{{inline, date=January 2020 In 20th century studies of oral poetry and traditional literature, the Heroic Age was postulated as a stage in the development of human societies likely to give rise to legends about heroic deeds. According to some theorists, oral

epic poetry An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. ...

would be created at the same period, and would be transmitted, by singers who displayed less creativity, through later periods. Scholars who adopted the theory of a Heroic Age include: *

Maurice Bowra Sir Cecil Maurice Bowra, (; 8 April 1898 – 4 July 1971) was an English classical scholar, literary critic and academic, known for his wit. He was Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, from 1938 to 1970, and served as Vice-Chancellor of the Unive ...

Hector Munro Chadwick Hector Munro Chadwick (22 October 1870 – 2 January 1947) was an English philologist. Chadwick was the Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and the founder and head of the Department for Anglo-Saxon and Kindred Studies at the U ...

and Nora Kershaw Chadwick A widely shared view was that each society would pass through a Heroic Age only once. This apparently explains why, in the Chadwicks' world survey of oral and traditional poetry, ''The Growth of Literature'', medieval European epics such as the French ''

Chansons de geste The ''chanson de geste'' (, from Latin 'deeds, actions accomplished') is a medieval narrative, a type of epic poem that appears at the dawn of French literature. The earliest known poems of this genre date from the late 11th and early 12th cen ...

'' and the Spanish '' Cantar de Mio Cid'' are omitted: those societies are taken to have passed through a Heroic Age earlier. Bryan Hainsworth has suggested that in the various so-called Heroic Ages named by modern scholars "what is described is a by-product ... of the tendency of heroic poetry to congeal into cycles, often ... around a signal event" (1993, p. 40).

Historicity of the Ages

Oral tales have been formed into classic literature centuries later, so that the historicity of the events is left to uncertainty. The Greek Heroic Age as described in the ''

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Odys ...

'' is dated to historic events in 1460 to 1103 BC according to the chronology of Saint Jerome. The

Germanic Heroic Age The Germanic (or "German") Heroic Age, so called in analogy to the Heroic Age of Greek mythology, is the period of early historic or quasi-historic events reflected in Germanic heroic poetry. Periodisation The period corresponds to the Germani ...

as reflected in the Nibelungen can be dated to the 5th century picking up scenes from the foundation of Germanic kingdoms in Western Europe near the end of the first phase of the Völkerwanderung. The literature characters may refer to the historic

Brunhilda Brunhilda may refer to: * Brunhild, a figure in Germanic heroic legend * Brunhilda of Austrasia (c. 543–613), Frankish queen * ''Brunhilda'' (bird), a genus of birds See also * * * Broom-Hilda, an American newspaper comic strip * Broomhild ...

(543–613) and

Gundobad Gundobad ( la, Flavius Gundobadus; french: Gondebaud, Gondovald; 452 – 516 AD) was King of the Burgundians (473 – 516), succeeding his father Gundioc of Burgundy. Previous to this, he had been a patrician of the moribund Western Roman E ...

(480–516). The

Tamils The Tamil people, also known as Tamilar ( ta, தமிழர், Tamiḻar, translit-std=ISO, in the singular or ta, தமிழர்கள், Tamiḻarkaḷ, translit-std=ISO, label=none, in the plural), or simply Tamils (), are a Drav ...

South India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union t ...

have an extensive literature describing their Heroic Age (the

Sangam period The Sangam period or age (, ), particularly referring to the third Sangam period, is the period of the history of ancient Tamil Nadu, Kerala and parts of Sri Lanka (then known as Tamilakam) spanning from c. 6th century BCE to c. 3rd century CE. ...

). The Sangam poems share common themes with their Greek and German counterparts, such as glory, victory, fate and honour. The Sangam age is dated to between the 3rd century B.C.E and 2nd century C.E. However, the events described have been transmitted orally from an earlier period. This is evidenced by the oral nature of the poems which (like the Iliad and Odyssey) use epithets and other metrical devices common in oral poetry.

Bibliography

*C. M. Bowra, ''Heroic poetry''. London: Macmillan, 1952. *H. M. Chadwick, ''The Heroic Age''. London, 1912. *H. Munro Chadwick, N. Kershaw Chadwick, ''The growth of literature''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932-40. *J. B. Hainsworth, ''The Iliad: a commentary. Vol. 3: books 9-12''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Terms in literary theory