Inaugural Lecture – Ilias Americana: The Civil War and the Dream of the Great American Epic

Prof. Dr. Erik Redling (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg)

The dream of a great American epic is embedded in the age-old quest for a representative National epic in various Western cultures. Several critics such as Edmund Wilson and Daniel Aaron expected that a great national epic or novel would emerge out of the ashes of the American Civil War, but their search for a work in these genres proved futile. Instead of looking for a singular epic masterpiece among the civil war writings of, for instance, Walt Whitman, Ambrose Bierce, and Stephen Crane, Prof. Redling wants to draw attention to the Civil War’s impact on Americans and popular culture and, examining U.S. newspapers from the war era, explores the ways in which Americans drew on Homer’s Iliad to communicate and heighten their war experiences such as heroism, sorrow, and pain.

To view this lecture and the slides, please click here.