‘”Mighty saga of the world’s mightiest man”: is there such a thing as a modern Hercules epic?’

In antiquity a number of epic poems related the ‘Deeds of Herakles’. None of these survives in more than a handful of fragments, but we know of a Herakleia written around 600 BC by Peisandros of Rhodes, another by the sixth-century Kinaithon of Lakedaimonia, and one by the mid-fifth-century poet Panyassis of Halikarnassos, which ran to around 9,000 lines. In the fourth century, such epics attracted criticism from Aristotle, for whom the disparate episodes of the story presented a dissatisfying lack of unity (Poetics 1451a16-22). However, the idea of giving a systematic account of Herakles’ exploits persisted in the prose genre of mythography, such as the substantial works by the Athenian Pherekydes (c.450 BC) and Herodoros of Herakleia (c.400 BC), although the only accounts to survive in relatively complete form are those included in Diodoros of Sicily’s Historical Library and the Library of Apollodoros (2.5-7). The idea of telling the hero’s story at length is revived in the Renaissance, often with a Christian moralising agenda, in both Latin and vernacular languages, prose and verse.

Against such a background, this paper will address the question of what form a modern Hercules epic might be expected to take. This will be done via a survey of the hero’s appearances in twentieth- and twenty-first century popular media, with a particular focus on the peplum genre of film, engaging in the broader debate about definitions of ‘epic film’, and the extent to which this has anything in common with the ancient poetic genre. Elements to be considered will include narrative scope (should an epic be attempting systematic coverage of a hero’s story?), style (how does the ‘elevated’ style of poetic epic translate to other media?), the qualities which characterise the epic hero, and the extent to which epic is conceived of as educational. In the early days, I shall argue, deliberate evocations may be intended to situate the peplum in the tradition of the Hollywood epic, but the genre quickly begins to subvert itself, with both accidental and self-conscious reference reference to epic, and the occasional example of out-and-out self-parody. More recent revivals of the genre continue this trend, with both Renny Harlin’s The Legend of Hercules (Millenium/Summit 2014), and Nick Lyon’s Hercules Reborn (Asylum) paying homage to Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000), while Brett Ratner’s rather superior Hercules (Paramount/MGM 2014) makes brilliantly post-modern comment on the whole tradition of story-telling.