777 articles
Buda halála
Buda halála (The Death of Buda) is a Hungarian narrative epic in twelve cantos by János Arany, written 1862–1863 and published in Pest in 1864.
Buile Shuibhne
Buile Shuibhne (Buile Suibhne, The Frenzy/Madness of Suibhne) is a medieval Irish prosimetric tale in which the Ulster king Suibhne (Sweeney), cursed by St Rónán, goes mad at the battle of Magh Rath (637) and lives wild like a bird as a poet; edited by O'Keeffe in 1913 and translated by Heaney as Sweeney Astray.
Bujangga Manik
Bujangga Manik is an Old Sundanese narrative poem of about 1500, preserved on a single palm-leaf manuscript in the Bodleian Library, recounting a Hindu-Sundanese hermit's travels through Java and Bali.
Burlesque
Burlesque: comic treatment of serious subjects, from Italian burlesco (burla, jest), entering English 1656; covers the literary genre, Victorian and American variety theater, striptease-era burlesque, and the 1990s neo-burlesque revival.
Bylina
A bylina (былина), also called starina by performers, is a Russian folk epic song of heroic bogatyrs of the 11th to 16th centuries, first recorded in the 19th century.
Byronic hero
Byronic hero: literary archetype named for Lord Byron, first seen in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; a brooding, arrogant, morally ambiguous outcast with magnetic charm, descended from Gothic villains and Miltonic Satan, and continued in Heathcliff, Rochester, and modern film and TV antiheroes.
Calafia
Calafia is the fictional Amazon queen of the island of California in Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo's chivalric romance Las Sergas de Esplandián (c. 1510); her golden island of warrior women is the likely source of the name California.
Çanakkale Destanı
Çanakkale Destanı, meaning "The Epic of Çanakkale," is a verse epic on the 1915 Gallipoli campaign by Turkish poet Fazıl Hüsnü Dağlarca, published in İstanbul in 1965.
Cantar de gesta
A cantar de gesta, Spanish for "song of deeds", is a medieval Spanish epic poem about a hero, sung publicly by minstrels; the Cantar de Mío Cid is the chief example.
Cántico cósmico
Cántico cósmico (Cosmic Canticle) is a 581-page epic poem by Nicaraguan poet-priest Ernesto Cardenal, published in 1989, tracing the universe's history from the Big Bang.
Canto General
Canto General is an epic poem by the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, first published in Mexico in 1950, presenting a poetic history of the Americas in 231 poems.
Caramuru
Caramuru is an epic poem by Frei José de Santa Rita Durão, published in Lisbon in 1781, about the shipwrecked Portuguese Diogo Álvares among the Tupinambá.
Carita Pantun
Carita Pantun is a Sundanese oral epic tradition in which a performer called a juru pantun sings long narrative poems about the pre-Islamic kingdoms of Galuh and Pajajaran.
Carmen Paschale
The Carmen Paschale is a Latin biblical epic in five books by the fifth-century poet Sedulius, retelling Christ's deeds and admired in the Middle Ages as the Christian Virgil.
Casaysayan nang Pasiong Mahal
Casaysayan nang Pasiong Mahal, also called Pasyong Genesis, is an 1814 Tagalog verse narrative of Christ's life and passion, the most commonly used pasyon in the Philippines.
Catalogue of Women
The Catalogue of Women, also known as the Ehoiai, is a fragmentary ancient Greek epic poem ascribed to Hesiod that traced heroic genealogies through mortal women.
Chaitanya Bhagavata
Chaitanya Bhagavata (চৈতন্যভাগবত) is a sixteenth-century Bengali hagiographic poem by Vrindavana Dasa narrating the life of the saint Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, his earliest substantial biography in Bengali.
Chandalabhikshuki
Chandalabhikshuki (ചണ്ഡാലഭിക്ഷുകി) is a 1922 Malayalam narrative poem by N. Kumaran Asan, telling of a Buddhist monk who takes water from an untouchable girl and of her conversion to Buddhism.
Chandayan
Chandayan (चंदायन) is a Sufi narrative poem in Awadhi composed by Mulla Daud around 1379, retelling the love story of Lorik and Chanda and beginning Hindi's premakhyan tradition.
Chandi Purana
Chandi Purana (ଚଣ୍ଡୀ ପୁରାଣ) is a 15th-century Odia epic poem by Sarala Das that retells the goddess Durga's war against the buffalo demon Mahishasura and helped begin classical Odia literature.
Chandimangal
Chandimangal (চণ্ডীমঙ্গল) is a Bengali mangal kavya, a narrative poem about the goddess Chandi establishing her cult, composed by Mukundaram Chakravarti in sixteenth-century West Bengal and valued for its picture of rural Bengal.
Chandrabati Ramayana
The Chandrabati Ramayana (চন্দ্রাবতীর রামায়ণ) is a sixteenth-century Bengali retelling of the Rama story from Sita's viewpoint, composed by Chandrabati, the first Bengali woman poet, in Mymensingh.
Chanson de geste
A chanson de geste is an Old French epic poem of the 11th to 13th centuries celebrating the exploits of heroes, most famously the Chanson de Roland.
Chanson de Guillaume
The Chanson de Guillaume, also known as La Chançun de Willame, is an Old French chanson de geste of the Guillaume d'Orange cycle, dating from the first half of the 12th century.
Chanson de la croisade albigeoise
The Chanson de la croisade albigeoise, also called the Canso de la crozada, is an Old Occitan verse chronicle of the Albigensian Crusade of 1209 to 1229.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is a long narrative poem in four cantos by Lord Byron, published between 1812 and 1818, based on his travels in southern Europe.
Chitrayogam
Chitrayogam (ചിത്രയോഗം), also titled Tharavali Chandrasenam, is a Malayalam mahakavya of 18 songs and 1,591 slokas by Vallathol Narayana Menon, composed in the Manipravalam style; a printed edition appeared in 1923.
Chivalric romance
Chivalric romance: medieval vernacular narratives of knightly adventure and courtly love, from Chrétien de Troyes and the Arthurian prose cycles to Malory, distinguished from the chanson de geste by focus on individual knights.
Christabel (poem)
Christabel is Samuel Taylor Coleridge's unfinished Gothic narrative poem about the maiden Christabel and the mysterious Geraldine; begun 1797-1800, excluded from Lyrical Ballads, published by John Murray in 1816, influential on Scott's verse form.
Chunhyangga
Chunhyangga (춘향가) is a Korean pansori, or sung narrative, that tells of the love between Chunhyang and Yi Mongryong of Namwon and her resistance to a corrupt magistrate.