Pan-national epic

A pan-national epic is a lengthy work of poetry or prose that is widely taken to be representative of the pan-national character of a large cultural grouping that exceeds the bounds of a single nation-state or even a specific language or language group. Pan-national epics can be subdivided into supranational epics, which are epics held dear to several national groups speaking more than one language, and language epics, which are more narrowly restricted to nations sharing the same language. A nation can have its own distinct national epic in addition to a supranational and/or a language epic. Examples of pan-national epics follow:

Supranational Epics

• Indic Civilization - the Mahabharata and Ramayana
• Mesoamerican Civilization - the Popol Vuh
• Sinic Civilization - The Romance of the Three Kingdoms
• Western Civilization - the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer and the Aeneid of Vergil

Language Epics

• English

- Poetry: Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, The Faerie Queene

- Prose: The Lord of the Rings, Morte D'Arthur, The King James Bible

• Persian - the Shahnameh
• French

- Poetry: the Chanson de Roland

- Prose: Historia Francorum

• German - the Nibelungenlied
• Portuguese - The Lusiads
• Spanish - the Cantar de Mio Cid and Don Quixote