From The Odyssey to Viking Age sagas, One Thousand and One Nights to Star Wars and Game of Thrones, the epic has fascinated readers and writers for centuries. In this topic, students will engage with epic stories – ancient and new – to explore their enduring popularity. We will consider a range of media and texts and analyse key aspects of the epic form, including: heroes, voyages to distant lands, sweeping casts of characters, mythic and memorable tones. Students will reflect upon significant themes and elements of the genre when constructing imaginative works of their own.
This topic aims to provide students with the opportunity to create a single piece of prose fiction that engages with concepts, themes, and structures of epic literature. Students will research and read selected examples of epic literature and draw on this as inspiration for their own fiction.
Timetable details for 2021 are no longer published.