section_path: Genres/Epic poetry
section_name: Epic poetry
paragraph_text: Epic poetry
  
  Epic poetry is a genre of poetry, and a major form of narrative literature. This genre is often defined as lengthy poems concerning events of a heroic or important nature to the culture of the time. It recounts, in a continuous narrative, the life and works of a heroic or mythological person or group of persons.
  
  Examples of epic poems are Homer 's Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil 's Aeneid, the Nibelungenlied, Luís de Camões ' Os Lusíadas, the Cantar de Mio Cid, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Mahabharata, Lönnrot 's Kalevala, Valmiki 's Ramayana, Ferdowsi 's Shahnama, Nizami (or Nezami)'s Khamse (Five Books), and the Epic of King Gesar.
  
  While the composition of epic poetry, and of long poems generally, became less common in the west after the early 20th century, some notable epics have continued to be written. The Cantos by Ezra Pound, Helen in Egypt by H.D., and Paterson by William Carlos Williams are examples of modern epics. Derek Walcott won a Nobel prize in 1992 to a great extent on the basis of his epic, Omeros.