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Epic Poetry: The Simile Prompt

By Heather Eure 13 Comments

epic simile
Epic poetry comes in various forms.

Homer’s epics are composed in dactylic hexameter, which became the standard for Greek and Latin oral poetry, and his verse is characterized by the use of extended similes and formulaic phrases, such as epithets, to fill out the verse form.

Extended similes (called epic similes) are employed at appropriate junctures in the story. Running into several lines, the epic simile is used to intensify the heroic stature of a character and offers a nice, decorative touch. An example from the Iliad:

“As when the shudder of the west wind suddenly rising scatters across the water,
and the water darkens beneath it, so darkening were settled the ranks of Achaians and Trojans in the plain.”

The simile makes an explicit comparison, often using “like” or “as” in order to reveal an unexpected likeness between two seemingly disparate things. The epic simile isn’t just a literary embellishment, but an important tool of thought, creating a new way of seeing the world. If prestige were attached to a literary device, the epic simile would have it. In its lengthy comparison, it allows complex comparisons between actions or relations. This creates contrast and helps amplify the theme. Here’s one more example from Aeneid:

“Here a whole crowd came streaming to the banks… as many souls as leaves that yield their hold on boughs and fall through forests in the early frost of autumn…”

Try It

Write a poem using epic simile to describe someone you feel is brave. Compare your hero to an unlikely object in the natural world (trees, mountains, weather phenomenon, etc.). Share your poem with us in the comment section below.

Featured Poem

Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s poetry prompt. Here is a poem from Rick we enjoyed, Invocation of the Moon:

In this new room,
the clutter is gone.

The books with their flags,
are stacked neatly on shelves.

I sit on the floor
and watch the carpet of moon

dance over the clean slate
floor down the hallway,

nothing to stop its rolling,
shadowless and cool.

Sit with me a while Luna,
give me your sheer light,

your magic in my glass
of wine—a word, a line;

leave the argentine night,
torn on the bare trees.

Like the leaves, I drift,
watching the dim spines,

filled with keen energy,
while all my songs are sleeping.

—by Richard Maxson

Photo by Matt Ming. Creative Commons via Flickr.

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  • Author
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Heather Eure
Heather Eure
Heather Eure has served as the Poetry Editor for the late Burnside Collective and Special Projects Editor for us at Tweetspeak Poetry. Her poems have appeared at Every Day Poems. Her wit has appeared just about everywhere she's ever showed up, and if you're lucky you were there to hear it.
Heather Eure
Latest posts by Heather Eure (see all)
  • Poetry Prompt: Misunderstood Lion - March 19, 2018
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Filed Under: Blog, English Teaching Resources, Epic Poetry, poetry prompt, poetry teaching resources, writer's group resources, writing prompts

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Comments

  1. Rick Maxson says

    September 21, 2015 at 9:58 am

    Bixby Bridge
    — for Carol

    What fear hides in our skin has no faith in steel or design.

    Through years it moves like water colors in rain,
    mingles itself in moonlight, and gravity has its way,
    pulling us into the dream where we have no wings.

    And then there is the retrofit crew, the rusted plates
    that bark like some ancient dog as the car passes over them,
    a blessing in disguise, drowning the Pacific waves
    that sound so much like rushing air or the last whispers
    of the day as we fall into sleep, hiding in the ear
    like the ocean in a shell, the dark closet of descent.

    Below the magnificence of the coast is a postcard,
    but strength does not come from the book of splendor,
    it is the breath of independence that takes in the world
    and floats the blue palette of the sea in your open eyes.

    Reply
    • Heather Eure says

      September 22, 2015 at 7:06 pm

      Wonderful! Rich words full of pictures. “…hiding in the ear like the ocean in a shell…” Love it.

      Reply
  2. Rick Maxson says

    September 21, 2015 at 10:04 am

    Thanks for featuring “Invocation of the Moon.”

    Reply
    • Heather Eure says

      September 22, 2015 at 7:06 pm

      You betcha! 🙂

      Reply
  3. Lee Kiblinger says

    September 22, 2015 at 9:01 pm

    This is a stretch for this simile prompt…..but certainly bravery is involved…..
    I enjoy your website. I’m a newbie who is dabbling with poetry.

    Estuary

    The church, an estuary –
    A gathering of salts
    Rubbed from still ragged rock
    By water drained from heaven.

    Tides surge and recede
    Rivers tumble, trickle
    To a mingling of sorts and
    There, life shines and flourishes.

    Briny medleys of men
    Thrive amidst the mesh
    And saltiness purifies
    Water’s raw, grimy soul .

    Rains cataract, clarifying
    This emerald temple,
    But content, it breathes and rests
    As life’s conduit of hope.

    Reply
    • Heather Eure says

      September 22, 2015 at 9:21 pm

      “…it breathes and rests/As life’s conduit of hope.” A poem built to inspire! I like it. Thank you for sharing your brave words with us, Lee. You are most welcome here. Hope you’ll come often. We have cookies here. 😉

      Reply
  4. Andrew H says

    September 24, 2015 at 4:24 pm

    Not sure if this fits the bill, but it’s what I wrote anyway. 😛

    Lightning Steed

    Great thunder booms like pounding hooves –
    Such tremors of celestial beasts!
    Surely the lightning is the strike-of-stone
    Of those who on electric steeds must roam,
    And hence the great deluge will come
    To rid us of the paling sun –
    For who can look a lily in the eye
    When time has come, when we must die?

    Great thunder! Ye gods, do you make sport?
    Is that the back and forth of power,
    Darting as does the thread of life
    Along the border of a knife?
    Such crackles! Smite me now, be done of all
    The woes which trickle as the rives does,
    For I am done with you, great blasts and blows!
    Come you once more, my ancient foes.

    Like dawn! Like pain! Like hate! Like darkness, and like life,
    Give me your strife, give me your strife.
    I wandered long beneath a cloud, to sing a song
    Not knowing that to have no rain is wrong.
    So string me up and hang me as one hangs their coat,
    My moving pen moves on, and what it knew it wrote-
    I’ve nothing left. So sing with me, you thunder lords,
    Sing the song of the clouds that housed these lightning swords!

    As does the mellow flower look up at the sun,
    Yet shield his shying head from moonlight’s glow,
    So too I love the Lightning Seams of life,
    The darkness showing light through strife,
    Yet fear more gentle fords were I may row
    In peace with all the things below –
    So no! The gods will let me ride the horse
    That rides the lightning’s jagged course!

    Reply
    • Heather Eure says

      September 25, 2015 at 12:18 am

      This definitely fits the bill! A grand poem, Andrew. Reminds me of one of my favorite Housman poems.

      Reply
      • Andrew H says

        September 25, 2015 at 4:02 pm

        Thanks! Out of curiosity, which Housman poem? I haven’t read much by him, and at a casual glance through some of his work I can see I may want to.

        Reply
        • Heather Eure says

          October 1, 2015 at 8:54 pm

          It’s probably the masculinity of the poem that reminds me of IX (his title). “Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.”

          Reply
  5. Monica Sharman says

    September 25, 2015 at 2:12 pm

    Artist

    As the turbulent patterns and various greys and blacks emerge in the clouds
    blowing over the peaks—a sudden high-mountain afternoon storm—and in
    the nebulous moments after the thunder’s compression waves ebb,
    solid and insistent shafts of sun penetrate yet leave the just-thundering clouds
    mostly intact, the artist with his brush and palette mixtures of darks and brights
    catches them in a swift storm, a cloud, a light and a light and a light
    racing through dappled greys.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. The Literary Epic: Poetry Prompt - says:
    September 28, 2015 at 8:01 am

    […] to everyone who participated in last week’s poetry prompt. Here is a poem from Andrew we […]

    Reply
  2. How to Write an Epic Poem: Infographic | Tweetspeak Poetry says:
    April 22, 2021 at 9:37 am

    […] a lonely hero (of noble character) trods a path constructed of dactylic hexameter. Clothed with epic simile (selected from a lengthy catalog), he fights good and evil, with angels and demons, and after a […]

    Reply

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