The Quietus
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15th June 2019
Features | Tome On The Range | Aiming For Epic: Anne Carson's Red Doc> Reviewed
In tradition dating back to Homer, epic poetry often begins not at the start of the story but in the middle of the action – in media res. The historian Horace was likely the first to use this term, circa 13 BCE, saying that the ideal poet ‘hurries to the action and snatches the listener into the middle of things,’ a technique Homer used in both the Iliad and the Odyssey. This technique continued to be popular in later epics, including the Aeneid and Paradise Lost.
Anne Carson, then, was likely