The Romance of Finality

To me, the greatest aspect of a story is the epic journey.

An epic is defined as: a long narrative poem in elevated style presenting characters of high position in adventures forming an organic whole through their relation to a central heroic figure and through their development of episodes important to the history of a nation or race. (Harmon and Holman)

A story which is epic is heroic in nature and on a grand scale. Central to the story is a quest, where the hero is tested and ultimately transformed through overcoming obstacles.

The hero generally participates in a cyclical journey or quest, faces adversaries that try to defeat him in his journey and returns home significantly transformed by his journey. The epic hero illustrates traits, performs deeds, and exemplifies certain morals that are valued by the society the epic originates from.

 A related genre is the romance. Early romances seem to embody many of the same attributes of the epic, and the Arthurian legend, though classified as a romance, seems very close to an epic.

The romance form is distinguished from the earlier epics of the Middle Ages by the changes of the twelfth century, which introduced courtly and chivalrous themes into the works.

I am a great lover of legends, myths, and any work in the epic or romantic style. Besides the great epics: The Iliad and the Odyssey, the Aeneid, Paradise Lost, and Dante's Divine Comedy, I love Edith Hamilton's Mythology, Goethe's Faust (part I), and J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. I want to finish John Steinbeck's retelling of The Acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights. Ovid's Metamorphosis is the number one book I want to buy and read (along with Adams' Watership Down, which has many epic qualities), and I want to translate my German books, Undine and Grimm's Fairytales.

I've been sidetracked trying to define what I love about romantic, fantastic, and epic literature, but this has all be to preface a longstanding fascination with final acts. In particular, the last march of the Ents, the last meeting of the fellowship before the Hobbits return to the Shire, and the eternal separation between Arwen and Elrond when she decides to stay with Aragorn rather than leave Middle Earth with the rest of her people.

Though I am glad to be able to stay in contact with all my friends, it's quite likely that we will never all be assembled in the same place again. Either in Vienna or Vanderbilt or Brentwood Academy. There's something tragic and haunting about the end of things. And while I have learned to let the things of the past go, I've also realized that it's important to remember where you've been. This is a new season of my life and while I am excited, it's a sobering thought that maybe I will never be living in the same place as Chris, Jeff, Trey, or even my family again. There's a magic and a sadness to the end of an era.