National epic

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. Thus, Beowulf can be the national epic of England, yet England is part of Western Civilization and thus also subscribes to the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer and the Aeneid of Vergil as pan-national epics.

History
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 Britain. 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 Vaz 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 the Scots 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."

Poetic epics
Examples of epics that have been enlisted as "national" include:

Africa

 * Egypt, Ancient - Story of Sinuhe
 * Mali - Epic of Sundiata

Americas

 * Argentina - Martín Fierro by José Hernández
 * Brazil -
 * A Confederação dos Tamoios by Gonçalves de Magalhães
 * Caramuru by Diogo Álvares Correia
 * Canada -
 * The Plains of Abraham by Jack Mitchell
 * Chile - La Araucana/The Araucaniad by Alonso de Ercilla y Zuñiga
 * Guatemala and Mexico-
 * Popul Vuh
 * Mexico
 * Ma zan moquetzacan by Nezahualcoyotl
 * 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
 * United States -
 * The Columbiad by Joel Barlow
 * The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 * Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

Asia

 * Arabs - Arabian Nights
 * Armenia - Sasna Dzrer,"Madmen of Sassoun", also translated "Daredevils of Sassoun" (also known as "Sasuntsi Davit" after its main character, David of Sasun)
 * Balochistan (region) - Hani and Sheh Mureed
 * Indian subcontinent
 * India, Nepal, Bhutan
 * Mahabharata
 * Ramayana
 * India (Tamil Nadu)
 * The Five Great Epics of Tamil Literature
 * Pakistan
 * Hamzanama
 * Sri Lanka
 * Mahavamsa
 * Iran and Persian speakers in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan
 * Shahnameh (legends and history of Iran from earliest times to the end of the Sassanid Empire)
 * Tabaristan - Hojabr soltan
 * Indonesia
 * Kakawin Rāmâyaṇa
 * Ramakavaca
 * Israel / Jewish people - Poetic sections of the Tanakh, i.e. the Hebrew Bible; the Book of Job is particularly cited
 * 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 - Epic of Manas
 * Laos - Phra Lak Phra Lam
 * Malaysia -
 * Hikayat Damak
 * Hikayat Hang Tuah
 * Sejarah Melayu
 * Hikayat Seri Rama
 * Mesopotamia - The Epic of Gilgamesh
 * Mongols (Kalmyks and Oirats) - Jangar
 * Secret History of the Mongols
 * Myanmar - Yama Zatdaw
 * Philippines -
 * Maradia Lawana
 * Hudhud
 * Florante at Laura
 * Ibong Adarna
 * Biag ni Lam-ang
 * Indarapatra at Sulayman
 * Tibet - Epic of King Gesar
 * Thailand - Ramakien
 * Vietnam -
 * Lac Long Quan myths
 * De dat de nuoc myths
 * Luc Van Tien
 * Cambodia - Reamker

Europe

 * Albania - Lahuta e Malcís (The Highland Lute) by Gjergj Fishta
 * Ancient Rome - Aeneid by Virgil
 * Armenia/ Greater Armenia of 9th century - David of Sasun
 * Belgium/ Flanders - De Leeuw van Vlaanderen ("The Lion of Flanders")
 * Catalonia - L'Atlàntida (1877) and Canigó (1886) by Jacint Verdaguer
 * Croatia - Judita by Marko Marulić; Vazetje Sigeta grada by Brne Karnarutić; Osman by Ivan Gundulić; Gvozdansko by Ante Tresić Pavičić
 * Denmark - Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus (the main inspiration to Hamlet by Shakespeare)
 * England -
 * Beowulf
 * Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser
 * Henriad by William Shakespeare
 * Paradise Lost by John Milton
 * Estonia - Kalevipoeg by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald
 * Europe and Western civilization generally - Iliad and Odyssey by Homer and Aeneid by Virgil
 * Finland - Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot
 * France - La Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland) about Roland/Orlando.
 * Galicia - Os Eoas by Eduardo Pondal
 * Georgia - The Knight in the Panther's Skin by Shota Rustaveli
 * Germany - Nibelungenlied
 * Greece, Ancient (Hellas and Mediterranean Greek colonies) - Iliad and Odyssey by Homer
 * Greece (Byzantine Empire) - Digenis Acritas
 * Hungary - Peril of Sziget (Szigeti Veszedelem) by Miklós Zrínyi
 * Iceland - The Poetic Edda
 * Ireland - Táin Bó Cúailnge
 * Italy - The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
 * 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
 * Poland - Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz
 * Romania - Miorița
 * Russia - Слово о полку Игореве (Tale of Igor's Campaign)
 * Scotland - The Brus by John Barbour (poet); Ossian by James Macpherson
 * Serbia and Montenegro - The Mountain Wreath by Petar Petrović Njegoš (Serbian epic poetry)
 * Slovenia - The Baptism at the Savica by France Prešeren
 * Sorbs - Nawozenja (The Bridegroom) by Jakub Bart-Cisinski
 * Spain - Cantar de Mio Cid (about the early Reconquista)
 * Udmurts - Dorvyzhy by Mihail Hudjakov
 * Ukraine - Слово о полку Ігоревім (The Tale of Ihor's Campaign)
 * Wales - Mabinogion

Prose epics
Some prose works, while not strictly epic poetry, have an important place in the national consciousness of their nations. These include the following:
 * Britain -
 * Historia Regum Britanniae
 * Le Morte d'Arthur
 * Canada -
 * Anne of Green Gables
 * Catalonia -
 * Gesta comitum Barcinonensium
 * The Four Great Chronicles:
 * Llibre dels fets
 * Crònica de Bernat Desclot
 * Crònica de Ramon Muntaner
 * Crònica de Pere el Cerimoniós
 * Tirant lo Blanch, an epic romance, one of the best works of Catalan medieval literature.
 * China -
 * Romance of the Three Kingdoms (novel)
 * Water Margin (novel)
 * Fengshen Yanyi (novel)
 * Journey to the West (novel)
 * Dream of the Red Chamber (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.
 * 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 - Les Misérables (A novel spanning a crucial era of French History)
 * Germany - The Sorrows of Young Werther (a widely influential epistolary tragic novel)
 * Scandinavia and Iceland - The Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson
 * Ireland
 * Táin Bó Cúailnge (Prose narration with poetic interludes)
 * Ulysses (20th Century adaptation of Homer's Odyssey by James Joyce)
 * Israel / Jewish people - Torah (especially the Book of Exodus), along with rest of the Tanakh, i.e. the Hebrew Bible
 * Italy -
 * The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni
 * Japan -
 * Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters)
 * Nihon Shoki/Nihongi (The Chronicles of 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
 * 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
 * Portugal - Peregrinação (see Fernão Mendes Pinto)
 * Philippines
 * Maragtas
 * Noli Me Tangere
 * El filibusterismo
 * Banaag at Sikat
 * Mga Ibong Mandaragit
 * Luha ng Buwaya
 * Russia -
 * Zadonshchina
 * War and Peace
 * Scotland- Robert Burns - Scots Wha Hae
 * Spain - Don Quixote
 * Sweden - The Emigrant Cycle
 * Switzerland - William Tell (play)
 * 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
 * Gone With the Wind
 * Moby-Dick
 * Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
 * The Grapes of Wrath
 * Venezuela - Doña Bárbara
 * Wales - the Mabinogion

External Source

 * Full text epics in the original languages