National Epics

[Dillinger4]

It's got to be The Canterbury Tales. Great work, entered the national psyche (whatever that is), written to show off a new language of literature. It ticks all the boxes.

 

[Dirty Martini]

The King James Bible is a very good and interesting choice though.

 

[Reno]

Well, if you mean "rewritten to fit a 90 minute teleplay starring former soap stars and watched at christmas by people too overstuffed to move from the armchair" then yes, I guess you may be right.

If studied at school and shaping what the nation thinks of itself is what i mean by national psyche, i.e. refered to in high and low culture, a sense of pride that this country created it, a sense that it could only have been british etc etc, I'd suggest Shakespeare.

I think more people also know Shakespeare from adaptations than having actually read him by now, so that's no different.

I'm not saying you are wrong, there just isn't one defining literary epic for most cultures. I think it would be a sign of cultural poverty if there was.

 

[Dirty Martini]

The thing about The Canterbury Tales is that it is known about by many people who've never read it, in all parts of the world (in my experience). That's another qualification for a national epic.

 

[Sunspots]

Finland has The Kalevala.

Other examples here.

 

[Dirty Martini]

Finland has The Kalevala.

Nice one. (Had never heard of it )

Now I also know that it was translated into English by the splendidly named 'Francis Peabody Magoun Jr.'

 

[Sunspots]

Nice one. (Had never heard of it )

Now I also know that it was translated into English by the splendidly named 'Francis Peabody Magoun Jr.'

Sounds like a fine, upstanding gent.

I admire anybody that just decides they're going to master a foreign language, and then plumps for Finnish!

 

[chooch]

Are we discounting anonymous works?
The various strands of romance/matter of Britain/Arthury stuff have a much better claim to national epic, even though they include only a couple of works with a known author.

 

[butchersapron]

If Dickens isn't part of the "national psyche" (whatever that's supposed to mean) of British culture than I don't know what is. I was merely contesting the assertion that Britain didn't produce epic novels. I wasn't saying there was one single one.

For most countries there won't be a single novel that defines it's culture, as such the OP's request is contradictory. The are national epics like Beowulf, the Nibelungenlied and the Mahabarata which often don't have a single author and epic novels that sum up a time and place.

No one specified a novel to be fair.

 

[Dillinger4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_poetry

 

[Dillinger4]

And a list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_epic

 

[phildwyer]

Aye.

Wales - The Gododdin?

or How Green Was My Valley

Pobl y Cwm.

 

[Dirty Martini]

Not The Mabinogion?

 

[Belushi]

Pobl y Cwm.

I was well chuffed to discover my friends had S4C on Sky (digidol!) when I stayed with them last year.

After I made them sit through a ploughing contest and an episode of Pobl Y Cwm I was banned from having the remote again

 

[Fez909]

The Canterbury Tales? Le Morte d'Arthur? Is there a definitive Robin Hood book which the legend comes from?

 

[Belushi]

Not The Mabinogion?

Gelert.

 

[butchersapron]

I was well chuffed to discover my friends had S4C on Sky (digidol!) when I stayed with them last year.

After I made them sit through a ploughing contest and an episode of Pobl Y Cwm I was banned from having the remote again

You can get english subs if you watch via sky too.

 

[killer b]

i'd second the canterbury tales or morte d'arthur...

 

[Belushi]

You can get english subs if you watch via sky too.

Aye, thats for all the scousers who follow it.

 

[butchersapron]

Like little Michael Owen?

 

[Belushi]

Like little Michael Owen?

Aye. Ian Rush as well, he's mad for it.

 

[hondo]

Britain doesn't really have an agreed one: consensus.

.

The Diana inquest?