Epic Tradition

Web Resources on Epic

Orality and Literacy

John Miles Foley, eCompanion to How to Read an Oral Poem features audio clips to Beowulf and the Yugoslav epic Widow Jana, videos of slam poetry, and an annotated bibliography.

Oral Tradition, the only academic journal devoted entirely to the world's oral traditions, ancient to contemporary.

Homer's Odyssey

Map showing Homeric geography

Ancient Images of the Trojan War (Robin Mitchell-Boyask)

Homer and Greek Oral Poetry (Perseus)

"Remaking Greek Civilization," Greek history at the time of Homer's Odyssey, from Thomas Martin's Overview of Archaic and Classical Greek History. (Sections 1-16)

Georg Danek and Stefan Hagel, Homeric Singing: An Approach to the Original Performance

Vases picturing scenes from the Odyssey (Perseus)

Study Guide for Homer's Odyssey, by Robin Mitchell-Boyask

On-line text of Homer's Odyssey

The Homer Homepage

Vergil's Aeneid

Map of the Roman Empire in the time of Augustus

Map of Italy (IAM) (PDF)

Portrait and Background on Augustus (Riley Collection)

Introduction and Study Guide for Vergil's Aeneid, by Roger Dunkle

An outline of the Aeneid (Scaife)

Vergil's Aeneid Resource page (Reed College) includes FAQs, modern views, e-texts, study guides, brief bibliography

Aeneid Image Gallery (HistoryWiz)

Vergil's Dido, A Multimedia Path, by Mark Morford

Listen to a reading (in Latin) of the end of the Aeneid (12.926-52)

virgil.org, lots of great resources

Vergil's Home Page, including images and an on-line Latin text and English commentary

A Bibliographic Guide to Vergil's Aeneid

On-line text of Vergil's Aeneid (Perseus)

Libretto of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas

Video of Dido's lament, from Henry Purcell's opera, Dido and Aeneas

Song of Roland

Map of southwest Europe in 800 CE

Chronology of medieval Europe (EAWC)

Diane Thompson, Song of Roland Study Guide (Northern Virginia Community College)

Images of Roland in medieval art

Joanne Viano, Song of Roland Resources, organized by the Norman Conquest, the Song of Roland, Charlemagne, Feudalism and Chivalry, and the Crusades

The Orb: Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies (ORB)

Epic of Sunjata

Sunjata characters

Cora Agatucci, Epic of Sundjata (Central Oregon Community College) includes a brief history of the Mali empire, summary of the epic, and discussion of griots

Sunjata (History through literature project)

West African musical instruments: the balaphone; the kora (Cora Connection)

Walcott's Omeros

Biographies of Derek Walcott: at NobelPrize.org; at Poets.org

Derek Walcott's Omeros synopsis and study guide (Dr. Fidel Fajardo-Acosta)

Watercolors by Derek Walcott

Map of St Lucia (WorldAtlas.com)

St. Lucia (CIA World FactBook) includes a map and brief descriptions of the geography, people, government, economy, communications, transportation, military and transnational issues.

St. Lucia.org, official website of the St. Lucia Tourist Board

WikiOmeros, links and citations to names, places, images, and terms used in Derek Walcott's Omeros (English Department, University of Warwick)