World Epics
This collaborative website is devoted to epics from across the globe, including epic narratives in theatrical dramatizations, puppetry arts, music, visual art, and film. It aims likewise to showcase websites and teaching resources developed by colleagues featuring both oral and literary epics, from the ancient world to today. To be notified when a new epic is added, scroll to the footer and
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Featured Events
World Epics in Puppet Theater
India, Iran, Japan, Italy
This project is part of the Columbia University Humanities War & Peace Initiative, which “fosters the study of war and peace from the perspective of scholars in the Humanities, in conversation with colleagues from around Columbia and the world […] with an ultimate goal of perpetuating a more peaceful world.”
Mini-Symposium
A mini-symposium dedicated to World Epics in Puppet Theater: India, Iran, Japan, Italy was held online through the Museo Internazionale delle Marionette “Antonio Pasqualino” (Palermo) on Friday, November 12, 2021. The theme of this mini-symposium was exile. Click here for a program with descriptions of the five presentations, a video recording of the event, and brief biographies of the speakers.
Edited Volume
The volume World Epics and Puppet Theater (AOQU 4.2 [2023]) extends beyond the four original countries comprising the project to explore epic narratives in oral traditions, primarily puppet theater, in several different regions across Europe, Africa, and Asia. The online version is open access. The printed version will be published by Edizioni Pasqualino (Museo internazionale delle Marionette ‘Antonio Pasqualino’) in 2024.
Italy
Live and streamed performance
A performance of Rinaldo imperatore di Trebisonda by the Marionettistica dei Fratelli Napoli of Catania was hosted by the Museo Internazionale delle Marionette “Antonio Pasqualino” in Palermo, Italy, on November 12, 2021. The performance was staged following the World Epics in Puppet Theater mini-symposium on the theme of exile in which Alessandro Napoli gave a presentation on the “Rinaldo, Emperor of Trebizond” episode in literary and puppet theater traditions (both the presentation and the performance are available online).
Iran
Online Screening and Q&A
Feathers of Fire: A Persian Epic. A cinematic shadow play that features the white-haired Zal from his birth to his love story with Rudabeh, based on the Persian epic Shahnameh (‘The Book of Kings’). Created and directed by Hamid Rahmanian with graphics derived from the visual tradition of the region, rendered as puppets, costumes, masks, scenography, and digital animation. Online screening followed by a Q&A with Hamid Rahmanian, in conversation with Olga M. Davidson (Boston University) and John Bell (Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, University of Connecticut), May 11, 2022.
Japan
Online Screening and Q&A
India
Online Screening and Q&A
About Ram. An experimental theatrical piece and collaborative performance, using excerpts from the Bhavbhuti Ramayana and told through animation, projected images, dance, masks, and puppets. Directed by Anurupa Roy. Animation by Vishal Dhar. Performed by the Katkatha Puppet Theatre Group. Online screening followed by a Q&A with Anurupa Roy, in conversation with Paula Richman (Oberlin College) and John Bell (Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, University of Connecticut), May 25, 2022.
Explore
Featured Resources
National Epics
The website National Epics is being developed in parallel with an in-progress collaborative project of over 80 chapters edited by David Wallace and to be published by Oxford University Press.
Charlemagne: A European Icon
This project examines the ways in which the different linguistic cultures of medieval Europe appropriated Charlemagne material from chronicle and epic. There will be seven volumes, along with additional features on the website.
Keep Informed
Adaptations, News & Events, Publications
New Film Adaptation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses
Anime galleggianti (Wandering Souls) reinterprets the stories of the most intriguing characters of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, including Persephone, Arachne, Callisto, Europa, Daphne and Orpheus. The transformations of forms into new bodies are narrated by the Parca who...
Bringing the Shahnameh into the 21st Century
by ROBERT WEINBERG September 11, 2023 Excerpt: But there are always more stories to tell from Shahnameh and more ways to tell them. The initial challenge made by Melissa has now reached hundreds of thousands of appreciative people through other media and platforms....
Letteratura cavalleresca italiana / Italian Chivalric Literature
Call for papers for the 2025 issue (the deadline to send proposals is July 21, 2025): https://www.italianisti.it/news/call-for-papers/cfp-volume-vii-2025-letteratura-cavalleresca-italiana "Letteratura cavalleresca italiana responds to the desire to establish a...
Multimedia Collection of Philippines Epics and Ballads
After four years of silence, this Epics and Ballads Collection that has been built up in collaboration with several National Cultural Communities of the Philippines and in their home land has been upgraded, emulated in 2023-2024. It has been enriched with many videos...
Tullia d’Aragona’s The Wretch, Otherwise Known as Guerrino
Edited by Julia L. Hairston With an Introduction by Julia L. Hairston Translated by John C. McLucas The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series, 106 Iter Press. The University of Chicago, 2025. The only English translation of the first epic poem to be...
Jangar: The Heroic Epic of the Kalmyk Nomads
Translated by Saglar Bougdaeva (University of California Press, 2023). "This is the first English translation of Jangar, the heroic epic of the Kalmyk nomads, who are the Western Mongols of Genghis Khan’s medieval empire in Europe. Today, Kalmykia is situated in the...