World Epics
This site is devoted to epics from across the globe, including epic narratives in theatrical dramatizations, puppetry arts, music, art, and film. It aims likewise to showcase websites and teaching resources developed by colleagues that feature both literary and oral epics, from the ancient world to today.
Don’t Miss
Featured Resources
The Sirat Bani Hilal Digital Archive is devoted to preserving and making accessible to scholars and the general public original recordings and other documentation concerning the Arabic oral epic poem Sirat Bani Hilal.
This is a web site intended to serve as a resource for the study of African epics. The core of the site is a listing of available published epic texts divided by language group and by performer, with brief performance data and bibliographic references.
JPARC is a consortium of scholars supporting the research and promotion of Japanese performing arts in Japan and abroad.
The site’s main focus is on theatrical, musical, and artistic representations based on Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato, Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, and other Italian Renaissance romance epics.
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Films, News and Events,
Book Series and Journals
Feathers of Fire: A Persian Epic
Feathers of Fire: A Persian Epic is a visually breathtaking cinematic shadow play for all ages, created and directed by Hamid Rahmanian, a 2014 Guggenheim fellowship-winning filmmaker/visual artist. The play unfolds an action-packed magical tale of star-crossed...
Sita Sings the Blues
Sita Sings the Blues This English-language animated film was written, directed, produced and animated by Nina Paley in 2008. It revisits the principle episodes of the Ramayana from Sita's perspective and weaves together Indian and American culture.
World Epics in Puppet Theater: Italy, India, Iran, Japan
Four mini-symposia are scheduled to be held in Palermo (11/6/2021), Mumbai (3/2022), Tehran (5/2022), and Kyoto (6/2022), featuring each country’s epic traditions in puppetry arts. The specific themes for the respective events are exile, love, friendship, and...
World Puppetry Day – UNIMA
World Puppetry Day 2021 World Puppetry Day takes place annually on March 21. Click here for this year's World Puppetry Day events worldwide.
Anthem World Epic and Romance
The Anthem World Epic and Romance series publishes rigorous, innovative scholarly studies dealing with epics and chivalric romances from across the globe, both written and oral, in poetry and prose, as well as adaptations in theater and cinema. The series seeks to...
AOQU. Achilles Orlando Quixote Ulysses
The Journal AOQU welcomes essays in Italian, English, French or Spanish, exploring the role of the Epic model (as a genre proper or as a register) in different cultures up to the present, in literature and beyond. The Journal, furthermore, hosts monographic issues on...