EPIC, a poem of an elevated eharae ter, describing generally the exploits of heroes. This species of poetry claims a very ancient origin, and is universally allowed to be the most dignified an I ma jestic to which the powers of the poet eon be directed. There are various regarding the character of an epic poem ; and while sonic critics claim this title ex clusively fur the Iliad and Odyssey of Ho mer, the .1.,:tteirl of Virgil, and the Para dise Lost of Milton, others—and particu larly the Germans—embrace in the cata logue of epic writers Scott, Byron, Pope, Moore, and Campbell. Epic poetry has often been compared to the drama; and the essential difference between them is, that description is the province of the former—action of the latter. The emo tions which epic poetry excite are not so frequent and violent as those produced by dramatic composition ; but they are more prolonged, and more developed by actual occurrences; for an epic poem em braces a wider compass of time and action than is admissible in the drama. History • has generally supplied the best epic wri ters with themes; but a close attention to historical truth in the development of the story is by no means requisite. Fiction, invention, imagination, may be indulged in to an almost unlimited extent ; pro vided always the poet be careful to pre serve what the critics call unity, i. e. pro vided his work embrace an entire action, or have a beginning, a middle, and an end. This is the distinguishing charac teristic of the great epic poenis. If the epic is the highest, it is also" the most difficult style of poetical composition, and that in which mediocrity is least endura ble; and hence few of the writers of epics on the classical model have obtained a high reputation as national poets in any language. Virgil is the earliest imitator
of Homer whose epic has been preserved, and the most successful. The other Greek and Latin epic poets contain pas sages of great beauty; but their poems, as wholes, are of an inferior order. In the English language there are only two epics which can be said to form part of the national literature, and those only in part framed on the classical model: the Paradise Lost and Regained of Milton. French epics, including, even the Henri ade of Voltaire, so famous in its time, have no place among the chefs-d'oeuvre of the national literature. Of the great Italian poems, rally one (the Jerusalem Delirered of Tasoo) fulfils the conditions of an epic. The poem of 'Dante, however sublime in style, has no unity of event or action : those of Ariosto, and the other Rornanzieri. form a class distinguished from the epic by the mixture of the seri ous and ludicrous. The old German and national poems,—the Romance of tee lid, and the Ni,belangen-Lied, especially the latter, which is closely confined to the conduct or one great ac tion,—adthough the work of writers un skilled in classical literature, deserve the title of epic as truly as those of Homer.