Italy / France 1623 Giambattista Marino, Adone (Adonis) Giambattista Marino’s Adone can be characterized as a mythical poem. The well-known love story of Venus and Adonis, featured in Cantos III, VIII, XV, XVII, and XVIII of this poem of 20 cantos, is compounded by...
Italy 1858-1860 Giusto Lodico (La Storia dei paladini di Francia) Malaguerra Malaguerra (named Orello at birth and also called Morbello) is a fictional knight who first appears in Giusto Lodico’s Storia dei paladini di Francia [History of...
Portugal 1934 Francisco Pessoa, Mensagem Francisco Pessoa’s Mensagem (1934) is an esoteric national epic simultaneously steeped in reverential homage to the past while paving the way for what it means to compose an epic in the modern era. This duality can be...
Egypt Oral tradition: c. 14th century CEFirst transcriptions: 1986-90 Anonymous, Sirat Bani Hilal The epic as it is sung in Northern Egypt is built upon the basic historical facts about the Bani Hilal tribe: their migration westwards from the Arabian...
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