The Transnational Epic in America

Abstract

This article explores the roots of the epic fiction of John Updike and Philip Roth. The author makes the case that each writer has been profoundly influenced not only by great American forebears such as Emerson and Melville, but by a European tradition that stretches back to Homer, Virgil and the classical epic, and also by the example of James Joyce, whose great work Ulysses recast the epic for the modernist age. Looking closely at such works as Updike's Rabbit novels and Roth's American Pastoral and The Human Stain, and drawing on recent theories of transatlantic cultural exchange, the author shows how each writer has been inspired by both American and European forerunners to produce epic works that subtly deconstruct the founding myths of American national identity.