II.

Folk Epics

Epic verse may be classified either as folk or as literary epic. Folk, or popular, epics are believed to have developed from the orally transmitted folk poetry of tribal bards or other authors; they were eventually transcribed by anonymous poets. Well-known examples of the folk epic are the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf (written sometime between the 8th century and the late 10th century), the German Nibelungenlied (Song of the Nibelungs, 13th century), and the Indian epics the Mahabharata (The Great Epic of the Bharata Dynasty, 400 bc- ad 400) and the Ramayana (Way of Rama, 3rd century bc). The story material appearing in folk epics is usually based on legends or events that occurred a long time before the epic itself appeared. The characters and episodes that appear in many folk epics had, in several cases, been treated in folk songs before the epic was composed. Examples of this consolidation of material are the French folk epics known as chansons de geste, or songs of heroic deeds, composed from the end of the 10th century to the middle or end of the 11th century, the most famous of which is the Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland, 1100?).

In some cultures the popular epic material has never actually been gathered together into an epic. The Celts produced extended cycles of epic poems, notably the Fenian, or Ossianic, Cycle (see Ossian and Ossianic Ballads) and the Arthurian Cycle (see Arthurian Legend) but developed no single great poem using this or similar material. Spain has a national heroic figure, El Cid, but, with the exception of El cantar de mio Cid (The Song of the Cid, 1200?), the ballads and poems about him never achieved epic proportions.