Epic Hero Archetypes

Heroic Archetypes in the Greek Canon: The Role of the Epic Heroine Across centuries of human history storytelling has been a large portion of how societies have communicated with one another for things as simple as entertainment, education, and social norm building. Many Americans can recall the story of George Washington and the cherry tree and many in the era of Homer’s ancient Greece (and onwards) would fondly know the epic heroic feats of Herakles, Akhilleus, and the man of many adversaries, Odysseus. A common element that all ancient Greek epic poems have is the main hero learns and then applies a cultural lesson throughout their journey. The cultural lessons that are learned are always qualities that are regarded highly by the specific

The ancient Greeks were no different in their approach of adding in moral lessons to their epic poems and the archetypes of epic heroes in them. In fact, what makes an epic hero, an epic hero, is having the ability to successfully show multiple traits of cultural morality, in essence: being a “good” Greek citizen that exhibits numerous characteristics that are held in extreme importance in this specific ancient civilization. Now the archetype of an epic hero can expand and include many more aspects other than just being a “good” Greek male, these qualities of heroism can also apply to female characters in an epic as well. The term to refer to these brave women could be called an epic heroine, nonetheless the gender of said epic hero or heroine does not matter when it comes to their role in the epic poem. A prime example of this in the ancient Greek canon is Homer’s characterization of Penelope, mother of epic-hero-in-training, Telemakhos and beloved wife of the main epic hero of The Odyssey, Odysseus. Although, Penelope is a woman and thus breaks the standard of being the stereotypical male hero that is associated with Greek fiction she does indeed share many of the same qualities as her husband in