Vol. 2 No. 1 (2021): Epic and the Marvellous
A much debated topic ever since Antiquity, the “marvellous” is as deeply-rooted in the discourse of epic that in his poetic theory Torquato Tasso deemed it at least as necessary as “verisimilitude”; in fact, excellence in poetry would consist in the masterly combination of these two elements. Amongst the distinctive features of the epic genre, the presence of deities, monsters, supernatural beings, infernal assemblies, enchanted places and magical tools, is not just fundamental to the narrative itself, but more broadly to the very comprehension of the epic text.
