EPIC POETRY (Gr. epos, a word, a discourse, or narrative). The two chief kinds of poetry are E. P. and lyric poetry. E. P. has outward objects for its subject, of which it gives an imaginative narrative. The events themselves may he partly real and partly fictitious, or they may be altogether fictitious. Lyric poetry, on the other hand, sets forth the inward occurrences of the writer or speaker's own mind—his feelings and reflections. No composition, perhaps, answers, in all its parts, to the one of these descriptions, or to the other; but a piece or poem is classed as epic or lyric according to the element that predominates. Under each of these grand divisions, or genera, there are subdivisions, or species. The longer poems of the epic genus embrace an extensive series of events, and the actions of numerous personages. The term heroic epic, or heroic poem, is properly applied to such works as the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, Virgil's ./Eneid, Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, Ariosto's Orlando Farioso, and others, which describe the achievements of the gods and heross of antiquity, or of, the little less mythic knights of medcwval chivalry: agaia;. like Milton'S Parada Lost and Dante's
Divina Commedia, are sacred epics. Byron's Childe Harold, with the length and narra tive structure of an epic, abounds in reflection, sentiment, and satire, and thus is, in substance, as much lyric as epic. Productions like those now named, formed the class of grand epics, or epic poems, by way of eminence. But there are several species of minor poems which, from their nature, must also be ranked as epics. One of these is the Idyl, a term applied to what is called pastoral poetry, or to descriptions in general of natural scenery, and of the actions and manners of men in calm, ordinary life. Burns' Cotter's Saturday Night, Goldsmith's Deserted Village, and most of Crabbe's poems, are idyls; so are poetical epistles. The ballad (q.v.) is another species of minor epic.
Attempts at epic poetry are now rare, the spirit of the age being against that form of composition. Instead of epic poems, we have novels, which, so far as subject is con cerned, may be considered as the epics of modern civil and domestic life.