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Article: Contest: write an epic simile.(ACTIVITY)
- Article from:
- Calliope
- Article date:
- May 1, 2007
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To be considered an epic, a poem must focus on a national theme and relate enough details and events to create a sense of history and a feeling of pride in the nation's past.
Epics, however, involve more than content. Wording, style, phrasing, and rhythm are also important. One key epic convention is the simile, the figure of speech by which a writer compares two similar objects, people, or feelings using "like" or "as." Homer and the Roman poet Virgil (see page 45) were masters at incorporating similes into their verses.
In Book IV of the Iliad, Homer uses a gentle home-centered simile to express the goddess Athena's act of preventing an arrow from ...