Famous examples of epic poetry include the Sumerian
Epic of Gilgamesh, the ancient Indian
Mahabharata and
Rāmāyaṇa in Sanskrit and
Silappatikaram and
Manimekalai in Tamil, the Persian
Shahnameh, the Ancient Greek
Odyssey and
Iliad,
Virgil's
Aeneid, the Old English
Beowulf,
Dante's
Divine Comedy, the Finnish
Kalevala, the German , the French
Song of Roland, the Spanish
Cantar de mio Cid, the Portuguese
Os Lusíadas, the Armenian
Daredevils of Sassoun, the Old Russian
The Tale of Igor's Campaign,
John Milton's
Paradise Lost,
The Secret History of the Mongols, the Kyrgyz
, and the Malian
. Epic poems of the modern era include
Derek Walcott's
Omeros,
Mircea Cărtărescu's
and
Adam Mickiewicz's
Pan Tadeusz.
Paterson by
William Carlos Williams, published in five volumes from 1946 to 1958, was inspired in part by another modern epic,
The Cantos by
Ezra Pound.