Epic Literature

The epic poem or story is a common way for a civilization to tell stories about how it was founded and the central moral and political values which underpin its society. Epic stories are related to the problem of liberty because many of these foundation stories deal with issues such as the nature of legitimate authority, the problem of rebellion, and external threats to the stability of the community.

• The Aeneid (Dryden trans.) (Virgil)
• The Babylonian Story of the Deluge and the Epic of Gilgamesh (Sir Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge)
• Beowulf (original lang.) (Alfred John Wyatt)
• The Divine Comedy, in 3 vols. (Langdon trans.) (Dante Alighieri)
• The Heimskringla: A History of the Norse Kings, 3 vols. (Rasmus B. Anderson)
• An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic (Gilgamesh)
• The Poetical Works of John Milton (John Milton)
• The Ramayana and the Mahabharata (Romesh C. Dutt)
• The Tale of Beowulf, sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats (Alfred John Wyatt)