Epic poetry

:For other meanings of epic, see epic (disambiguation).

Notable epic poems

• 20th century BC: The Epic of Gilgamesh (Sumerian mythology)
• 19th century BC: The Ramayana (Hindu mythology)
• 1316 BC: Traditional date for the Mahabharata (Hindu mythology).
• 8th century BC:
• The Iliad by Homer (Greek mythology)
• The Odyssey by Homer (Greek mythology)
• 1st century BC:
• Aeneid by Virgil
• Táin Bó Cúailnge (Irish mythology)
• c.3rd century: Cilappatikaram, a South Indian epic written by prince Ilango Adigal
• Sometime in the period 8th to the 10th century: Beowulf (Anglo-Saxon mythology)
• 10th century:
• Shahnameh
• Bhagavata Purana (Sanskrit "Stories of the Lord")
• 11th century:
• Digenis Acritas (Byzantine epic poem)
• La Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland)
• Epic of King Gesar (Tibetan; compiled in 11th century from earlier sources)
• 12th century: The Knight in the Panther Skin by Shota Rustaveli
• 13th century:
• Poetic Edda (Norse mythology)
• Hervarar saga (Norse mythology)
• Völsunga saga (Norse mythology)
• Nibelungenlied (Germanic mythology)
• Brut by Layamon
• c.1300: Cursor Mundi by an anonymous cleric
• early 14th century: Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy) by Dante Alighieri
• 1516: Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto
• c.1555: Lusiadas by Luis de Camões
• 1575 La Gerusalemme liberata by Torquato Tasso
• 16th century:
• Ramacharitmanas (based on the Ramayana) by Goswami Tulsidas
• The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser
• 17th century:
• Paradise Lost by John Milton
• Obsidio Szigetianae ("Szigeti veszedelem"; Hungarian) by Miklós Zrínyi
• 19th century:
• The Prelude by William Wordsworth
• Don Juan by George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
• Clarel by Herman Melville
• Der Ring des Nibelungen by Richard Wagner
• Canigó by Jacint Verdaguer
• Venezuela Heroica, by Eduardo Blanco (1881)
• Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot (Finnish mythology)
• 20th century:
• Savitri by Aurobindo Ghose
• The Cantos by Ezra Pound
• ' by Nikos Kazantzakis
• The Anathemata by David Jones
• Maximus by Charles Olson
• Paterson by William Carlos Williams
• The Changing Light at Sandover by James Merrill