Epic Poetry - Notable Epic Poems - Modern Epics (from 1500)

Modern Epics (from 1500)

• 16th century:
  • Orlando furioso by Ludovico Ariosto (1516)
  • Os Lusíadas by Luís de Camões (c.1555)
  • La Araucana by Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga (1569–1589)
  • La Gerusalemme liberata by Torquato Tasso (1575)
  • Ramacharitamanasa (based on the Ramayana) by Goswami Tulsidas (1577)
  • Lepanto by King James VI of Scotland (1591)
  • Matilda by Michael Drayton (1594)
  • The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser (1596)

• 17th century:
  • The Barons' Wars by Michael Drayton (1603; early version 1596 entitled Mortimeriados)
  • The Whole Works of Homer Prince of Poets by George Chapman (1616) a retelling of the Iliad and Odyssey in iambic rhyming couplets: the Iliad in iambic heptameter, and the Odyssey in iambic pentameter.
  • Les Tragiques by Agrippa D'Aubigné (1616)
  • The Purple Island by Phineas Fletcher (1633)
  • Biag ni Lam-ang by Pedro Bucaneg (1640)
  • Szigeti veszedelem, also known under the Latin title Obsidionis Szigetianae, a Hungarian epic by Miklós Zrínyi (1651)
  • Davideis by Abraham Cowley (c. 1668)
  • Paradise Lost by John Milton (1667)
  • Paradise Regained by John Milton (1671)
  • Wojna chocimska by Wacław Potocki (1672)
  • Prince Arthur by Richard Blackmore (1695)
  • King Arthur by Richard Blackmore (1697)
• 18th century:
  • Kumulipo by Keaulumoku (1700) an Ancient Hawaiian cosmogonic genealogy first published in (1889)
  • Eliza by Richard Blackmore (1705)
  • Columbus by Ubertino Carrara (1714)
  • Redemption by Richard Blackmore (1722)
  • Henriade by Voltaire (1723)
  • La Pucelle d'Orléans by Voltaire (1756)
  • Alfred by Richard Blackmore (1723)
  • Utendi wa Tambuka by Bwana Mwengo (1728)
  • Leonidas by Richard Glover (1737)
  • Epigoniad by William Wilkie (1757)
  • The Highlander; by James Macpherson (1758)
  • The Works of Ossian by James MacPherson (1765)
  • O Uraguai by Basílio da Gama (1769)
  • Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire** by Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill (1773)
  • Der Messias by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1773)
  • Rossiada by Mikhail Matveyevich Kheraskov (1771–1779)
  • Vladimir by Mikhail Matveyevich Kheraskov (1785)
  • Athenaid by Richard Glover (1787)
  • Joan of Arc by Robert Southey (1796)
  • Hermann and Dorothea by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1797)

• 19th century:
  • The Tale of Kiều by Nguyễn Du (1800?)
  • Thalaba the Destroyer by Robert Southey (1801)
  • The Lay of the Last Minstrel by Walter Scott (1805)
  • Madoc by Robert Southey (1805)
  • Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (part 1 1806, part 2 c. 1833)
  • Columbiad by Joel Barlow (1807)
  • Milton: a Poem by William Blake (1804–1810)
  • Marmion (poem) by Walter Scott (1808)
  • The Lady of the Lake (poem) by Walter Scott (1810)
  • The Vision of Don Roderick by Walter Scott (1811)
  • The Curse of Kehama by Robert Southey (1810)
  • Rokeby and The Bridal of Triermain by Walter Scott (1813)
  • Queen Mab (poem) by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1813)
  • Roderick the Last of the Goths by Robert Southey (1814)
  • The Lord of the Isles by Walter Scott (1813)
  • Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1815)
  • The Revolt of Islam (Laon and Cyntha) by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1817)
  • Harold the Dauntless by Walter Scott (1817)
  • Endymion, (1818) by John Keats
  • The Battle of Marathon by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1820)
  • Hyperion, (1818), and The Fall of Hyperion, (1819) by John Keats
  • L'Orléanide, Poème national en vingt-huit chants, by Philippe-Alexandre Le Brun de Charmettes (1821)
  • Phra Aphai Mani by Sunthorn Phu (1821 or 1823–1845)
  • Don Juan by Lord Byron (1824)
  • Prometheus Bound by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1833)
  • Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz (1834)
  • Krst pri Savici by France Prešeren (1835)
  • The Seraphim by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1838)
  • Smrt Smail-age Čengića by Ivan Mažuranić (1846)
  • Evangeline by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1847)
  • The Mountain Wreath by Petar II Petrović-Njegoš (1847)
  • Lazarica or Battle of Kosovo by Joksim Nović-Otočanin (1847)
  • Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot (1849 Finnish mythology)
  • Kalevipoeg by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald (1853 Estonian mythology)
  • The Prelude by William Wordsworth
  • Song of Myself by Walt Whitman (1855)
  • The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1855)
  • Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1860)
  • La Fin de Satan by Victor Hugo (written between 1855 and 1860, published in 1886)
  • La Légende des Siècles (The Legend of the Centuries) by Victor Hugo (1859–1877)
  • The Ring and the Book by Robert Browning (1868-69)
  • Martín Fierro by José Hernández (1872)
  • Idylls of the King by Alfred Lord Tennyson (c. 1874)
  • Clarel by Herman Melville (1876)
  • L'Atlàntida by Jacint Verdaguer (1877)
  • The City of Dreadful Night by James Thomson (B.V.) (finished in 1874, published in 1880)
  • Eros and Psyche by Robert Bridges (1885)
  • Canigó by Jacint Verdaguer (1886)
  • Lāčplēsis ('The Bear-Slayer') by Andrejs Pumpurs (1888; Latvian Mythology)
  • The Wanderings of Oisin by William Butler Yeats (1889)

• 20th century:
  • Lahuta e Malcís by Gjergj Fishta (composed 1902-1937)
  • Drake: An English Epic (1905–1908), The Torch-Bearers (1917–1930) by Alfred Noyes
  • The Ballad of the White Horse by G. K. Chesterton (1911)
  • Mensagem by Fernando Pessoa (composed 1913-1934)
  • The Cantos by Ezra Pound (composed 1915-1969)
  • Celebration of the Lizard by The Doors (composed 1965-1968)
  • The Hashish-Eater; Or, The Apocalypse of Evil by Clark Ashton Smith (1920)
  • The Bridge by Hart Crane (1930)
  • Kurukshetra(Epic Poem) (1946), Rashmirathi (1952), Urvashi (1961), Hunkar by Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar'
  • Savitri by Aurobindo Ghose (1950)
  • The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel by Nikos Kazantzakis (Greek verse, composed 1924-1938)
  • Dymer by C. S. Lewis (1926)
  • A Cycle of the West by John Neihardt (composed 1921-1949)
  • "A" by Louis Zukofsky (composed 1928-1968)
  • Paterson by William Carlos Williams (composed c.1940-1961)
  • Victory for the Slain by Hugh John Lofting (1942)
  • The Maximus Poems by Charles Olson (composed 1950-1970)
  • Libretto for the Republic of Liberia by Melvin B. Tolson (1953)
  • Aniara by Harry Martinson (composed 1956)
  • Mountains and Rivers Without End by Gary Snyder (composed 1965-1996)
  • Helen in Egypt by H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) (1974)
  • The Changing Light at Sandover by James Merrill (composed 1976-1982)
  • The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You by Frank Stanford (published 1977)
  • Hindi: Lalita Ke Aansoo by Krant M. L. Verma (Published 1978)
  • The Legend of Te Tuna by Richard Adams (published 1982)
  • Omeros by Derek Walcott (1990)
  • The Levant by Mircea Cărtărescu (1990)
  • Astronautilía Hvězdoplavba by Jan Křesadlo (1995)
  • The Descent of Alette by Alice Notley (1996)
  • Cheikh Anta Diop: Poem for the Living by Mwatabu S. Okantah (1997)
  • The Folding Cliffs by W.S. Merwin (1998)
  • The Dream of Norumbega: Epic on the U.S. by James Wm. Chichetto (c. 1990; p. 2000- )
  • Cerulean Odyssey: Journey of a Long Distance Voyager. by Gerrit Verstraete (c. 2004-2012, 10 Volumes - the longest epic written in Canadian literary history, comprising 148,518 words and 27,548 lines)