Teaching World Epics

Addresses ancient and more recent epic works from Africa, Europe, Mesoamerica, and East, Central, and South Asia that are available in English translations. The essays in this volume focus on epics in sociopolitical and cultural contexts, on the adaptation and reception of epic works, and on themes that are especially relevant today.
Essays for teaching ancient and recent epic narratives from around the world.

Cultures across the globe have embraced epics: stories of memorable deeds by heroic characters whose actions have significant consequences for their lives and their communities. Incorporating narrative elements also found in sacred history, chronicle, saga, legend, romance, myth, folklore, and the novel, epics throughout history have both animated the imagination and encouraged reflection on what it means to be human. Teaching World Epics addresses ancient and more recent epic works from Africa, Europe, Mesoamerica, and East, Central, and South Asia that are available in English translations.

Useful to instructors of literature, peace and conflict studies, transnational studies, women's studies, and religious studies, the essays in this volume focus on epics in sociopolitical and cultural contexts, on the adaptation and reception of epic works, and on themes that are especially relevant today, such as gender dynamics and politics, national identity, colonialism and imperialism, violence, and war.

This volume includes discussion of Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Giulia Bigolina's Urania, The Book of Dede Korkut, Luis Vaz de Camões's Os Lusiadas, David of Sassoun, The Epic of Askia Mohammed, The Epic of Gilgamesh, the epic of Sun-Jata, Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga's La Araucana, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Kalevala, Kebra Nagast, Kudrun, The Legend of Poṉṉivaḷa Nadu, the Mahabharata, Manas, John Milton's Paradise Lost, Mwindo, the Nibelungenlied, Poema de mio Cid, Popol Wuj, the Ramayana, the Shahnameh, Sirat Bani Hilal, Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Statius's Thebaid, The Tale of the Heike, Three Kingdoms, Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá's Historia de la Nueva México, and Virgil's Aeneid.

Contributor: Angelica Duran (Edited by), Jo Ann Cavallo (Edited by), Brenda E. F. Beck (Contributions by), David T. Bialock (Contributions by), Albrecht Classen (Contributions by), Barlow Der Mugrdechian (Contributions by), Thomas DuBois (Contributions by), Angelica Duran (Contributions by), Ana Grinberg (Contributions by), Thomas A. Hale (Contributions by), Zachary Hamby (Contributions by), Nathan C. Henne (Contributions by), John William Johnson (Contributions by), Carolina López-Ruiz (Contributions by), Moss Roberts (Contributions by), Charles S. Ross (Contributions by), Luisanna Sardu (Contributions by), Arshia Sattar (Contributions by), Stefan Seeber (Contributions by), Roberta Strippoli (Contributions by), Frederick Turner (Contributions by), Victoria Turner (Contributions by), Katherine Oswald (Contributions by), Elizabeth Oyler (Contributions by), Atefeh Akbari Shahmirzadi (Contributions by), Jason Lotz (Contributions by), Roberta Micallef (Contributions by), Joseph M. Ortiz (Contributions by), Emrah Pelvanoğlu (Contributions by), Christine G. Perkell (Contributions by), Dwight F. Reynolds (Contributions by), Paula Richman (Contributions by)

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