Large-Scale Impressive Crossword

Large-scale impressive crossword clue. A quick crossword puzzle question in The Dominion Post newspaper on Thursday, 20 July 2017. 4 letters.

Answer: EPIC

An epic poem, epic, epos, or epopee is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation.

Milman Parry and Albert Lord have argued that the Homeric epics, the earliest works of Western literature, were fundamentally an oral poetic form. These works form the basis of the epic genre in Western literature. Nearly all of Western epic (including Virgil’s Aeneid and Dante’s Divine Comedy) self-consciously presents itself as a continuation of the tradition begun by these poems.

Classical epic poetry employs a meter called dactylic hexameter and recounts a journey, either physical (as typified by Odysseus in the Odyssey) or mental (as typified by Achilles in the Iliad) or both. Epics also tend to highlight cultural norms and to define or call into question cultural values, particularly as they pertain to heroism.