A national epic is an epic poem or a literary work of epic scope which seeks or is believed to capture and express the essence or spirit of a particular nation; not necessarily a nation state, but at least an ethnic or linguistic group with aspirations to independence or autonomy. National epics frequently recount the origin of a nation, a part of its history, or a crucial event in the development of national identity such as other national symbols. In a broader sense, a national epic may simply be an epic in the national language which the people or government of that nation are particularly proud of. It is distinct from a pan-national epic which is taken as representative of a larger cultural or linguistic group than a nation or a nation-state.
In medieval times Homer's Iliad was taken to be based on historical facts, and the Trojan War came to be considered as seminal in the genealogies of European monarchies. Virgil's Aeneid was taken to be the Roman equivalent of the Iliad, starting from the Fall of Troy and leading up to the birth of the young Roman nation. According to the then prevailing conception of history, empires were born and died in organic succession and correspondences existed between the past and the present. Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th century classically inspired Historia Regum Britanniae, for example, fulfilled this function for the British or Welsh. Just as kings longed to emulate great leaders of the past, Alexander or Caesar, it was a temptation for poets to become a new Homer or Virgil. In 16th century Portugal, Luis de Camões celebrated Portugal as a naval power in his Os Lusíadas while Pierre de Ronsard set out to write La Franciade, an epic meant to be the Gallic equivalent of Virgil's poem that also traced back France's ancestry to Trojan princes.
The emergence of a national ethos, however, preceded the coining of the phrase national epic, which seems to originate with Romantic nationalism. Where no obvious national epic existed, the "Romantic spirit" was motivated to fill it. An early example of poetry that was invented to fill a perceived gap in "national" myth is Ossian, the narrator and supposed author of a cycle of poems by James Macpherson, which Macpherson claimed to have translated from ancient sources in Scottish Gaelic. However, many national epics (including Macpherson's Ossian) antedate 19th-century romanticism.
In the early 20th century, the phrase no longer necessarily applies to an epic poem, and occurs to describe a literary work that readers and critics agree is emblematical of the literature of a nation, without necessarily including details from that nation's historical background. In this context the phrase has definitely positive connotations, as for example in James Joyce's Ulysses where it is suggested Don Quixote is Spain's national epic while Ireland's remains as yet unwritten:
They remind one of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Our national epic has yet to be written, Dr Sigerson says. Moore is the man for it. A knight of the rueful countenance here in Dublin.
Examples of epics that have been enlisted as "national" include:
Ethiopia – Kebra Nagast
Mali – Epic of Sundiata
Nigeria –
Epic of Bayajidda
Itan
Tale of Eri
Argentina –
Martín Fierro by José Hernández
Brazil –
A Confederação dos Tamoios by Gonçalves de Magalhães
Caramuru by Diogo Álvares Correia
Chile – La Araucana/The Araucaniad by Alonso de Ercilla y Zuñiga
United States –
The Columbiad by Joel Barlow
The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Evangeline by Longfellow (shared with Canada)
The Cantos by Ezra Pound
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Uruguay –
La Leyenda Patria by Juan Zorrilla de San Martín
Venezuela –
Venezuela Heroica by Eduardo Blanco
Cambodia – Reamker
Georgia – The Knight in the Panther's Skin by Shota Rustaveli
Indian subcontinent
India / Nepal / Bhutan / Ancient Hindus
Mahabharata
Ramayana
Tirukkural
Silappathikaram
Pakistan
Hamzanama
Sri Lanka
Mahavamsa
Iran and Persian speakers
Shahnameh (legends and history of Iran from earliest times to the end of the Sassanid Empire)
Book of the Deeds of Ardeshir, Son of Papak (Epic story that narrates the story of Ardashir I)
Amir Arsalan
Iraq / Babylonians / Mesopotamia – Epic of Gilgamesh
Indonesia
Kakawin Rāmâyaṇa
Ramakavaca
Israel / Hebrews – Book of Job (and other poetic sections of the Tanakh, i.e. the Hebrew Bible)
Japan
The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (Taketori Monogatari)
The Tale of the Heike (Heike Monogatari)
Kipchaks (e.g. in Tatarstan) – Chora Batir
Korea
Jewang Ungi by Yi Seung-hyu
Kyrgyz people – Epic of Manas
Laos – Phra Lak Phra Lam
Malaysia –
Hikayat Hang Tuah
Hikayat Seri Rama
Sejarah Melayu
Mongols (Kalmyks and Oirats) – Epic of Jangar
The Secret History of the Mongols
Myanmar – Yama Zatdaw
Philippines –
Biag ni Lam-ang
Florante at Laura
Hinilawod
Hudhud
Ibalon
Ibong Adarna
Maradia Lawana
Tibet – Epic of King Gesar
Thailand – Ramakien
Vietnam –
Lạc Long Quân
Đam San
Albania – Lahuta e Malcís (The Highland Lute) by Gjergj Fishta
Ancient Rome – Aeneid by Virgil
Armenia – Daredevils of Sassoun (also known as "Sasuntsi Davit" after its main character, David of Sasun)
Belgium / Flanders – De Leeuw van Vlaanderen ("The Lion of Flanders")
Bulgaria –
Епопея на Забравените (Epic of the Forgotten) by Ivan Vazov
Catalonia – L'Atlàntida (1877) and Canigó (1886) by Jacint Verdaguer
Croatia –
Judita by Marko Marulić
England
The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Paradise Lost by John Milton
Beowulf
Charge of the Light Brigade, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Estonia – Kalevipoeg by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald
Europe and Western civilization generally –
Iliad and Odyssey by Homer
Aeneid by Virgil
Finland – Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot
France – La Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland) about Roland/Orlando.
Georgia – The Knight in the Panther's Skin by Shota Rustaveli
Germany
Nibelungenlied
Faust
Greece, Ancient (Hellas and Mediterranean Greek colonies) – Iliad and Odyssey by Homer
Greece (Byzantine Empire) – Digenes Akritas
Hungary – Siege of Sziget (Szigeti Veszedelem) by Miklós Zrínyi
Iceland – The Poetic Edda
Ireland
Táin Bó Cúailnge
Fenian Cycle
Lebor Gabála Érenn
Ulster Cycle
Italy –
Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto
Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso
Latvia – Lāčplēsis by Andrejs Pumpurs
Lithuania – The Seasons by Kristijonas Donelaitis
Luxembourg – Rénert the Fox by Michel Rodange
Portugal –
Os Lusíadas ("The Lusiads") by Luís de Camões
Message by Fernando Pessoa
Poland – Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz
Romania – Miorița
Scotland –
The Brus by John Barbour
Ossian by James Macpherson
The Wallace by Blind Harry
Serbia and Montenegro – The Mountain Wreath by Petar II Petrović-Njegoš (Serbian epic poetry)
Slovakia -
Svatopluk by Ján Hollý
Slávy Dcera by Ján Kollár
Slovenia – The Baptism on the Savica, by France Prešeren
Spain –
Cantar de Mio Cid
Mocedades de Rodrigo
La Araucana by Alonso de Ercilla (shared with Chile)
Udmurts – Dorvyzhy
Some prose works, while not strictly epic poetry, have an important place in the national consciousness of their nations. These include the following:
Arabs – Arabian Nights
Argentina –
Facundo by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento
Britain –
Historia Regum Britanniae
Le Morte d'Arthur
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Henriad I and II, by William Shakespeare
Canada –
Anne of Green Gables
Wacousta
Catalonia –
Gesta comitum Barcinonensium
The Four Great Chronicles:
Llibre dels fets by James I of Aragon
Crònica by Bernat Desclot
Crònica de Ramon Muntaner
Crònica de Pere el Cerimoniós by Peter IV of Aragon
Tirant lo Blanch, an epic romance, one of the best works of Catalan medieval literature.
Chile
Martín Rivas by Alberto Blest Gana, a 19th Century Social Realist Romance novel on the Chilean revolution of the 1850s
China
Four Great Classical Novels (impact across the East Asian cultural sphere)
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Water Margin
Journey to the West
Dream of the Red Chamber
Fengshen Yanyi (novel)
Colombia –
Cien Años de Soledad, (One Hundred Years of Solitude) a contemporary novel that parallels Colombian history in the fictional town of Macondo.
La Vorágine, (The Vortex) a contemporary novel with prosaic poetic interuldes that depicts life in the great pastures, the immensity and overwhelming nature of the Amazon jungle and the appalling conditions under which workers in rubber factories toil.
En la diestra de Dios padre, (At God's Right Side) a costumbrist novel depicting life and culture in the Paisa Region
María, a costumbrist novel.
Denmark – Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus (the main inspiration to Hamlet by Shakespeare)
Ecuador
Cumandá Romantico national novel written by Juan León Mera
Egypt / Ancient Egyptians – Story of Sinuhe
England –
The Ecclesiastical History of the English People by Bede
Ethiopia – Kebra Nagast
Flanders (Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) –
De Leeuw van Vlaanderen ("The Lion of Flanders")
France
Historia Francorum
Les Misérables (a novel spanning a crucial era of French history)
Georgia
The Right Hand of the Grand Master - Konstantine Gamsakhurdia
Data Tutashkhia - Chabua Amirejibi
A Man Was Going Down the Road - Otar Chiladze
Germany – The Sorrows of Young Werther (a widely influential epistolary tragic novel)
Guatemala and Mexico-
Popol Vuh
Scandinavia and Iceland – The Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson
Iceland - Njáls saga
Ireland
Táin Bó Cúailnge (Prose narration with poetic interludes)
Ulysses (20th century adaptation of Homer's Odyssey by James Joyce)
Israel / Hebrews – Book of Exodus (along with rest of the Tanakh, i.e. the Hebrew Bible; especially the Torah)
Italy –
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni
Japan –
The Tale of Genji (Genji Monogatari) by Murasaki Shikibu
Korea – Samguk Yusa (prose with songs)
Lithuania – Anykščių šilelis by Antanas Baranauskas
Mayans – Popol Vuh
Mexico
Visión de Anáhuac by Alfonso Reyes
Estas ruinas que ves by Jorge Ibargüengoitia
Clemencia by Ignacio Manuel Altamirano
La muerte del tigre by Rosario Castellanos
El éxodo y las flores del camino by Amado Nervo
Gringo viejo by Carlos Fuentes
Mongolia –
Borte Chino
The Secret History of the Mongols (Genghis Khan's biography)
Netherlands
Van den vos Reynaerde – (The local Netherlandic tale about the trickster fox Reynard) by an anonymous 13th century Dutch writer)
Max Havelaar – Multatuli
De avonden – Gerard Reve
Norway – Heimskringla by Snorri Sturluson
Poland
Stara Baśń – Józef Ignacy Kraszewski
The Trilogy – Henryk Sienkiewicz
Chłopi – Władysław Reymont
Wesele – Stanisław Wyspiański
Portugal – Peregrinação (see Fernão Mendes Pinto)
Philippines
Maragtas
Noli Me Tangere
El filibusterismo
Banaag at Sikat
Mga Ibong Mandaragit
Luha ng Buwaya
Russia –
Primary Chronicle – Nestor the Chronicler
Zadonshchina
War and Peace and Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
Scotland –
Scots Wha Hae – Robert Burns
Sunset Song – Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Rob Roy- Sir Walter Scott
Spain –
La Celestina by Fernando de Rojas
Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes
Sweden – The Emigrant Cycle
Switzerland – William Tell
Tatar – "Chora Batir"
Turkic peoples –
Alpamysh (all Central Asia)
Book of Dede Korkut (Oghuz nations: Azerbaijan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Turcomans of Iraq, as well as Central Asia and other Turkic nations)
Oghuz-nameh (Oghuz nations: Azerbaijan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Turcomans of Iraq)
Ergenekon legend (Turkey)
Koroglu (Azerbaijan and Turkey)
Kutadgu Bilig (Central Asia, Uighurs and other Turkic nations)
United States –
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by American satirist Mark Twain
Moby-Dick, the 19th century classic novel by Herman Melville
The Great Gatsby novel set in the Roaring Twenties by F. Scott Fitzgerald
On the Road, 20th cenury novel by Jack Kerouac
The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, a novel set during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Venezuela – Doña Bárbara by Romulo Gallegos, a novel detailing the struggle between civilization and barbarism in early 20th century, as well as a psychological study of the Venezuelan plainsmen.
Wales – Mabinogion
