The genre of the epic novel is deservedly considered by many researchers to be the pinnacle of literary skill for its complexity and versatility. There are relatively few examples of epic novels in literature, since not every author is able to cope with the task of writing such a large-scale work.
The genre of the epic novel was born from the unification of the novel and the epic. Having understood the peculiarities of these genres, you can most clearly understand what this hybrid genre is.
What is a novel?
The subject of attention of any novel is the personality of the protagonist, who is going through a difficult, unusual period of his life. As a rule, this is a large-scale work with a beginning, a climax and a denouement, in which changes in the personality of the leading characters occur as a response to the prevailing circumstances. The circumstances themselves are in the background and serve as a "playground", while the main focus is on the personality of the hero.
In world literature, one of the first and purest examples of the novel is considered to be the novel "The Golden Donkey" by Apuleius. In domestic literature, the beginning of the novel was laid by Faddey Bulgarin and his works "Ivan Vyzhigin" and "Pyotr Ivanovich Vyzhigin", written in the late twenties of the 19th century.
What is an epic?
The epic genre is in many ways similar to the novel genre. It has the same structure and, as a rule, a large volume, but there is one fundamental difference. If in the novel attention is focused on the personality and character of the protagonist, then in the epic the subject of attention is significant historical or fantastic events and their development over time. The presence of one or several heroes in the epic is not excluded, but they are relegated to the background, since the primary task is to tell about large-scale events, the reasons for their occurrence, development and completion.
Classic examples of epics are the ancient Sumerian Epic and Gilgamesh, as well as the Scandinavian sagas Younger Edda and Elder Edda.
Features of the genre epic novel
The epic novel has features of both genres and the main difficulty of writing it lies in their harmonious combination. His text combines the life path and personal changes of the heroes with a description and analysis of major historical events. These processes influence each other and in the text they are given equal attention, while the main characters are several characters at once. This structure of the work is clearly visible in Homer's Odyssey, which is considered to be one of the first examples of epic novels. In it, Homer describes both the fantastic journey of Odysseus, which is an independent plot unit in this work, and the fate of the king of Ithaca himself, as well as his wife Penelope, directly related to this event.
In Russian literature, striking examples of epic novels are the novel by L. N. Tolstoy's "War and Peace", which describes the fate of several families during the war with Napoleon, as well as "Quiet Don" by Sholokhov, dedicated to the life of the Don Cossacks during the era of the October Revolution and the Civil War.
