The defining characteristics of the genre are mostly derived from its roots in ancient poetry (epic poems such as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey).
But critique and discourse has continuously arisen over this long period of time, with attempts to clarify what the core characteristics of the “epic” genre really are beginning only in the past two centuries as new mediums of storytelling emerged with developing technologies.
[4] The earliest epics were long poems performed out loud that told these grandiose stories about heroes.
[4] In addition, the word epic can be used to describe any media that has a large scope, that speaks about the human condition and that is ambitious with artistic goals.
During the early christianization of the United Kingdom, the Church tolerated new converts observing their older, pagan traditions.
However, as the British Church grew in power, events taking place in Europe (such as The Crusades) inspired authors to reshape the traditional legends with Christian undertones.
Author Robert de Boron, for instance, translated the legend into French in 1155, in which he would conceive of the now-iconic addition of the sword-in-the-stone legend, and would expand upon the Round Table lore whereby Arthur had twelve knights just as Jesus has twelve disciples.
For example Frank Herbert's Dune Saga inspired the Star Wars trilogy and the Alejandro Jodorowsky's Jodoverse.
Due to their oral handing down, early folk epic authors and performers remain unknown.
Their author known as Homer probably never existed, as the name was used to incorporate the many generations of performers who told, retold, and shaped the stories of the Iliad and the Odyssey over time.
Put another way, to achieve the grandiosity typical of an “epic”, distance must be created from the story for the reader via the style of the prose.
In the modern context, many narratives that could be considered “epic” have developed their own mythos, such as with comic book franchises like DC, or sci-fi like Star Wars and Star Trek and fantasy like The Lord of the Rings which go so far as to develop multiple novel languages for their mythos.
This creative mythos could still, however, be argued to be drawing upon existing narratives, traditions, and motifs present in cultures and communities represented in these epics.