<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Japofran @ Mar 2 2007, 06:30 PM) [snapback]281650[/snapback]</div>
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Good fantasy literature pertains to the epic genre, look at the Silmarillion for a very clear and loyal to tradition example. The poems you mention are from the Middle Ages, but epic literature has always existed, at least until Modernity killed or marginalized it. You've got older epic poems, all the way towards the ancient religions, and you also have more recent ones, in Spanish the Araucania comes to my mind, or the Finnish Romanticist nationalist Kalevala written in the XIXth century.
I myself haven't read many, only the Illiad and the Odissey I think, but some time I get enough time and I get into narrative, I'll consider it. How did you like the ones you've read so far?
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I'm surprised you weren't forced to read "Cantar de Mio Cid" at school. :blink: I had to, and I think I was the only person in my class (along with the teacher) that actually enjoyed it. If you want a recommendation, I would say "La Chanson de Roland", as it is both short and intense. It got me hooked for a whole night, from start to end. Also, "Das Nibelungenlied" is very interesting, but its first half is weaker. Than the other.
I studied "Araucania" in a subject called South American Literature, but haven't read it, as the style used in that period and zone (Chile) isn't quite my type. "Kalevala" was also in my mind, but I think it is a compilation of poems much older than the XIX century. And if sometimes I can get a copy of it, I'll also try the summerian "Gigamesch Poem", just to see how do middle-asian cultures deal with mitology.
About the Fanfiction thing, I feel unable of reading large pieces of text directly in my computer. After a while I get tired and my eyes hurt, so I guess I won't be trying it in a while.
Pd: Talking about "Illiad", right now I'm listening to the song "Achilles Last Stand", from Led Zeppelin.