book: To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Movies: Gone with the Wind; Casablanca; West Side Story

Answer 5

wow this is a very good question.
however, an epic is typically poetry so really i would have to say walt whitman's "leaves of grass" contains something that coudl fit into that category (I have not read everything in it though, so you may want to explore this more). my ideas are debatable and need to be formed more

But beyond the scope of poetry, i would have to say either Absalom! Absalom! by william faulkner, or (my personal fav) Herman Melville's MOBY ****.

Answer 6

Gone with the Wind (both the book and movie)

Answer 7

How the West was Won or Centennial (both are books and movies).