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52-822: Lohengrin first appears as "Loherangrin", the son of Parzival and Condwiramurs in Wolfram von Eschenbach 's Parzival . Wolfram's story is a variation of the Knight of the Swan tale, previously attached to the Crusade cycle of medieval literature. Loherangrin and his twin brother Kardeiz join their parents in Munsalväsche when Parzival becomes the Grail King ; Kardeiz later inherits their father's secular lands, and Loherangrin remains in Munsalväsche as

104-465: A Grail Knight. Members of this order are sent out in secret to provide lords to kingdoms that have lost their protectors and Loherangrin is eventually called to this duty in Brabant , where the duke has died without a male heir. His daughter Elsa fears the kingdom will be lost, but Loherangrin arrives in a boat pulled by a swan and offers to defend her, though he warns her she must never ask his name. He weds

156-463: A continuation written in the 1240s by Ulrich von Türheim under the title Rennewart . The unfinished Titurel was taken up and expanded around 1272 by a poet named Albrecht, who is generally presumed to be Albrecht von Scharfenberg and who adopts the narrative persona of Wolfram. This work is referred to as the Jüngere Titurel ( Younger Titurel ). The modern rediscovery of Wolfram begins with

208-455: A mysterious dog, whose leash contains a story written in rubies. Sigune is eager to read the story, but the dog runs off. Schionatulander sets off to find him, but, as we already know from Parzival , he dies in the attempt. Willehalm , an unfinished poem based on the Old French chanson de geste , Aliscans , was a significant work, and has been preserved in 78 manuscripts. It is set against

260-417: A number of possible patrons (most reliably Hermann I of Thuringia ), which suggests that he served at a number of courts during his life. He was presumably not a wealthy man, as he made frequent allusions to his own poverty. In his Parzival , Wolfram states that he is illiterate; while the claim is treated with scepticism by some scholars, the truth of the assertion, difficult for some moderns to believe,

312-612: Is a rhyming verse stanza form that consists of an interlocking three-line rhyme scheme. An example is found in the first lines of the Divine Comedy by Dante , who originated the form: Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita (A) mi ritrovai per una selva oscura (B) ché la diritta via era smarrita. (A) Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura (B) esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte (C) che nel pensier rinnova la paura! (B) In ottava rima , each stanza consists of three alternate rhymes and one double rhyme, following

364-743: Is a couplet), as well as long prose passages, so that at ~1.8 million words it is roughly twice the length of Shahnameh , four times the length of the Rāmāyaṇa , and roughly ten times the length of the Iliad and the Odyssey combined. Famous examples of epic poetry include the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh , the ancient Indian Mahabharata and Rāmāyaṇa in Sanskrit and Silappatikaram and Manimekalai in Tamil,

416-635: Is as follows: Old English, German and Norse poems were written in alliterative verse , usually without rhyme . The alliterative form can be seen in the Old English " Finnsburg Fragment " (alliterated sounds are in bold): Ac on w acnigeað nū, w īgend mīne e alra ǣ rest e orðbūendra, But awake now, my warriors, of all first the men While the above classical and Germanic forms would be considered stichic , Italian, Spanish and Portuguese long poems favored stanzaic forms, usually written in terza rima or especially ottava rima . Terza rima

468-584: Is impossible to ascertain. But it has been credited by many commentators. It is noted in Thomas Mann 's The Magic Mountain that "the greatest poet of the Middle Ages , Wolfram von Eschenbach, could neither read nor write", and the Catholic Encyclopedia observes: "Wolfram in his Parzival tells us explicitly that he could neither read nor write. His poems were written down from dictation. His knowledge

520-466: Is known of Wolfram's life. There are no historical documents which mention him, and his works are the sole source of evidence. In Parzival , he talks of wir Beier ("we Bavarians "); the dialect of his works is East Franconian . On the basis of this and a number of geographical references, the present-day Wolframs-Eschenbach , until 1917 Obereschenbach, near Ansbach in present-day Bavaria , has been officially designated as his birthplace. However,

572-400: Is not a complete biography of Roland, but picks up from the plot of Orlando Innamorato , which in turn presupposes a knowledge of the romance and oral traditions . Epic catalogues and genealogies are given, called enumeratio . These long lists of objects, places, and people place the finite action of the epic within a broader, universal context, such as the catalog of ships . Often,

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624-711: Is not of noble blood – that extends the material into a full romance . In expanding the material, the author drew on several other medieval German literary works, including the Sächsische Weltchronik , the Jüngerer Titurel , and the Wartburgkrieg . In the 15th century, the story was taken up again for the anonymous Lorengel . This version does not include the taboo against asking the protagonist about his mysterious origin and Lorengel and his princess can live happily ever after. In 1848, Richard Wagner , drawing on

676-408: Is perhaps Catullus 64 . Epyllion is to be understood as distinct from mock epic , another light form. Romantic epic is a term used to designate works such as Morgante , Orlando Innamorato , Orlando Furioso and Gerusalemme Liberata , which freely lift characters, themes, plots and narrative devices from the world of prose chivalric romance . Long poetic narratives that do not fit

728-636: Is the Epic of Gilgamesh ( c.  2500–1300 BCE ), which was recorded in ancient Sumer during the Neo-Sumerian Empire . The poem details the exploits of Gilgamesh , the king of Uruk . Although recognized as a historical figure, Gilgamesh, as represented in the epic, is a largely legendary or mythical figure. The longest written epic from antiquity is the ancient Indian Mahabharata ( c.  3rd century BC –3rd century AD), which consists of 100,000 ślokas or over 200,000 verse lines (each shloka

780-539: Is the most popular. In Serbian poetry, the decasyllable is the only form employed. Balto-Finnic (e.g. Estonian, Finnish, Karelian) folk poetry uses a form of trochaic tetrameter that has been called the Kalevala meter. The Finnish and Estonian national epics, Kalevala and Kalevipoeg , are both written in this meter. The meter is thought to have originated during the Proto-Finnic period. In Indic epics such as

832-593: The Iliad ) or both. Epics also tend to highlight cultural norms and to define or call into question cultural values, particularly as they pertain to heroism . In the proem or preface, the poet may begin by invoking a Muse or similar divinity. The poet prays to the Muses to provide them with divine inspiration to tell the story of a great hero. Example opening lines with invocations: An alternative or complementary form of proem, found in Virgil and his imitators, opens with

884-626: The epyllion (plural: epyllia), a brief narrative poem with a romantic or mythological theme . The term, which means "little epic ", came into use in the nineteenth century. It refers primarily to the erudite, shorter hexameter poems of the Hellenistic period and the similar works composed at Rome from the age of the neoterics ; to a lesser degree, the term includes some poems of the English Renaissance , particularly those influenced by Ovid . The most famous example of classical epyllion

936-509: The Ancient Greek adjective ἐπικός ( epikos ), from ἔπος ( epos ), "word, story, poem." In ancient Greek , 'epic' could refer to all poetry in dactylic hexameter ( epea ), which included not only Homer but also the wisdom poetry of Hesiod , the utterances of the Delphic oracle , and the strange theological verses attributed to Orpheus . Later tradition, however, has restricted

988-512: The Holy Grail (in Wolfram's interpretation a gemstone). In the poem, Wolfram's narrator expresses disdain for Chrétien's ( unfinished ) version of the tale, and states that his source was a poet from Provence called Kyot . Wolfram is the author of two other narrative works: the fragmentary Titurel and the unfinished Willehalm . These were both composed after Parzival , and Titurel mentions

1040-451: The Ramayana and Mahabharata , the shloka form is used. The primary form of epic, especially as discussed in this article, is the heroic epic , including such works as the Iliad and Mahabharata . Ancient sources also recognized didactic epic as a category, represented by such works as Hesiod 's Works and Days and Lucretius's De rerum natura . A related type of poetry is

1092-515: The Schwarzer Thon , attributed to Wolfram in a 14th-century manuscript, and the fragmentary and unfinished epic Titurel (after 1217) with a complicated four-line stanza form that was often used in later poems. The 84 surviving manuscripts of Parzival , both complete and fragmentary, indicate the immense popularity of Wolfram's major work in the following two centuries. Willehalm , with 78 manuscripts, comes not far behind. Many of these include

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1144-634: The performative verb "I sing". Examples: This Virgilian epic convention is referenced in Walt Whitman 's poem title / opening line "I sing the body electric". Compare the first six lines of the Kalevala : These conventions are largely restricted to European classical culture and its imitators. The Epic of Gilgamesh , for example, or the Bhagavata Purana do not contain such elements, nor do early medieval Western epics that are not strongly shaped by

1196-518: The 16th century the Spenserian stanza and blank verse were also introduced. The French alexandrine is currently the heroic line in French literature, though in earlier literature – such as the chanson de geste – the decasyllable grouped in laisses took precedence. In Polish literature, couplets of Polish alexandrines (syllabic lines of 7+6 syllables) prevail. In Russian, iambic tetrameter verse

1248-456: The ABABABCC rhyme scheme . Example: Canto l'arme pietose, e 'l Capitano Che 'l gran sepolcro liberò di Cristo. Molto egli oprò col senno e con la mano; Molto soffrì nel glorioso acquisto: E invan l'Inferno a lui s'oppose; e invano s'armò d'Asia e di Libia il popol misto: Chè 'l Ciel gli diè favore, e sotto ai santi Segni ridusse i suoi compagni erranti. The sacred armies, and

1300-510: The Homeric epics, the earliest works of Western literature, were fundamentally an oral poetic form. These works form the basis of the epic genre in Western literature. Nearly all of Western epic (including Virgil's Aeneid and Dante's Divine Comedy ) self-consciously presents itself as a continuation of the tradition begun by these poems. In his work Poetics , Aristotle defines an epic as one of

1352-653: The Mongols , the Kyrgyz Manas , and the Malian Sundiata . Epic poems of the modern era include Derek Walcott 's Omeros , Mircea Cărtărescu 's The Levant and Adam Mickiewicz 's Pan Tadeusz . Paterson by William Carlos Williams , published in five volumes from 1946 to 1958, was inspired in part by another modern epic, The Cantos by Ezra Pound . The first epics were products of preliterate societies and oral history poetic traditions. Oral tradition

1404-1068: The Persian Shahnameh , the Ancient Greek Odyssey and Iliad , Virgil 's Aeneid , the Old English Beowulf , Dante 's Divine Comedy , the Finnish Kalevala , the German Nibelungenlied , the French Song of Roland , the Spanish Cantar de mio Cid , the Portuguese Os Lusíadas , the Armenian Daredevils of Sassoun , the Old Russian The Tale of Igor's Campaign , John Milton 's Paradise Lost , The Secret History of

1456-509: The Swan Knight Elias arriving to defend the dispossessed Duchess of Bouillon . They marry and have a daughter, Ida , who becomes the mother of Godfrey and his brothers. The Knight of the Swan is not the only altered version of a popular story Wolfram uses in his narrative; he makes Prester John the son of his character Feirefiz . Graham Seal suggests that the tale of Lohengrin reworks elements from Northern European folklore. The story

1508-545: The backdrop of the religious wars between the Christians and the Saracens . The eponymous hero Willehalm kidnaps a Saracen princess, converts her to Christianity and marries her. The Saracen king raises an army to rescue his daughter. The poem has many of the distinguishing features of medieval literature: the victory of the Christians over a much larger Saracen army, the touching death of the young knight Vivian, Willehalm's nephew and

1560-540: The caste system of Indian society and the life of the lower levels of society, such as cobblers and shepherds, see C.N. Ramachandran, "Ambivalence and Angst: A Note on Indian folk epics," in Lauri Honko (2002. p. 295). Some Indian oral epics feature strong women who actively pursue personal freedom in their choice of a romantic partner (Stuart, Claus, Flueckiger and Wadley, eds, 1989, p. 5). Japanese traditional performed narratives were sung by blind singers. One of

1612-635: The classical traditions, such as the Chanson de Roland or the Poem of the Cid . Narrative opens " in the middle of things ", with the hero at his lowest point. Usually flashbacks show earlier portions of the story. For example, the Iliad does not tell the entire story of the Trojan War, starting with the judgment of Paris , but instead opens abruptly on the rage of Achilles and its immediate causes. So too, Orlando Furioso

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1664-650: The contemporary work of Ludwig Lucas , adapted the tale into his popular opera Lohengrin , arguably the work through which Lohengrin's story is best known today. While King Henry the Fowler tries to assemble forces in Brabant to combat the Hungarian invasions , Lohengrin appears on the Scheldt River to defend Princess Elsa from the false accusation of killing her younger brother Gottfried (who turns out to be alive and returns at

1716-455: The death of Hermann I, which dates it firmly after 1217. Titurel consists of two fragments, which tell the story of Schionatulander and Sigune (lovers that were already depicted in Parzival ). The first fragment deals with the birth of love between the main characters. The second fragment is quite different. Schionatulander and Sigune are alone in a forest, when their peace is suddenly disturbed by

1768-488: The duchess and serves Brabant for years, but one day Elsa asks the forbidden question. He explains his origin and steps back onto his swan boat, never to return. The Knight of the Swan story was previously known from the tales of the ancestry of Godfrey of Bouillon , the first ruler of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem . The story appears in the two versions of the tale Naissance du Chevalier au Cygne , which describes

1820-632: The end of the opera). According to Wagner, the Grail imbues the Knight of the Swan with mystical powers that can only be maintained if their nature is kept secret; hence the danger of Elsa's question. The most famous piece from Lohengrin is the " Bridal Chorus " ("Here Comes the Bride"), still played at many Western weddings. Wagner's Lohengrin was parodied in Victor Herbert 's 1906 burlesque The Magic Knight , and

1872-668: The evidence is circumstantial and not without problems – there are at least four other places named Eschenbach in Bavaria, and Wolframs-Eschenbach was not part of the Duchy of Bavaria ( Altbayern , 'Old Bavaria') in Wolfram's time. The arms shown in the Manesse manuscript come from the imagination of a 14th-century artist, drawing on the figure of the Red Knight in Parzival , and have no heraldic connection with Wolfram. Wolfram's work indicates

1924-499: The forms of poetry, contrasted with lyric poetry and drama (in the form of tragedy and comedy). Harmon & Holman (1999) define an epic: Harmon and Holman delineate ten main characteristics of an epic: The hero generally participates in a cyclical journey or quest, faces adversaries that try to defeat them in their journey, and returns home significantly transformed by their journey. The epic hero illustrates traits, performs deeds, and exemplifies certain morals that are valued by

1976-499: The godly knight, That the great sepulchre of Christ did free, I sing; much wrought his valor and foresight, And in that glorious war much suffered he; In vain 'gainst him did Hell oppose her might, In vain the Turks and Morians armèd be: His soldiers wild, to brawls and mutines prest, Reducèd he to peace, so Heaven him blest. From the 14th century English epic poems were written in heroic couplets , and rhyme royal , though in

2028-412: The importance of line consistency and poetic meter. Ancient Greek epics were composed in dactylic hexameter . Very early Latin epicists, such Livius Andronicus and Gnaeus Naevius , used Saturnian meter. By the time of Ennius , however, Latin poets had adopted dactylic hexameter . Dactylic hexameter has been adapted by a few anglophone poets such as Longfellow in " Evangeline ", whose first line

2080-425: The mortal universe for their descendants. With regard to oral tradition , epics consist of formal speech and are usually learnt word for word, and are contrasted with narratives which consist of everyday speech where the performer has the license to recontextualize the story to a particular audience, often to a younger generation. The English word epic comes from Latin epicus , which itself comes from

2132-498: The most famous, The Tale of the Heike , deals with historical wars and had a ritual function to placate the souls of the dead (Tokita 2015, p. 7). A variety of epic forms are found in Africa. Some have a linear, unified style while others have a more cyclical, episodic style (Barber 2007, p. 50). People in the rice cultivation zones of south China sang long narrative songs about

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2184-706: The poet is also paying homage to the ancestors of audience members. Examples: In the Homeric and post-Homeric tradition, epic style is typically achieved through the use of the following stylistic features: Many verse forms have been used in epic poems through the ages, but each language's literature typically gravitates to one form, or at least to a very limited set. Ancient Sumerian epic poems did not use any kind of poetic meter and lines did not have consistent lengths; instead, Sumerian poems derived their rhythm solely through constant repetition and parallelism , with subtle variations between lines. Indo-European epic poetry, by contrast, usually places strong emphasis on

2236-569: The publication of a translation of Parzival in 1753 by the Swiss scholar Johann Jakob Bodmer . Parzival was the main source Richard Wagner used when writing the libretto to his opera, Parsifal . Wolfram himself appears as a character in another Wagner opera, Tannhäuser . Epic poetry An epic poem , or simply an epic , is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces , gave shape to

2288-485: The society the epic originates from. Many epic heroes are recurring characters in the legends of their native cultures. In the Indian mahākāvya epic genre, more emphasis was laid on description than on narration. Indeed, the traditional characteristics of a mahākāvya are listed as: Classical epic poetry recounts a journey, either physical (as typified by Odysseus in the Odyssey ) or mental (as typified by Achilles in

2340-551: The term 'epic' to heroic epic , as described in this article. Originating before the invention of writing, primary epics, such as those of Homer , were composed by bards who used complex rhetorical and metrical schemes by which they could memorize the epic as received in tradition and add to the epic in their performances. Later writers like Virgil , Apollonius of Rhodes , Dante , Camões , and Milton adopted and adapted Homer's style and subject matter , but used devices available only to those who write. The oldest epic recognized

2392-562: The traditional European definition of the heroic epic are sometimes known as folk epics. Indian folk epics have been investigated by Lauri Honko (1998), Brenda Beck (1982) and John Smith, amongst others. Folk epics are an important part of community identities. The folk genre known as al-sira relates the saga of the Hilālī tribe and their migrations across the Middle East and north Africa, see Bridget Connelly (1986). In India, folk epics reflect

2444-472: The works mirror of chivalric courage and spiritual purity. Wolfram's nine surviving songs, five of which are dawn-songs , are regarded as masterpieces of Minnesang . Dawn-songs recount the story of a knight who spends the night with his beloved lady, but at dawn has to slip away unnoticed. Mostly it is the lady who wakes the knight up in the morning, but sometimes this mission is made by the watchman. No melodies survived. Two melodies are still connected to him,

2496-492: Was extensive and varied rather than accurate. He certainly knew French , but only imperfectly; for his proper names often show a curious misunderstanding of French words and phrases." Wolfram is best known today for his Parzival , sometimes regarded as the greatest of all German Arthurian romances . Based on Chrétien de Troyes ' unfinished Perceval, le Conte du Graal , it is the first extant work in German to have as its subject

2548-486: Was picked up and expanded in the late 13th-century Lohengrin by a certain "Nouhusius" or "Nouhuwius", who changed the character's name and tied the romance's Grail and Swan Knight elements into the history of the Holy Roman Empire . The story follows Wolfram closely but adds certain details – notably, Princess Elsa's questioning of her husband occurs only after prodding by an antagonist who spreads rumors that Lohengrin

2600-453: Was reworked into Salvatore Sciarrino 's 1982 opera Lohengrin , which reduces the narrative to a manic hallucination. Wolfram von Eschenbach Wolfram von Eschenbach ( German: [ˈvɔlfʁam fɔn ˈɛʃn̩bax] ; c.  1160/80 – c.  1220 ) was a German knight, poet and composer, regarded as one of the greatest epic poets of medieval German literature . As a Minnesinger , he also wrote lyric poetry . Little

2652-455: Was that oral epics tend to be constructed in short episodes, each of equal status, interest and importance. This facilitates memorization, as the poet is recalling each episode in turn and using the completed episodes to recreate the entire epic as he performs it. Parry and Lord also contend that the most likely source for written texts of the epics of Homer was dictation from an oral performance. Milman Parry and Albert Lord have argued that

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2704-453: Was used alongside written scriptures to communicate and facilitate the spread of culture. In these traditions, poetry is transmitted to the audience and from performer to performer by purely oral means. Early 20th-century study of living oral epic traditions in the Balkans by Milman Parry and Albert Lord demonstrated the paratactic model used for composing these poems. What they demonstrated

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