The epic is considered as one of the most important traditional literary types or genres presenting great and serious stories and actions of notable persons with the aim of protecting and preserving the moral, religious, and social values in the societies. A number of well known English poets and novelists introduced some modifications and additions to this literary type. It is possible to mention the English novelist Henry Fielding in his novel Joseph Andrews where he combines both the epic and the comedy together through by introducing some elements of the comedy into the epic and by describing some minor and secondary events and actions done by some of the characters doing these actions as great wars or battles. He also describes some of the bad or evil characters in a funny and ridiculous way.
Fielding borrows some similes from the ancient epics. In addition to this, he uses irony or pun by making use of words which appear as words of praise but in reality they are words of criticism or condemnation.
On the other hand, Alexander Pope, a poet and a critic, uses the form of the mock epic to mock the epic style through the use of the style and language of the epic while presenting a trivial or unimportant action in his famous poem The Rape of the Lock.
This study aims at comparing and a contrasting the two different ways employed by the two authors in the studied works as new types of epics and to show their difference from the traditional epic.
Al-Baath University Journal.
2016.
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