Relationship between Epic and Novel as discussed by Lukacs and Bakhtin
Epic and Novel share a very close relationship because epic is a very ancient genre and novel is a young genre which has more or less evolved through epics. Lukacs in his essay on the "Historical Novel" and Bakhtin in his "Epic and Novel" talks about the relationship between Epic and Novel. Lukacs points out the larger than life nature of epic, where we come across a epic hero who is greater than life. He is great and powerful, there is some sort of hero worshipping present in the epics but in the novels the character is not hero worshipped. The character can be any ordinary human being who can be the hero. He may not possess the typical heroic qualities. In epic unlike the novels, it is the hero who is the central theme of the novel and around him the story and other characters revolves. In the novels the hero maybe just any other charater, it is the plot that is of utmost importance and not the character. Lukacs brings in the example of Walter Scott who i