Closed Versus Open Narration, Epic Versus Novel

Closed Versus Open Narration, Epic versus Novel

Arms I sing—and the man,
The first to come from the shores
Of Troy, exiled by Fate, to Italy
And the Lavinian coast; a man battered
On land and sea by the powers above
In the face of Juno’s relentless wrath;
A man who also suffered greatly in war
Until he could found his city and bring his gods
into Latium, from which arose
the Latin people, our Alban forefathers,
And the high walls of everlasting Troy (The Aeneid)

No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed
her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her….She had a thin awkward figure, a sallow skin without colour, dark lank hair, and strong features—so much for her person—and not less unproptitious for heroism seemed her mind. She was fond of all boy’s plays, and greatly preferred cricket not merely to dolls, but to the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a dormouse, fedding a canary-bird, or watering a rose bush. Indeed, she had no taste for a garden. (Northanger Abbey)

I resisted all the way; a new thing for me, and a circumstance which greately strengthened the bad opinion Bessie and Miss Abbot were disposed to entertain of me. The fact is, I was a trifle beside myself; or rather out of myself, as the French would say: I was conscious that a moment’s mutiny had already rendered me liable to strange penalties and, like any other rebel-slave, I felt resolved, in my desperation, to go al lengths. (Jane Eyre)

Rage:
Sing, Goddess, Achilles’ rage,
Black and murderous, that cost the Greeks
Incalculable pain, pitched countless souls
Of Heroes into Hades’ dark,
and left their bodies to rot as feasts
For dogs and birds, as Zeus’ will was done.
Begin with the clash between Agamemnon-
the Greek warloard—and godlike Achilles (Illiad)

On the pleasant banks of the Garonne, in the province of Gascony, stood, in the year 1585, the chateau of Monsieur St Aubert. From its windows were seen the pastoral landscapes of Guienne and Gascony, stretching along the river, gay with luxuriant woods and vines, and plantations of olives. To the south, the view was bounded by the majestic Pyrenees, whose summits, veiled in clouds, or exhibiting awful forms, seen, and lost again, as the partial vapours rolled along, were sometimes barren, and gleamed through the blue tinge of air, and sometimes frowned with forests of gloomy pine, that swept downward to their base. (Udolpho)