Epic catalogue

An epic catalogue is a long, detailed list of objects, places or people that is a characteristic of epic poetry.

Examples

In the Iliad:^[1]
- Catalogue of Ships, the most famous epic catalogue
- Trojan Battle Order
In the Odyssey, the catalogue of women in Hades in Book XI.
In the Argonautica, the catalogue of heroes in Book I.
In the Aeneid, the list of enemies the Trojans find in Etruria in Book VII. Also, the list of ships in Book X.^[2]
In Ovid's Metamorphoses, the catalogue of Actaeon's dogs (Book I) and of trees (Book X).
In the Völuspá, the "Dvergatal" or catalogue of dwarfs.
In The Faerie Queene, the list of trees I.i.8-9 and the list of rivers IV.xii.
In Paradise Lost, the list of demons in Book I.^[3]

^ Gaertner, Jan Felix (2001). "The Homeric Catalogues and Their Function in Epic Narrative". Hermes. 129 (3): 298–305. JSTOR 4477439.
^ Christine Perkell, ed. (1999). Reading Vergil's Aeneid: An Interpretative Guide. Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture. Vol. 23. University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 190–194. ISBN 9780806131399.
^ Quint, David (Spring 2007). "Milton's Book of Numbers: Book 1 of Paradise Lost and Its Catalogue". International Journal of the Classical Tradition. 13 (4): 528–549. doi:10.1007/bf02923024. JSTOR 30222176. S2CID 161875103.