Epic poetry comes in various forms.
Homer’s epics are composed in dactylic hexameter, which became the standard for Greek and Latin oral poetry, and his verse is characterized by the use of extended similes and formulaic phrases, such as epithets, to fill out the verse form.
Extended similes (called epic similes) are employed at appropriate junctures in the story. Running into several lines, the epic simile is used to intensify the heroic stature of a character and offers a nice, decorative touch. An example from the Iliad:
“As when the shudder of the west wind suddenly rising scatters across the water,
and the water darkens beneath it, so darkening were settled the ranks of Achaians and Trojans in the plain.”
The simile makes an explicit comparison, often using “like” or “as” in order to reveal an unexpected likeness between two seemingly disparate things. The epic simile isn’t just a literary embellishment, but an important tool of thought, creating a new way of seeing the world. If prestige were attached to a literary device, the epic simile would have it. In its lengthy comparison, it allows complex comparisons between actions or relations. This creates contrast and helps amplify the theme. Here’s one more example from Aeneid:
“Here a whole crowd came streaming to the banks… as many souls as leaves that yield their hold on boughs and fall through forests in the early frost of autumn…”
Try It
Write a poem using epic simile to describe someone you feel is brave. Compare your hero to an unlikely object in the natural world (trees, mountains, weather phenomenon, etc.). Share your poem with us in the comment section below.
Featured Poem
Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s poetry prompt. Here is a poem from Rick we enjoyed, Invocation of the Moon:
In this new room,
the clutter is gone.
The books with their flags,
are stacked neatly on shelves.
I sit on the floor
and watch the carpet of moon
dance over the clean slate
floor down the hallway,
nothing to stop its rolling,
shadowless and cool.
Sit with me a while Luna,
give me your sheer light,
your magic in my glass
of wine—a word, a line;
leave the argentine night,
torn on the bare trees.
Like the leaves, I drift,
watching the dim spines,
filled with keen energy,
while all my songs are sleeping.
Photo by Matt Ming. Creative Commons via Flickr.
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How to Write a Poem uses images like the buzz, the switch, the wave—from the Billy Collins poem “Introduction to Poetry”—to guide writers into new ways of writing poems. Excellent teaching tool. Anthology and prompts included.
“How to Write a Poem is a classroom must-have.”
—Callie Feyen, English Teacher, Maryland
- Poetry Prompt: Misunderstood Lion - March 19, 2018
- Animate: Lions & Lambs Poetry Prompt - March 12, 2018
- Poetry Prompt: Behind the Velvet Rope - February 26, 2018
Rick Maxson says
Bixby Bridge
— for Carol
What fear hides in our skin has no faith in steel or design.
Through years it moves like water colors in rain,
mingles itself in moonlight, and gravity has its way,
pulling us into the dream where we have no wings.
And then there is the retrofit crew, the rusted plates
that bark like some ancient dog as the car passes over them,
a blessing in disguise, drowning the Pacific waves
that sound so much like rushing air or the last whispers
of the day as we fall into sleep, hiding in the ear
like the ocean in a shell, the dark closet of descent.
Below the magnificence of the coast is a postcard,
but strength does not come from the book of splendor,
it is the breath of independence that takes in the world
and floats the blue palette of the sea in your open eyes.
Heather Eure says
Wonderful! Rich words full of pictures. “…hiding in the ear like the ocean in a shell…” Love it.
Rick Maxson says
Thanks for featuring “Invocation of the Moon.”
Heather Eure says
You betcha! 🙂
Lee Kiblinger says
This is a stretch for this simile prompt…..but certainly bravery is involved…..
I enjoy your website. I’m a newbie who is dabbling with poetry.
Estuary
The church, an estuary –
A gathering of salts
Rubbed from still ragged rock
By water drained from heaven.
Tides surge and recede
Rivers tumble, trickle
To a mingling of sorts and
There, life shines and flourishes.
Briny medleys of men
Thrive amidst the mesh
And saltiness purifies
Water’s raw, grimy soul .
Rains cataract, clarifying
This emerald temple,
But content, it breathes and rests
As life’s conduit of hope.
Heather Eure says
“…it breathes and rests/As life’s conduit of hope.” A poem built to inspire! I like it. Thank you for sharing your brave words with us, Lee. You are most welcome here. Hope you’ll come often. We have cookies here. 😉
Andrew H says
Not sure if this fits the bill, but it’s what I wrote anyway. 😛
Lightning Steed
Great thunder booms like pounding hooves –
Such tremors of celestial beasts!
Surely the lightning is the strike-of-stone
Of those who on electric steeds must roam,
And hence the great deluge will come
To rid us of the paling sun –
For who can look a lily in the eye
When time has come, when we must die?
Great thunder! Ye gods, do you make sport?
Is that the back and forth of power,
Darting as does the thread of life
Along the border of a knife?
Such crackles! Smite me now, be done of all
The woes which trickle as the rives does,
For I am done with you, great blasts and blows!
Come you once more, my ancient foes.
Like dawn! Like pain! Like hate! Like darkness, and like life,
Give me your strife, give me your strife.
I wandered long beneath a cloud, to sing a song
Not knowing that to have no rain is wrong.
So string me up and hang me as one hangs their coat,
My moving pen moves on, and what it knew it wrote-
I’ve nothing left. So sing with me, you thunder lords,
Sing the song of the clouds that housed these lightning swords!
As does the mellow flower look up at the sun,
Yet shield his shying head from moonlight’s glow,
So too I love the Lightning Seams of life,
The darkness showing light through strife,
Yet fear more gentle fords were I may row
In peace with all the things below –
So no! The gods will let me ride the horse
That rides the lightning’s jagged course!
Heather Eure says
This definitely fits the bill! A grand poem, Andrew. Reminds me of one of my favorite Housman poems.
Andrew H says
Thanks! Out of curiosity, which Housman poem? I haven’t read much by him, and at a casual glance through some of his work I can see I may want to.
Heather Eure says
It’s probably the masculinity of the poem that reminds me of IX (his title). “Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.”
Monica Sharman says
Artist
As the turbulent patterns and various greys and blacks emerge in the clouds
blowing over the peaks—a sudden high-mountain afternoon storm—and in
the nebulous moments after the thunder’s compression waves ebb,
solid and insistent shafts of sun penetrate yet leave the just-thundering clouds
mostly intact, the artist with his brush and palette mixtures of darks and brights
catches them in a swift storm, a cloud, a light and a light and a light
racing through dappled greys.