The epic is a long poem about the actions of one or more characters from legend or history. These events are something like a war involving so many characters along with gods and spirits. The following are the conventions of poetry:
1. Invoke:
A prayer or invocation comes at the beginning of the poem where the poet asks the god or muse to help him accomplish his great work. Milton uses this convention in his epic poem. lost paradise as we note below:
… you, oh Spirit, what do you prefer
Before all the temples the straight and pure heart
Instruct me, because even if you know: you from the beginning
It was present…
2. Homeric simile:
Normally, an ordinary simile might describe a young man as ‘tall, dark and upright, like a young cypress’, by contrast, a Homeric simile broadens the comparison to such an extent that it becomes a little poem within a poem. For example:
Like a young cypress, tall, dark and straight,
That in the secluded garden of a queen throws
His light dark shadow on the moonlit lawn
At midnight, to the sound of a bubbling fountain –
So slender Sohrab seemed, so sweetly bred.
(Matthew Arnold Sohrab and Rustum (1822-88))
3. Athletic Contest or Games:
Homer used this convention and described how Achilles prepared in advance an athletic contest in honor of his friend Patroclus. Then Virgil followed, and after this it became an inescapable convention without which the epic would be incomplete. Book Paradise Lost-2 describes fallen angels organizing an athletic meet.
4. Long and Adventurous Journey:
The hero makes such a journey. For example, the journey of Aeneas to search for the spirits of Anchises. Milton describes Satan’s journey through space in his lost paradise.
5. in half beef:
According to this convention, the story should begin in the middle of the action, in medium resolution, as Horace called it. For example, him Aeneid It begins with the arrival of Aeneas in Carthage. This is followed by the long story of the fall of Troy, his flight from him, and his journey to the Carthaginian coast. Now most novels and movies make use of this convention.
