is it possible to write an epic set in contemporary times that isn't scifi or fantasy?
is it possible to write an epic set in contemporary times that isn't scifi or fantasy?
is it possible to write an epic set in contemporary times that isn't scifi or fantasy?
Ulysses?
This would be one option, maybe others would be Proust's Remembrance, Mann's Magic Mountain, or what Tolstoy and Dostoevsky achive in their long novels.
>contemporary times
They are all from before WWII
Sure, but that doesn't affect the fact that they're models of how to write something on the grand scale. Change the subject matter, and there you go.
This begs the question
80 years after the war, why werent these models used in any significant way, nor new ones created?
What are you talking about Geoffrey?
You seem to want to eat your cake and have it too
If we are to take those novels mentioned, theres the caveat that they are all from before WW2 as I mentioned, so not contemporary as the OP wanted
If we are to consider those novels not as examples to give OP but as "models" for possible examples (which would imply the answer to OPs qiestion is "yes"), that begs the question, if it was really possible to write a modern epic, why no such significant epic has been written, after WW2? - with the implicit possible answer that we dont have the right culture for that and those models are not fit anymore, so the answer would be "no"
This is such a weird set of objections.
>theres the caveat that they are all from before WW2 as I mentioned, so not contemporary as the OP wanted
That's not what OP asked, slow down and re-read, "is it ***possible to write***..." You’re treating my response like OP asked for modern contemporary epics, and not whether *writing* them was *possible*. Your further objections are at bottom over the *popularity* of doing so, which is neither here nor there. You could write about contemporary subjects in Homeric dactylic hexameters using archaic language, whether it catches on is something else entirely.
This really feels like picking an argument just to have one, Christ.
Well if by possible its just meant possible, the answer is yes of course, its possible to write any kind of book, specially a book of a kind that has already been written
But I think you are failing to pay attention to the particularities of each epoch - this question to my ear sounds more like "is it possible for a industrialist businessman to be a mystic poet?" And my answer would be: he would probably be a bad one
>But I think you are failing to pay attention to the particularities of each epoch - this question to my ear sounds more like "is it possible for a industrialist businessman to be a mystic poet?" And my answer would be: he would probably be a bad one
Holy shit, I wasn't fricking shaping my answers for your autistic approval, I don't care about your otherwise unarticulated historicism that I was supposed to psychically presuppose in answering OP
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Begs what question? The question in OP is just "is it possible to write an epic set in contemporary times that isn't scifi or fantasy?" War and Peace is neither scifi nor fantasy, and there's nothing about it precludes a modern and contemporary subject from using it as a model.
I know this is a bit of a nitpick but you mean “raises the question.” “Begging the question” is something entirely different
>beg the question
>1.(of a fact or action) raise a question or point that has not been dealt with; invite an obvious question.
"some definitions of mental illness beg the question of what constitutes normal behavior"
>2.assume the truth of an argument or proposition to be proved, without arguing it.
???
Don't know. But it isn't impossible to imagine! For instance, just yesterday I was imagining the Beatles performing at the Areopagus on a Spring evening during the Nicean Peace, early (back when early ='d late) 5th c bc, and man, those buff Athenian lads and their significant *other* not so buff Athenian lads were seriously a'rockin' and a'rollin', really diggin' that sadly doomed respite dancing the Wah-Watusi with flowers in their hair!
Alas. Life is so sad!
Tomorrow I'll consider Ye riffin' among the Spartans at the pass of Thermopylae, talkin' Persian War times, gid'yup
No because we're no longer grounded within an authentic mythic tradition the way the ancients were, at least in the Western world (and especially among Americans). Subsequently, imagined contexts are the only way something resembling Homeric literature can be approached.
Omeros
OP said no SFF. #fail
Oh... Omeros, not Omelas. Never mind.
Still not a very good answer. But not SFF.
Argably Ayn Rand tried that
In any case, politics is the only sphere where that is possible now
Some possible examples:
>A simple man caught in the corporate ladder loses his innocence, regrets it, and fights and wins against CEOs
>Workers revolt against bankers
>Small village organizes in guerilla and expel corporations trying to subdue their traditional living style in the name of profit
>Western world x commie and post-commie Eastern menace
>Right wing terrorists dethrone the globohomosexual zogbot
Shit like that
However since last century there is a division where low quality stuff for the masses are dumb meaningless happy ending hero stories, while its considered sophisticated to like stories that poses reflections about moral ambiguity and decadence and inversion of values
Theres no space for something both symbolic and heroic in our culturs
Thats a theory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epic_poems#21st_century
Thanks.
I haven’t read those but just glancing at the few that have wikipedia pages I see only sci-fi or fantasy.
Sure, Nixon in China is an epic opera. But an epic is never set totally contemporary, it has to be about some great deeds of yore
yeah the holocaust
Why did the thread continue after this post?
I was going to say that epics are heroic but now that I thought about it an epic poem where they are the big innocent victim that then gets everything they want not by heroism is the perfect epic for them
It was a tragedy.
the closest we've gotten is the Godfather, I literally can't think of another sprawling novel that isn't rooted in fantasy magic or sci-fi magic
East of Eden?
>East of Eden
adding this one to the list after I'm done with Last of the Mohicans, thanks bro
Consider the hero audie murphy
There have been attempts, like the Epic of Utnoa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Epic_of_Utnoa
Possibly. Idk if it counts but Amitav Ghosh's the Glass Palace is probably the most modern possible example. Other examples I know are from before WW2 and have been mentioned already
Posting this only half in jest.
Indeed it's one of the best comics ever made
I cried reading this shit, then laughed at myself for crying about anthropomorphic cartoon ducks. Kind of an embarrassing experience, but would recommend.
It will come out of QAnon mythology (one of the only authentic living spiritual traditions in the west)
WW2 is the modern Iliad for normies, at least it was until like ~15 years ago. Now it's just seen as two groups of racists fighting each other. Kind of like how Athenian/Alexandrian rationalism and then Christianity dethroned the Iliad.