Call for papers for the upcoming issue of AOQU dedicated to Freedom and Necessity of Heroic Action between Antiquity and Modernity. English version below. Italian and French versions on the AOQU website: https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/aoqu/call-for-paper
«AOQU» VII, 2 (2026)
Epic and Destiny. Freedom and Necessity of Heroic Action between Antiquity and Modernity
Edited by Gabriele Bucchi and Corrado Confalonieri
The 2026/2 issue of AOQU seeks to investigate the multifaceted relationship between freedom and necessity—understood also as individual and collective destiny—in the actions of characters within heroic narratives from antiquity to the present day.
Epic narratives, like all plots, are structured around a transition from one state of equilibrium to another, often through one or more “reversals” (Aristotle, Poetics 6, 1450a). These narratives are typically oriented toward the realization of a final goal—a telos—which the characters’ actions tend to fulfill, though not without ambivalence and conflict. Depending on their role within the plot—whether as central heroes or heroines, or as secondary figures—characters engage with their own destiny and that of others in different ways. Sometimes they consciously cooperate with what has been foretold by a higher power (be it the gods, fate, History, or Providence); at other times, they resist or attempt to delay its fulfillment, and in some cases, they even seek to escape it altogether, through flight or suicide. The tension between freedom and necessity in both ancient and modern epic invites analysis not only of narratological aspects—such as narrator omniscience, character self-awareness, and the relationship between the main plot and episodic structures—but also of the epic’s relationship with other genres, particularly tragedy. According to a well-known formulation by Hegel, the distinction lies in the nature of agency: a dramatic character “creates his fate himself, whereas an epic character has his fate made for him, and this power of circumstances (die Macht der Umstände), which gives his deed the imprint of an individual form […], is the proper dominion of fate” (Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Arts, ed. Knox).
This issue invites contributions that explore how the relationship between epic and tragedy has been interpreted across different historical periods—and in the corresponding literary theories—in relation to the freedom and necessity of action. Of particular interest are the types of characters through which this relationship is articulated, and the narrative forms it assumes, including narrator interventions, character monologues, and dialectical confrontations between characters. The issue therefore welcomes contributions that examine, through significant works from the epic canon or texts more broadly inspired by the epic form, topics including but not limited to:
– The configuration of the relationship between characters and destiny—and, consequently, the interplay between the voices of the characters and the narrators;
– The relationship between epic and tragedy, both in canonical texts and in the philosophical and aesthetic reflections of modernity (18th–20th centuries);
– The use of epic poetry within philosophical-theological debates on conceptual dichotomies, such as free will and divine foreknowledge, Fortune and Providence, individual passions and collective interests (e.g., Nation, State, ideologies);
– The emergence of character resistance to higher forms of determination—whether embodied by God, the gods, or analogous figures;
– The reconfiguration of the idea of destiny in modern literary forms directly inspired by the epic tradition (including rewritings, parodies, adaptations).
Submissions must be entirely unpublished and may be written in Italian, English, or French. Proposals (maximum 350 words) should be sent to gabriele.bucchi@unibas.ch and confalonieri@chapman.edu by September 20, 2025. Notification of acceptance will be communicated by October 20, 2025, and final submissions are due by May 20, 2026.
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