List of epic poems

Ancient epics (to 500)

Before the 8th century BC

• Epic of Gilgamesh
• Epic of Lugalbanda
• Epic of Enmerkar
• Atrahasis
• Enuma Elish
• The Descent of Inanna into the Underworld
• Legend of Keret
• Cycle of Kumarbi

  8th to 6th century BC

• Iliad, ascribed to Homer
• Odyssey, ascribed to Homer
• Works and Days, ascribed to Hesiod
• Theogony, ascribed to Hesiod
• Shield of Heracles, ascribed to Hesiod
• Catalogue of Women, ascribed to Hesiod
• Cypria, Aethiopis, Little Iliad, Iliupersis, Nostoi and Telegony, forming the so-called Epic Cycle
• Oedipodea, Thebaid, Epigoni and Alcmeonis, forming the so-called Theban Cycle
• A series of poems ascribed to Hesiod during antiquity : Aegimius, Astronomia, Descent of Perithous, Idaean Dactyls, Megala Erga, Megalai Ehoiai, Melampodia and Wedding of Ceyx
• Capture of Oechalia, ascribed to Homer or Creophylus of Samos during antiquity
• Phocais, ascribed to Homer during antiquity
• Titanomachy ascribed to Eumelus of Corinth
• Danais, Minyas and Naupactia, almost completely lost

  5th to 4th century BC

• Heracleia, tells of the labors of Hercules, almost completely lost, written by Panyassis
• Mahābhārata, ascribed to Veda Vyasa
• Ramayana, ascribed to Valmiki

  3rd century BC

• Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes

  2nd century BC

• Annales by Ennius

  1st century BC

• De rerum natura by Lucretius
• Georgics by Virgil
• Aeneid by Virgil

  1st century AD

• Metamorphoses by Ovid
• Pharsalia by Lucan
• Argonautica by Gaius Valerius Flaccus
• Punica by Silius Italicus
• Thebaid and Achilleid by Statius

  2nd century

• Buddhacarita by Aśvaghoṣa

  2nd to 5th century

• Cento Vergilianus de laudibus Christi by Faltonia Betitia Proba
• The Five Great Epics of Tamil Literature: Cilappatikāram, Manimekalai, Cīvaka Cintāmaṇi, Valayapathi, Kundalakēci

  3rd to 4th century

• Posthomerica by Quintus of Smyrna
• De raptu Proserpinae by Claudian

  4th century

• Kumārasambhava by Kālidāsa
• Raghuvaṃśa by Kālidāsa

  5th century

• Argonautica Orphica by Anonymous
• Dionysiaca by Nonnus
• Mahavamsa, written in Pali
• Yadegar-e Zariran, written in Middle Persian

  Medieval epics (500–1500)

7th century

• Táin Bó Cúailnge
• Bhaṭṭikāvya, Sanskrit courtly epic based on the Rāmāyaṇa and the Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini
• Kiratarjuniya by Bharavi, Sanskrit epic based on an episode in the Mahabharata
• Shishupala Vadha by Magha, Sanskrit epic based on another episode in the Mahabharata

  8th to 10th century

• Beowulf
• Waldere, Old English version of the story told in Waltharius, known only as a brief fragment
• Karolus magnus et Leo papa
• Daredevils of Sassoun
• Bhagavata Purana "Stories of the Lord", based on earlier sources
• Lay of Hildebrand and Muspilli
• Kakawin Ramayana, Javanese version of the Ramayana
• Shahnameh
• Waltharius by Ekkehard of St. Gall ; about Walter of Aquitaine
• Poetic Edda
• Vikramarjuna Vijaya and Ādi purāṇa, Kannada poems by Adikavi Pampa
• Ajitha Purana and Gadaayuddha, Kannada poems by Ranna
• Neelakesi

  11th century

• Taghribat Bani Hilal ; see also Arabic epic literature
• Ruodlieb, by a German author
• Digenis Akritas ; about a hero of the Byzantine Empire
• Epic of King Gesar
• Garshaspname by Asadi Tusi
• Carmen Campidoctoris, the first poem about El Cid
• Song of Armouris
• Borzu Nama, ascribed to 'Amid Abu'l 'Ala' 'Ata b. Yaqub Kateb Razi
• Faramarz Nama
• Mushika-vamsha by Atula
• The Song of Roland

  12th century

• Acallam na Senórach
• The Knight in the Panther's Skin by Shota Rustaveli
• Alexandreis by Walter of Châtillon
• De bello Troiano and the lost Antiocheis by Joseph of Exeter
• Carmen de Prodicione Guenonis, version of the story of the Song of Roland in Latin
• Architrenius by John of Hauville,
• Liber ad honorem Augusti by Peter of Eboli, narrative of the conquest of Sicily by Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor
• The Tale of Igor's Campaign and Bylinas
• Naishadha Charita by Sriharsha
• Parishishtaparvan by Hemachandra
• Prithviraja Vijaya by Jayanaka
• Roman de Troie by Benoît de Sainte-Maure
• Roman de Brut and Roman de Rou by Wace
• Poem of Almería
• Eupolemius by an anonymous German-speaking author
• Bahman Nama and Kush Nama ascribed to Hakim Īrānšāh b. Abi'l Khayr
• Banu Goshasp Nama
• Ramavataram by Kambar, based on the "Ramayana"
• Cycle of the First Crusade by Graindor de Douai and others

  13th century

• Nibelungenlied
• Kudrun
• Brut by Layamon
• Chanson de la Croisade Albigeoise
• Antar ; see also Arabic epic literature
• Sirat al-Zahir Baibars ; see also Arabic epic literature
• Osman's Dream
• Epic of Sundiata
• El Cantar de Mio Cid, Spanish epic of the Reconquista
• De triumphis ecclesiae by Johannes de Garlandia
• Gesta Regum Britanniae by William of Rennes
• Van den vos Reynaerde
• Poema de Fernán González, cantar de gesta by a monk of San Pedro de Arlanza; 1250–1266
• Jewang ungi by Yi Seung-hyu
• Basava purana by Palkuriki Somanatha
• Jahangirnameh by Qāsem-e Mādeḥ

  14th century

• Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
• Cursor Mundi by an anonymous cleric
• Africa by Petrarch
• The Tale of the Heike, Japanese epic war tale
• The Brus by John Barbour
• La Spagna attributed to Sostegno di Zanobi
• Mocedades de Rodrigo
• Siege of Jerusalem
• Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer
• Zafarnamah by Hamdollah Mostowfi

  15th century

• Hammira Mahakavya by Nayachandra Suri
• Yuan Phai by Royal Poets of King Borommatrai-lokkanat
• Mahachat Kham luang a Siamese retelling of Vessantara Jataka by Royal Poets of King Borommatrai-lokkanat
• Orlando innamorato by Matteo Maria Boiardo
• Shmuel-Bukh
• Mlokhim-Bukh
• Book of Dede Korkut
• Morgante by Luigi Pulci, with elements typical of the mock-heroic genre
• The Wallace by Blind Harry
• Troy Book by John Lydgate, about the Trojan war
• Heldenbuch a group of manuscripts and prints of the 15th and 16th centuries, typically including material from the Theodoric cycle and the cycle of Hugdietrich, Wolfdietrich and Ortnit
• Ibong Adarna whose real author is not known

  Modern epics (from 1500)

16th century

• Lilit Phra Lo by King Ramathibodi II
• Judita by Marko Marulić
• Ismailnameh an epic poem on shah Ismail I heroic deeds by Qsimi Qunabadi nephew of Hatifi
• Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto
• Davidiad by Marko Marulić
• Christiad by Marco Girolamo Vida
• Padmavat by Malik Muhammad Jayasi
• Süleymanname by Arifi çelebi
• Franciade by Pierre de Ronsard
• Os Lusíadas by Luís de Camões
• L'Amadigi by Bernardo Tasso
• La Araucana by Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga
• La Gerusalemme liberata by Torquato Tasso
• Ramacharitamanasa by Goswami Tulsidas
• The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser
• Venus and Adonis and Lucrece'' by Shakespeare

  17th century

• La Argentina by Martín del Barco Centenera
• La Cleopatra by Girolamo Graziani
• Biag ni Lam-ang by Pedro Bucaneg
• Il Conquisto di Granata by Girolamo Graziani
• Exact Epitome of the Four Monarchies by Anne Bradstreet
• Szigeti veszedelem, also known under the Latin title Obsidionis Szigetianae, a Hungarian epic by Miklós Zrínyi
• Gondibert by William Davenant
• Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained by John Milton
• Khun Chang Khun Phaen, a Thai epic poem by anonymous folk poets

  18th century

• Kumulipo by Keaulumoku, an Ancient Hawaiian cosmogonic genealogy first published in 1889
• Telemachus by Anna Seward
• Henriade by Voltaire
• Utendi wa Tambuka by Bwana Mwengo
• Der Messias by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock
• La Pucelle d'Orléans by Voltaire
• Poems of Ossian by James Macpherson
• The Seasons by Kristijonas Donelaitis
• O Uraguai by Basílio da Gama
• Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire by Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill
• O Desertor das Letras by Silva Alvarenga, a short mock-heroic epic
• Caramuru by Santa Rita Durão
• Joan of Arc by Robert Southey
• Hermann and Dorothea by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  19th century

• The Tale of Kiều by Nguyễn Du
• Thalaba the Destroyer by Robert Southey
• Madoc by Robert Southey
• Psyche by Mary Tighe
• The Columbiad by Joel Barlow
• ' by William Blake
• Marmion by Walter Scott
• Alipashiad by Haxhi Shehreti
• Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Lord Byron, narrating the travels of Childe Harold
• Queen Mab by Percy Bysshe Shelley
• Roderick the Last of the Goths by Robert Southey
• The Lord of the Isles by Walter Scott
• Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude by Percy Bysshe Shelley
• The Revolt of Islam by Percy Bysshe Shelley
• Harold the Dauntless by Walter Scott
• Manuscripts of Dvůr Králové and Zelená Hora, forged epic published in 1818
• Endymion by John Keats
• Hyperion and ' by John Keats
• by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
• Phra Aphai Mani by Sunthorn Phu
• Don Juan by Lord Byron, an example of a "mock" epic in that it parodies the epic style of the author's predecessors
• Camões by Almeida Garrett, narrating the last years and deeds of Luís de Camões
• Dona Branca by Almeida Garrett, the fantastic tale of the forbidden love between Portuguese princess Branca and Moorish king Aben-Afan
• Tamerlane by Edgar Allan Poe
• The Free Besieged by Dionysios Solomos
• The Fall of Nineveh by Edwin Atherstone
• Creation, Man and the Messiah by Henrik Wergeland
• The Bronze Horseman by Alexander Pushkin
• Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus, translated by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
• Messiah's Kingdom by Agnes Bulmer
• Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz
• The Baptism on the Savica by France Prešeren
• Florante at Laura, an awit by Francisco Balagtas
• King Alfred by John Fitchett
• Germany. A Winter's Tale by Heinrich Heine, a "mock" epic
• János Vitéz by Sándor Petőfi
• Smrt Smail-age Čengića by Ivan Mažuranić
• Toldi, Toldi szerelme and Toldi estéje by János Arany, forming the so-called "Toldi trilogy"
• Evangeline by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• The Mountain Wreath by Petar II Petrović-Njegoš
• The Tales of Ensign Stål by Johan Ludvig Runeberg
• Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot
• I-Juca-Pirama by Gonçalves Dias
• Kalevipoeg by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald
• The Prelude by William Wordsworth
• Song of Myself by Walt Whitman
• The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• A Confederação dos Tamoios by Gonçalves de Magalhães
• The Saga of King Olaf by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
• Os Timbiras by Gonçalves Dias
• Meghnad Badh Kavya by Michael Madhusudan Dutta
• Terje Vigen by Henrik Ibsen
• La Légende des siècles by Victor Hugo
• The Earthly Paradise by William Morris
• Ibonia, oral epic of Madagascar
• Martín Fierro by José Hernández
• Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson
• Clarel by Herman Melville
• The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs by William Morris
• L'Atlàntida by Jacint Verdaguer
• The Light of Asia by Edwin Arnold
• The City of Dreadful Night by Bysshe Vanolis
• Tristram of Lyonesse by Algernon Charles Swinburne
• Eros and Psyche by Robert Bridges
• La Fin de Satan by Victor Hugo
• Canigó by Jacint Verdaguer
• Lāčplēsis by Andrejs Pumpurs
• Tabaré by Juan Zorrilla de San Martín
• The Wanderings of Oisin by William Butler Yeats
• Kotan Utunnai, Ainu epic, recorded in the 1880s, published in 1890
• Host and Guest by Vazha-Pshavela
• The Tale of Balen by Algernon Charles Swinburne
• Lục Vân Tiên by Nguyễn Đình Chiểu
• Amir Arsalan, narrated by Mohammad Ali Naqib al-Mamalek to the Qajar Shah of Persia

  20th century

• The Divine Enchantment by John Neihardt
• Lahuta e Malcís by Gjergj Fishta
• Ural-batyr
• The Ballad of the White Horse by G. K. Chesterton
• Mensagem by Fernando Pessoa
• The Cantos by Ezra Pound
• Dorvyzhy, Udmurt national epic compiled in Russian by Mikhail Khudiakov basing on folklore works
• The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún by J. R. R. Tolkien
• A Cycle of the West by John Neihardt
• ' by Nikos Kazantzakis
• Dymer by C. S. Lewis
• "A" by Louis Zukofsky
• John Brown's Body by Stephen Vincent Benét
• The Fall of Arthur by J. R. R. Tolkien
• The Bridge by Hart Crane
• Ariadne by F. L. Lucas
• Kamayani by Jaishankar Prasad
• The People, Yes by Carl Sandburg
• In Parenthesis by David Jones
• Canto General by Pablo Neruda
• Paterson by William Carlos Williams
• Sugata Saurabha by Chittadhar Hridaya
• Victory for the Slain by Hugh John Lofting
• ' by Rex Ingamells
• Rashmirathi, Hunkar by Ramdhari Singh Dinkar
• by Aurobindo Ghose
• The Maximus Poems by Charles Olson
• The Anathemata by David Jones
• Aniara by Harry Martinson
• Helen in Egypt by H.D.
• Song of Lawino by Okot p'Bitek
• ’’Puerto Rican Obituary’’ by Pedro Pietri
• The Banner of Joan by H. Warner Munn
• Kristubhagavatam by P. C. Devassia
• Keralodayam Mahakavyam by K. N. Ezhuthachan
• The Changing Light at Sandover by James Merrill
• The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You by Frank Stanford
• Emperor Shaka the Great by Mazisi Kunene
• The Lay of the Children of Húrin and The Lay of Leithian by J. R. R. Tolkien
• Empire of Dreams by Giannina Braschi
• Omeros by Derek Walcott
• Arundhati by Jagadguru Rambhadracharya
• Mastorava by A. M. Sharonov
• Astronautilía Hvězdoplavba by Jan Křesadlo
• The Descent of Alette by Alice Notley
• Fredy Neptune: A Novel in Verse by Les Murray

  21st century

• Sribhargavaraghaviyam, Ashtavakra and Gitaramayanam by Jagadguru Rambhadracharya
• The Lay of Mouse-Fate, by Samuel Jacob Stephens
• " by Canisia Lubrin

  Other epics

• Alpamysh, a Turkic epic
• Epic of Bamana Segu, oral epic of the Bambara people, composed in the 19th century and recorded in the 20th century
• Epic of Darkness, tales and legends of primeval China
• Epic of Jangar, poem of the Oirat people
• Epic of Köroğlu, Turkic oral tradition written down mostly in 18th century
• Epic of Manas
• Epic of the Forgotten, Bulgarian poetic saga
• Gesta Berengarii imperatoris
• Hikayat Seri Rama, Malay version of the Ramayana
• Hinilawod, Filipino epic from the island of Panay
• Hotsuma Tsutae
• Khun Chang Khun Phaen, a Thai poem
• Klei Khan Y Dam San, a Vietnamese poem
• Koti and Chennayya and Epic of Siri, Tulu poems
• Kutune Shirka, sacred yukar epic of the Ainu people of which several translations exist
• Mu'allaqat, Arabic poems written by seven poets in Classical Arabic, these poems are very similar to epic poems and specially the poem of Antarah ibn Shaddad
• Parsifal by Richard Wagner
• Pasyón, Filipino religious epic, of which the 1703 and 1814 versions are popular
• Popol Vuh, history of the K'iche' people
• Ramakien, Thailand's national epic derived from the Ramayana
• Der Ring des Nibelungen by Richard Wagner
• Siribhoovalaya, a unique work of multi-lingual literature written by Kumudendu Muni, a Jain monk
• Yadegar-e Zariran
• Yama Zatdaw, Burmese version of the Ramayana