Epic

Epic, long narrative poem concerned with heroism. Gilgamesh, the earliest known epic, dates from 2000 B.C. Many epics, such as the Odyssey, the Iliad, and Beowulf, existed as oral tradition before being written down. Literary epics, such as Vergil's Aeneid, Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene, and John Milton's Paradise Lost, depict the eras of their heroes.