Okay, I know this question is not very interesting, but how does one write an epic poem?

Question

I mean epic like what poets of the 17th and 18th centuries wrote. Maybe that's too ambitious. Anyway, does anyone have any tips or anything? Maybe some websites? Maybe some ideas? Come on, please?

Answer 1

I have to assume you must be in an advanced poetry class of some sort. However, I shouldn't really have to tell you this then, because I would assume you should already know and have done so, but you should read some epic poems. Homer's Iliad or Odyssey come to mind. There is a modernized feminine updating of Odyssey recently written by C. J. Sage. There's the Ancient Mariner. Beowulf. The Divine Comedy. Epic of Gilgamesh. If you are going in an advanced poetry class you should at least be aware of the classics, I would hope. If they don't require you to know these, I would seriously recommend you add these to your summer reading, because they are going to give you a better understanding of Poetry than most of your classmates.

The 17th and 18th centuries? You mean Milton and Voltaire? Good places to start.

An epic poem is very much a novel in verse. You should have a story arc, characters, a beginning, middle and end. Something to say. It should take you at least a year to write something like this.


PS
The guy who answers after me is wrong: Szymborska is Polish not Swedish.

Answer 2

To write an epic poem, you need to start with an epic story. It should take place over a long period of time, and follow a character through a series of trials and tribulations.

In English, the most common forms for epic poems are blank verse and heroic couplets.

Blank verse is unrhymed poetry in iambic pentameter (ten syllables, stressing syllables 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10).

Here is Tennyson's "The Princess," for example:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/791

Blank verse is a very elegant and musical form. It's surprisingly easy to write, since in English, a ten syllable line is usually just the right amount needed to express a complete thought.

Heroic couplets are iambic pentameter, but each pair of lines rhymes. It can get to be a strain to tell the story using the right words but still maintain the rhyme. When successful, it's amazing to read.

To get started, you might want to take an existing story and write it as an epic poem. Tennyson did this with Le Morte D'Arthur. You could tell the story of The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Thelma and Louise, etc. You could even retell the Odyssey in modern English.

While the comments from others are correct - it's a lot of work, takes a long time, don't fret about that. Anything worth doing takes effort. There's no rush. If you sit down and have fun with it, the poem will eventually start to write itself, and all you have to do is wiggle the pen around. ;-)

Answer 3

How does one write an epic poem? Let me count the ways:

With difficulty.

With superhuman stamina.

With ... oh, I forgot... Do you mean a great epic poem, or something a mere mortal would write?

An epic is really an undertaking for an accomplished writer. Let's assume you are not that and you are doing this as an assignment. Then I would think your teacher is simply looking for the earmarks of the genre of "epic."

What are those earmarks, or characteristics?
1. Its got to be long.
2. It tells a story.
3. The main character is a hero.
4. The hero often has superpowers.
5. A struggle between good and evil is what its usually about.

I suggest you see "Spiderman 3" or some such movie and set the plot to verse.

Answer 4

If I understand correctly an epic poem is a novel that either rhymes or is in a type of prose..
Here's a start: A long the dark dreary graveyard
Driving in a luminous vehicle stops hard
Alarmed when he hits the brake
He got the shock of his life
He saw is dearest dearest wife
Get murdered in front of his very eyes.
Hearing her shrieking cries
Now what is this drivers fate
Can he help his wife or is it to late?
He read of facts that many dead
Cameback to live it's said
He's thinking ahem ahem
Just maybe his wife can be one of them!
In was a man never been there before
A strange cape he wore

You can continue that if you wish! Need more help? Read Stephen King!

Answer 5

I'm a published, self-taught author. I learned by a simple method that someone else showed me.

Pick a subject, write down all of your thoughts on that subject, pages and pages, if that's what you know and feel.

Then...put it in a drawer for six months.

When you take it out of drawer, read it all again. Then change or remove the parts you don't like.

I don't wait six months anymore, but I do sit on things for a couple of weeks before editing them.

I wrote an 18th century style rhyme that some people liked.

It starts, "Play with life, my little boy child. The road goes on for miles and miles..."

Answer 6

Look at The Rhyme of the Ancient Marnier by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I assume you know the restrictions of epic verse. Tales of the Old West is a good topic or the adventures of a fighter pilot. Almost any adventure that deals with nature and the struggles of man will do.

Answer 7

You have to write from your experience or your observations. That comes from a unique place of perception.

The best way to accomplish this is to read the work of great poets. Flow into the rhythm of how they write. Be sure you understand it.

The more you read, the better writer you will become. This is a fact, so you of course never need to plagiarize.

Answer 8

I really think that you should read Wisława Szymborska's Nobel Lecture (if you don't know who she is, she is a famous Swedish poet who won the Nobel Prize In Literature in 1996). She has a really insightful way of looking at poets and poetry. Here is the link:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1996/szymborska-lecture.html

I personally feel that to write an "epic" poem, it must be timeless and it must challenge some aspect of society or prior way of thinking. Good luck!

Answer 9

My immediate thoughts when seeing this question went to The Rhyme of the Ancient mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and to Milton's Canterbury Tales, but scrolling down I saw others had already mentioned the former......so...... I suggest you prepare a story and with that story in mind set it to verse. Something like Eskimo Nell perhaps.

Answer 10

Wow! These are all wonderful answers. I would also recommend writing some of your poem, if not all of it, in iams ('-'-'-'-'-etc...). I just read "The Faerie Queen" by Edward Spenser, and it is a GREAT example of writing. I'm reading the "Iliad" now, and it's unbelievable. Read the classics, and parallel they your best.
Also, put a lot of imagery in it. Check out old English words, some of which are out of use. They fit really well into poems.