8 thinkers, books, and ideas connected to this field.
A 1979 film by Francis Ford Coppola loosely adapting Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' into the Vietnam War, following a special-ops officer sent to kill a rogue colonel who has built a cult in the Cambodian jungle.
John Milton's 1667 blank verse epic — narrating the Fall of Satan, the Creation, and the Fall of Man — the most ambitious literary achievement in English and the source of the sympathetic Satan who influenced the Romantic tradition.
British film director — Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), Thelma & Louise (1991), Gladiator (2000), Black Hawk Down (2001), The Martian (2015), Dune (abandoned), Napoleon (2023) — one of the most visually ambitious directors in Hollywood history.
A 1970 film by David Lean set in rural Ireland during the 1916 Easter Rising, notable for its elemental coastal cinematography.
Virgil's epic poem — written 29–19 BCE — following Aeneas from the fall of Troy to the founding of Rome — the supreme Latin epic and the foundational text of Roman imperial identity.
The ancient Mesopotamian epic — the oldest surviving substantial literary work — following the demigod king Gilgamesh and his companion Enkidu through friendship, death, and the search for immortality — the first great meditation on mortality.
J.R.R. Tolkien's 1954–55 three-volume epic — set in Middle-earth — following the Fellowship's quest to destroy the One Ring — the foundational text of the high fantasy genre and the best-selling novel of the 20th century (150M copies).