Please note: Brookline Village Location is currently not accepting book donations.

Please note: We will be closed on Monday, October 14th for Indigenous Peoples' Day / Columbus Day and on Wednesday, October 23rd for Staff Development.

Whatever Happened to the Epic? with Robert Crossley and Jennifer Barber

Epic poems have often been viewed as the dinosaur of literature: huge, impressive, a little intimidating—and extinct. This presentation—which will welcome audience members to interact with the speakers—will take up several questions: Is it true that there hasn’t been a significant epic in English since Milton’s Paradise Lost? What forms has the epic imagination taken in the modern era? Do audiences still desire the epic experience? If they do, what satisfactions does the epic offer? And, finally, does the epic have any impact on practicing writers in our own day?

Robert Crossley taught literature for 37 years at the University of Massachusetts Boston and served as Chair of the English Department. A two-time recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, he is the author of the biography Olaf Stapledon: Speaking for the Future; a literary history, Imagining Mars; and most recently, Epic Ambitions in Modern Times: From Paradise Lost to the New Millennium. Recent essays have appeared in a variety of magazines including Southwest Review, The Massachusetts Review, Raritan, The Hudson Review, Sewanee Review, and Smithsonian Air and Space.

Jennifer Barber is the current poet laureate of Brookline. Her most recent book of poetry is The Sliding Boat Our Bodies Made and she is co-editor, with Jessica Greenbaum and Fred Marchant, of the anthology Tree Lines: 21st Century American Poems.

Add to Google Calendar
Add to iCal

When

Tuesday, April 18, 2023

7:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Location


Accessibility

Need aids or accommodations? Email our administration team or give us a call at 617-730-2360 for more information.


Share this event

Know someone or fellow patrons that would be interested? Spread the word and share the Library of Brookline's events through your social media networks.