Epic Worlds

Abstract

From the beginning, transmitted stories—what we recognize as epic—constituted the memory bank of a community, and gave it meaning as precisely that community and no other. Receptions studies ask how epic has evolved, and how later audiences, members of other communities, have received it. This paper recalls moments in the reception of epic from Greco-Roman antiquity to the “old” world’s encounter with the “new.” Some of these encounters involved tense opposition. Receptions scholars, as meta- or latter-day readers, need to document and appreciate earlier instances of oppositional reading. And what might epic be today, when people are in constant motion, and words can flash instantaneously from any point on earth to any other? Can epic devices co-exist with hand-held devices?

“Receptions: Reading the Past Across Time and Space,” September 27–29, 2013, UC Davis, Davis CA; this paper, September 27. Thanks to Dr. Laura Pfuntner and Dr. Uwe Vagelpohl for their assistance, especially Dr. Pfuntner in turning the original talk into the current version. It has not been practical (nor did it seem necessary) to provide the same level of documentation throughout; I have tried to add footnotes on details less likely to be familiar to many readers. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.