The development of epic concept

The western concept of epic is based on Homer's epic in ancient Greece, and the study of epic is based on classical poetics since Aristotle. Epic, lyric and drama are called the three basic types of western literature. The development of western epics, from the original epics of ancient Greece, such as Homer's epic, to Virgil's literary epic creation, inherited the examples of Greek epics and showed a clear historical context. It is generally believed that the discussion on epic and its nature in the history of literature began in Europe. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Geras and other ancient Greek philosophers all discussed epic, but it was not until Aristotle's Poetics was rediscovered in the16th century that people began to discuss epic in theory. European classicism has accumulated a profound academic tradition in the field of epic research. /kloc-The European Romantic Movement in the 0/8th century set off a wave of collecting and studying folk epics, which promoted people's exploration of the origin, spread and creation of epics. From the late17th century to the late18th century, there was an upsurge in the collection and research of counterpart epics. T. A. Wolf's Introduction to Homer (1795) shows people's new understanding of the background of Homer's epic. During this period, there even appeared the so-called rediscovered ancient epic-"finger, Six Ancient E Poems", which belonged to Celtic folk singer Ossian, but was actually written by mcpherson (1736- 1796). This incident reflected people's interest in studying folk poetry at that time. People began to collect Celtic epics from Scotland, Wales and Ireland. In Finland, the poet and scholar Elias Langrod (Elias L&; EcircNnrot, 1802—1888+0888) found the epic Ka Laivaara for his own nation. The romantic nationalist movement in Europe promoted the rediscovery of oral tradition. /kloc-in the middle of the 0/9th century, Britain realized the industrial revolution, and the world history moved towards a modern industrial society. 18- 19 at the turn of the century, romanticism and nationalism swept across the European continent, and the intellectual community formed a new ideological trend of praising folk culture and exploring national spirit. Romanticism and nationalism, as an ideology, have changed the art, politics, social life and thoughts of Europe as a whole. In the underdeveloped areas of Central and Eastern Europe, nations and countries do not overlap. Slavic and Nordic nations combine folklore with the historical legitimacy of the construction of an independent nation-state. Nationalists believe that the national spirit exists in people's poems. So the discovery of primitive oral culture began with the romantic movement in Europe. From then on, people began to pay attention to oral, semi-oral and oral culture. Such as German Brothers Grimm (jacob green,1785-1863; William green (1786— 1859) is a typical example. In Finland, the collection history of Ka Laivaara began in18th century, and the real collection began in19th century. Since then, scattered epics have been collected. From 1850 to 1860, Finland began a new stage of epic collection. The intervention of folklore research was after 1870. Finnish scholars collected many different essays in the historical process of 150, and the materials were collected in the folklore archives of the Finnish Literature Association, forming a spectacular epic collection, which was published in Finnish one after another. European folklore rose in the middle of19th century, and epic, as a genre of folklore, once again entered the field of vision of modern scholars, opening up a new era of epic research in methodology. At the end of 19, Yani ViXie Luofu (1838- 1906), a Russian comparative literature scholar, challenged the normative poetics derived from the western classical literature model since Aristotle, and put forward the idea of constructing new poetics according to the romantics' rediscovery of folk oral poetry. He pointed out that German aesthetics is based on classical writers and nourished by writers' literature, and Homer's epic is an epic ideal for it, which leads to the assumption of personal creation. The clarity of Greek literature is reflected in the order of epic, lyric and drama, which is also regarded as the norm. We can definitely say that the research paradigm advocated by ViXie Luofu-sky, which is empirical rather than abstract, genre rather than philosophy and aesthetics, has made great progress in his later period. The academic potential of epic research is not limited to the examples of ancient Greece, but greatly extended to the field of oral epic.

Beginning with C. M. Bowra, epic researchers in the 20th century noticed the difference between original (oral) epic and fictional (written literature) epic, and expanded the scope of heroic epic. Millman Parry and A.B. Lord introduced the ethnographic method of19th century into the field of classical poetics. They found the analogy of Homer's epic in Yugoslavia and founded the poetics of oral epic. Since the second half of the 20th century, people have found rich living epic traditions in various contemporary societies around the world, which are neither classical nor western. For nearly 200 years, European classicism has been troubled by the following questions: Are there any words in the legendary Homer era? How to explain the inconsistency of epic? Without the help of words, how can such a long epic be created and preserved? How to treat the myths and legends about epics? How to explain the cultural deposition phenomena of different times in epic, such as dialects and old sayings. The research shows that whether there are words in Homer's era has nothing to do with Homer's problem. It is undoubtedly progress to push the author of Homer's epic to the oral age of pre-script, but there are still fixed text beliefs that hinder people's thinking. The concept of folk collective creation has spawned many authors' opinions, short songs and prototype exploration ... which have not touched the essence of oral poetry. The western oral tradition research since Parry and Lord mainly involves the subject style, form and theme of folklore, the convergence and divergence between folk oral literature and writers' written literature, how to define the classics of oral literature and written literature, and the performance and creation of folk artists. In the past half century, a group of scholars such as Parry and Lord have studied ancient classics such as Homer's epic with epic tradition. They believe that there is an institutionalized performance tradition behind Homer's epic texts, pointing out that this tradition used to be vivid and oral. They applied the concept of "oral poetry" to the study of Homer's epic, trying to solve the problems of creation, author and era of Homer's epic. They regard language and text as the main empirical reality, and the performance and cultural context of performance as the main problems of Homer's epic. They rely on linguistic and anthropological methods to seek new breakthroughs in classicism. On several key issues, European and American oral tradition researchers have reflected on many concepts of folklore research since19th century. People's reflection on these issues is interdisciplinary, which not only reveals previous misunderstandings, but also puts forward new problems in the new era. By the end of the last century, Laurie Hongke's study of oral epic in Xili, India marked the change of western epic concept and research paradigm. In his view, there are various examples of epics. He found the vitality of epic in the close relationship between epic and specific traditional community, and his new epic concept carried out the idea of cultural diversity. It can be predicted that the epic research in 2 1 century will be diversified. The paradigm of epic research in the past, taking Homer's epic as an example and the West as an example, will gradually become history.