This epic tells the legendary story of a forgotten hero. He is not just a legend, but a real one. He has a very tall god, two thirds of whom are gods and one third are people. He is a complete type who has achieved everything in the world, and no one in the world can. He was a tyrant who ignored people's sufferings, but after he became friends with Enkidu, his behavior began to change. People oppressed by the forgotten turned to heaven for help, so the goddess Aruru created the first man created by God, that is, Enkidu. Enkidu and the forgotten are keenly aware of each other's existence, and they know that one day they will meet head-on. Although the forgotten people were afraid that Enkidu was his enemy at first, they soon became bosom friends, enjoying the throne and governing the country equally.
Forgotten One and Enkidu crusaded against the forest guardian beast Fenbaba and became the best king in the world. Put all the treasure in your pocket. At that time, the Forgotten was so dazzling and powerful that even the gods would fall for his kindness. A goddess fell in love with a forgotten person. But when Ishtar, the goddess of harvest, proposed to Forgotten, the king of perfection, he refused without thinking. That's because he knew Ishdar was a cruel and capricious witch who took pleasure in killing people. Ishdar was angered by the insult of the forgotten person, and she drove the bull of God Anu to the earth as revenge.
No one can stop this beast. This land has been shrouded in famine and destruction for seven years. The Forsaken teamed up with Enkidu to deal with the cow of heaven and repelled it beautifully. The goddess lost face again. Ishdar's anger will naturally not subside. She asked the gods to kill a forgotten man and Enkidu on the grounds that a mortal dared to kill a wild animal. Ishtar's wish was accepted by the gods, so one of them, Enkidu, created by God, could not disobey his fate and gradually weakened and died.
That was the beginning of the decline of the forgotten. Enkidu, the only friend who is as powerful as himself, and may even surpass himself, died. This fact has a great influence on the forgotten. A forgotten one is afraid of "death" and embarks on a journey to the underworld in pursuit of eternal life. After a long journey and all kinds of hardships, the forgotten finally got the elixir of life.
However, on the way home, the snake ate the elixir while he was taking a bath. He lost his immortality and sighed and died. The forgotten one, the hero, knelt by the pond, hiding his face with his hands and crying. He understands now that people tell him that even the greatest and bravest hero is a human being, so he must learn to live happily, experience the happiness in front of him and finally accept the inevitable fate.
Legend has it that this snake can shed its skin and grow a new body because it ate the elixir of Forgetting the Year. This is the end of this poem. The most complete work in heroic epic is Beowulf. The whole poem is more than 3,000 lines long, and the historical events recorded in it belong to the 6th century, reflecting the life of Anglo-Saxons in continental Europe. After they settled in Britain, they were written in Old English in the 8th century, which became the first epic of English-speaking people. The only existing manuscript belongs to10th century.
The whole poem is divided into two parts. The first part is about Beowulf, a young aristocrat in Ye Zhi, southern Sweden. He traveled across the ocean to Denmark, and killed grendel, a monster who harmed people, and his mother. In the poem, the hero's heroic spirit of fearless danger and unarmed combat is particularly emphasized. The second part tells the story that Beowulf killed the fire dragon that burned people's houses as a king fifty years later, praising the hero's selfless and highly responsible moral quality. Although he is a tribal aristocrat, he is not divorced from the people, which embodies the ideal of tribal people during the disintegration of clan society.
The poem said that the dragon was very angry because a criminal slave escaped the punishment of the law and happened to hide in the dragon cave and steal a golden cup. The slave offered the golden cup to his master (a vassal in Beowulf) and made atonement. The slave owner also presented the Golden Cup to Beowulf. From the interwoven plot of Fuzhou and reality, we can see the relationship between slaves and clan nobles, and the laws at that time.
Contrast, dialogue and parenthesis are often used in poetry to highlight the hero's heroism and integrity. Describing the scene of grendel, the monster's hostility to human happiness, the underwater cave where the monster's mother lives, and the anxiety and anger of the fire dragon after losing its treasure are also wonderful parts of this epic. The poet wrote: "The dragon wakes up and the struggle is rekindled. It sniffed the rocks, and its brave heart found the footprints of the enemy. ..... The treasure keeper searched all the way along the ground, greedily looking for the man who bullied him in his sleep. A fierce fire is burning in the dragon's heart, turning around the tomb pier. There is no sign of anyone in the wilderness. ..... it strongly demands fighting. It walked along the grave again and looked at the stolen treasure. My heart is boiling with anger and I am anxiously waiting for the arrival of the night. " The poem also describes the life of tribal nobles, such as banquets, rap, beliefs, myths, etc., which is extremely vivid. The structure of epic is condensed and refined. It is written in alliteration and uses a special image metaphor (synonym), such as calling the sea "Whale Road", calling soldiers "people with shields" and calling chiefs "guardians of treasures". These are the characteristics of Nordic epic. This epic also reflects the influence of Christian thought to some extent, such as confusing the concept of clan social destiny with the concept of God, and calling grendel Cain's race. The Germanic epic Song of Hildebrandt has 68 lines, which was circulated in the eighth century, and the manuscript belongs to the ninth century. It tells the story of Hildebrandt who went to war with the East Gothic King Dietrich at the end of the great national migration, and returned to his hometown 30 years later to take his son to the border. The father recognized his son and gave him a gold ring. The son refused the gift from the "alien". In order to keep the honor of the Germanic samurai and challenge his father, his father had to go to war, and the conscription was interrupted in the fierce battle. This clip focuses on the strong and brave character of the Germans. The dialogue in this poem is very dramatic. This is the only Germanic heroic poem written in old German.
Iceland is the most abundant literary work reflecting the late life of European clan society. Initially, from the second half of the ninth century to the beginning of the tenth century, Norwegian "pirates" and farmers began to settle in Iceland. At that time, they were still in the disintegration stage of the primitive commune. There are free people and slaves among the residents; Among the freemen, the gentry and nobles held the legislative power and judicial power, forming an aristocratic republic, and aristocratic military democracy existed for a long time. At the beginning of the twelfth century, feudal relations gradually formed. At the turn of the ninth and tenth centuries, Irish Christians also settled in Iceland. In the 12 century, clan nobles joined the church, and they occupied more and more land. In the14th and 5th centuries, they entered the heyday of feudalism.
The earliest settlers who moved from Norway brought ancient Nordic myths and the legend of heroes, forming a unique Icelandic literature, which can be divided into two types in form: poetry and prose. Most of Iceland's poems (30 poems) are included in the collection of poems "Eda". These oral poems were written in the12nd century, and the only extant17th century manuscripts were written in the13rd century. Poetry in Eda can be divided into three categories: mythical poetry, Oracle poetry and heroic epic. As a representative of mythical poetry, The Foam of Floss is also called The Witch's Prophecy (1end of the 20th century), which records the legends about the creation, destruction and rebirth of the world and also describes the social contradictions at the end of the clan system. Engels pointed out in the book "The Origin of Family, Private Ownership and State": This poem was written in the pirate era, when the clan society had collapsed, so it was about the decline of the gods and the destruction of the world, the general degeneration and moral corruption before the catastrophe;
Brother, same to you.
Killing each other,
Sister's son
Kill each other;
The world is in pain,
Fornication is all the rage;
The era of guns, the era of knives,
The shield was cut;
The age of storms, the age of hungry wolves,
The world is about to be destroyed.
The earth is roaring,
The giant is flying;
Between people.
Set each other up.
At the same time, it can be seen from this poem that the remnants of matriarchal system have not disappeared. "Sisters' sons kill each other" means that under the matriarchal system, matriarchal relationship is regarded as blood relationship, which is closer and more sacred than paternal relationship.
On the other hand, the poet also expressed his yearning for an ideal society:
She saw a temple,
More beautiful than the sun,
The top is covered with gold,
The base is a gem;
Many moral people.
Will live here,
Enjoy forever
Great happiness. Another masterpiece, Locarna, also known as Loki's Roar and Scold, is about the oppressed God of Loki taunting Odin, which reflects that the belief of clan society disappears with the decline of clan society. At the same time, Odin is a god believed by clan nobles, and his criticism also reflects the contradiction between nobles and civilians. This poem is full of drama, and its anonymous author is called aristophanes of Northern Europe.
The contents and viewpoints of Oracle Bone Inscriptions's poems are complicated. In the representative work "Hammar" ("Song of Heaven Emperor"), some paragraphs reflect the farmers' desire to pursue a well-off life; Some express the ideals of clan leaders; Some reflect the collective concept of the clan; Others are poems with warning or admonition.
The heroic epics in Eda are all short, and some of them are incomplete. Among them, the main poem is centered on the legend of Folsom, which is described more completely in Sakya and Song of Nibelungen, but in Eda, every fragment of this legend is independent and can be used as a singing unit, which retains the face of clan society.
The narrative literature of Icelandic prose is called "Sakya", which means "discourse". There are many such works, including history, the legend of heroes, dynasty stories and family stories, which were written in 12 and 3 centuries, and some of them belong to 14 centuries, but most of them reflect the social life of the clan. Among them, The Folsom Family, which had a great influence on later European literature and art, wrote the legends of the Folsom family and Qiqi family. The central story is that Folsom's hero, West Gould, killed Long Debao, abandoned his fiancee, Bren hirt, and married a Jiuqi woman, Goudron. Bren Hurt married Gunnar, Goudron's brother, and made him kill West Gould. After the death of West Gould, Hutt's brother Attila, a Hun, coveted the treasure of Jiuqi people, married Gouldren and killed Gunnar. Goudron avenged his brother, killed his second husband Attila and his son, and then committed suicide. This "Sakya" retains many clan social characteristics of this legend. At that time, the gold treasure symbolized the power and the disaster brought by power, and those who got the treasure were bound to suffer disaster. Disaster is also understood as fate here, so there are always predictions and dreams to illustrate its inevitability before the disaster comes. This makes Sakya full of tragedy. The author also emphasizes the perfidious behavior between people, which reflects the situation at the end of clan society. On the issue of revenge, Goudron's husband was killed by his brother. She didn't retaliate against them, but expressed her sadness. But Attila killed her brother, and she immediately took revenge, which shows that blood relationship is more important than husband and wife relationship. The Finnish people's epic "Ka Laivaara" (also known as "The Country of Heroes") is also one of the famous European epics in the Middle Ages. It is different from Germanic and Nordic epics, as well as French and Spanish epics. It has the characteristics of the Finnish nation. This masterpiece was created by the Finnish people in the long historical process. From the end of the seventh century to the beginning of the eighth century, there were various ancient myths and legends about the Finnish people, which generally appeared in the form of ballads, and some were the products of the introduction of Christianity by Swedes in the twelfth century. 19th century, Finnish doctor Elias? Long Lott (1802- 1884) went deep into the folk for a long time, collected a large number of ballads and compiled a complete epic, which was published in 1835. After that, he continued to collect supplements and published the final version of this epic in 1849, including 50 songs and 22,795 lines of poetry.
Calvara described the struggle between Calvara's heroes and Boheyula, a dark country in the north, with the story of fighting for the "Three Treasures" as the core. Sambo refers to a magic mill that can automatically make grain, salt and gold coins. Although this epic has mythical factors, it is characterized by a direct and concrete description of real life and characters, reflecting the social life and ideology of the Finnish people during the disintegration of the clan system. Epic not only describes the struggle between clans and various social phenomena during the disintegration of clan system, but also describes many daily life and customs in detail, which has a strong national color. This epic was formed during the reign of Christianity, but it still retains the original polytheism belief of the Finnish people, and the influence of Christianity can only be seen in a few ballads (such as the story about the Virgin Mary at the end). There are legends about the creation of the universe, the invention of iron, weather and climate, farming and brewing, and some spells. All these reflect the people's simple understanding of nature and their struggle and desire to conquer nature. The "three treasures" themselves also express the people's ideal of prosperity and strength.
This epic successfully depicts the images of two people's heroes. They are both people's fighters and skilled laborers. For the sake of bright and happy people in Laivaara, they fought hard with the fierce and greedy matriarch Louxi of Boheyula. The hero in the poem is Wan Nai Mo Ning, an old singer who enjoys a high reputation. His songs can touch god, animals and birds, and he is also a farmer who can cultivate, fish and hunt. He is familiar with all kinds of spells, has incomparable wisdom and courage, and has repeatedly made outstanding achievements in the battle for "Three Treasures". Another important hero is the blacksmith Irmalinen. He cultivated silently, forging various tools, weapons and works of art, and the "three treasures" were his great creations. In addition to these two heroes, the lively and reckless young soldier Laiming Garin was also an important figure in the battle to win the "Three Treasures". The epic praises creative labor and heroes' struggle for people's happiness.
This epic is written in four-tone cadence, often using repetitive verses and exaggerated techniques, and has the characteristics of people's poetry. It has played a great role in Finnish national literature and national language.