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What is Epic Poetry? | Definition, Examples, & Analysis

Epic poetry is characterized by its long length, grand language, and narratives in which mighty characters are involved in seismic (and often supernatural) events with crucial importance for the culture at large. The oldest epics grew out of a rich oral tradition, and form some of the earliest and most influential works of literature that survive today. Fittingly, then, the impact of epic poetry is truly epic in scale. 

Many of us have preconceived notions of what “epic” means based on our modern cultural background — we may think of huge, sweeping, “epic” movies like Gladiator (Scott, 2000), for example. 

In Classical Literature, Richard Rutherford explains that, 

Classical Literature

we all feel we know what ‘epic’ means. Hardly a week goes by without some claim that a new Hollywood blockbuster is epic in scope. (2008)

Rutherford argues, however, that scale alone is not enough for a poem to be defined as epic: “we need to distinguish between epic form and epic spirit” (2008). In Rutherford’s view, the main characteristics of epic poetry are as follows:

An epic is a “lengthy work, often extending to many thousands of lines,” and “almost universally composed in the metre which Homer used, a long and swiftly moving line known as the dactylic hexameter, and in a dignified, self-consciously elevated style.”

“Certain formal features are particularly frequent in epic: an invocation of the inspiring Muse is one; others are the extended simile and the use of elaborate speeches.”

Rather than solely focusing on individual lives, “the scope of the genre often embraces major events, events of historical or even cosmic import (the destruction of Troy, the foundation of Rome, the fall of the Roman Republic; in Milton, the Fall of Man).” 

“Both the length of the work and a large cast of characters make the reader conscious of the narrative as significant, an effect often reinforced by the involvement of supernatural powers.”

“Epic records great events or great achievements, often involving great suffering: the characters are noble or at least exceptional.” (2008)

It is not just the length of the poems that makes them “epic”, then, but also the grand themes and subjects they deal with. In some ways, epic poetry’s expansive length is a natural result of the ambition and range of its subject matter. 

In Epic, Paul Innes highlights the importance of epic poetry’s oral origins:

Epic

[…] it should not be forgotten that the epic developed out of a communal impetus to cultural memory before it became a written form. The verbal and performative elements play off against the literary in different ways for different cultures [...]. (2013)

Homer’s epic poems are a key example of this: Arising out of a rich and long oral tradition of myth and legend, Homer gave these ancient stories a definitive shape and authority with his written versions of them. Although they did not originate with Homer, the stories of the Iliad and the Odyssey are now inextricably identified with his written versions of them purely because they are the only surviving forms. Epic poetry becomes the written embodiment of cultural memory and is foundational to a culture’s very identity:

Its cultural importance was such that entire societies could be defined by and through it. Ancient Greece produced Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey; Rome had Virgil and the Aeneid. In the Judaeo-Christian tradition, the first five books of the Old Testament could be considered to be an epic. Later books that deal with the establishment of the Kingdoms of Judea and Israel could additionally be defined as variants of historical epic. (Innes, 2013)

Innes highlights this cultural importance as a key characteristic of epic poetry’s identity:

The epic in this view is an identifiable literary form with a crucial cultural prominence. Its scope lends itself to grand narratives that incorporate various myths of origin intermingled with memories of historical events and personages. (2013)

We will explore the defining features and mechanisms of epic poetry further in the next section, focusing on some of the most famous works of epic poetry ever created. 

The epic poetry that survives today constitutes a vast body of work — drawn from different cultures, and ages, but nevertheless sharing similar epic qualities. 

Let’s zoom in, and take a look at just some of the most notable examples of “epic poetry” and what it is that actually makes them “epic.”


One of the earliest surviving works of literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh is also the earliest surviving example of epic poetry. A Sumerian epic from ancient Mesopotamia, The Epic of Gilgamesh’s earliest oral stories are thought to date back to c. 2100 BCE. In The History of the Epic, Adeline Johns-Putra argues that 

The History of the Epic

Gilgamesh contains that element that we perhaps most closely connect to epic – heroism. For Gilgamesh sets out, as so many subsequent epics do, a narrative of great and courageous deeds against the backdrop of watershed historical and even prehistorical events. (2006)

The story of Gilgamesh begins with his tyrannical rule over Uruk, and his titanic fight with Enkidu (a wild man, representing the natural world and created by the gods as an antithetical countermeasure to Gilgamesh). Enkidu and Gilgamesh then become close friends, embarking on a series of adventures together which anger the gods and eventually result in Enkidu’s death. Gilgamesh then seeks to discover the secret of immortality, before finally accepting his mortality at the poem’s end. 

With the hero Gilgamesh’s struggle against supernatural forces and mortality itself, The Epic of Gilgamesh exhibits many of the classic hallmarks of epic poetry. It has left an indelible print on human culture, history, and religion — not least with its influence on the epics of Homer and even the Bible (scholars have noted many biblical parallels, such as the story of Adam and Eve and the great flood myth). 

The Iliad and the Odyssey (both c. 8th century B.C.E.) are some of the earliest surviving written works from the civilization of ancient Greece. There are still many debates around the precise authorship of these poems: Homer is most commonly credited as the author of both works, but some scholars support the idea of multiple authors instead. Whatever the true circumstances of their conception may be, the Iliad and the Odyssey are the most famous and influential epic poems in history — it is difficult to overstate the titanic influence they have had on Western culture, in particular. As Richard Rutherford writes, “The special prestige of epic derives from its prominence at the earliest stages of the classical tradition”:

The Homeric poems stand at the fountain-head of classical literature, and although parodists or pedagogues might find fault with some aspects, in antiquity their rank was never seriously questioned. Aristophanes called Homer ‘divine’; others simply refer to him as ‘the poet’ — no confusion was possible. These poems were often compared with the Ocean surrounding the whole world, the source on which, in early geographic conceptions, all lesser rivers were dependent. Similarly epic could be seen as the source for other later genres, notably tragedy, comedy, and historiography[…]. (2008)

The Iliad depicts a great conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans that is set into motion after Helen (seemingly the most beautiful woman in the world) is taken to Troy by Paris, a Trojan prince. The long siege of Troy forms the backdrop of the plot, but the Iliad is about more than just a military conflict. Heroes and gods proliferate, and one of the most significant threads is centred around the need to convince Achilles, the great Greek hero, to actually take part in the conflict.

The Iliad stands as “the earliest example of Western literature, the first work in a long tradition of heroic narrative” (Seth L. Schein, The Mortal Hero, 2023). It is notoriously difficult, however, to identify precise dates for the Iliad’s composition and the oral stories it draws from. In his introduction to the Iliad, Peter Green writes

The Iliad

It seems safe enough to date the composition of the poem as we know it to a period after the introduction of an adapted Phoenician/Semitic alphabet to Greece in the late ninth or early eighth century B.C.E. Just how long after remains uncertain and much debated. However, we need to balance this conclusion against the equally certain fact that the main body of the Trojan War myth clearly long preceded the composition of the Iliad in its present form [...]. (2015)

As with The Epic of Gilgamesh, it is always important to bear in mind the oral beginnings of these early epic poems — they draw on myths which had been told and retold, deconstructed and reconstructed, for generations. Green writes that 

in one sense The Iliad does not stand, unprecedented, at the beginning of European literature as we know it, but comes at the very end (with the appearance in Greece of alphabetic writing ) of an age-old oral tradition, of which it displays the unmistakable inﬂuence throughout. (2015)

In The Mortal Hero (2023), Schein argues that the Iliad undercuts its own traditional representations, questioning the meaning of heroism, conflict, and mortality itself:

The Mortal Hero

Its style, mythological content, and heroic themes and values are traditional, but it generates its distinctive meanings as an ironic meditation on these traditional themes and values. Through parallels, contrasts, and juxtapositions of characters and actions, a dramatic structure is created that forces us to consider critically the traditional heroic world depicted in the poem and the contradictions inherent in this kind of heroism. The overwhelming fact of life for the heroes of the Iliad is their mortality, which stands in contrast to the immortality of the gods. (2023)

Schein uses the hero Achilles and his journey as an example of this: 

We see the central hero of the poem, Achilles, move toward disillusionment and death to reach a new clarity about human existence in the wider context of the eventual destruction of Troy and in an environment consisting almost entirely of war and death. This environment offers scope for various kinds and degrees of heroic achievement, but only at the cost of self-destruction and the destruction of others who live in the same environment and share the same values. (2023)

This ambiguity has perhaps contributed to the Iliad’s enduring popularity through the ages, and up to the present day:

Modern critics join those of antiquity in praising the Iliad’s unparalleled subtlety, depth, overall structure, emotional force, and universal appeal. Two and a half millennia later that appeal has lost none of its pristine force [...]. (Green, 2015)

In the 21st century, the Odyssey would undoubtedly be marketed as a sequel to the Iliad, as it depicts the long homeward journey of Odysseus after the war. Returning home and reuniting with his family is the underlying goal behind all the action. Many critics have argued that the Odyssey critiques the Iliad in various aspects, with its treatment of heroism and glory being just one example. While Achilles is happy to die for the glory of his legacy in the Iliad, in the Odyssey his spirit can be found espousing the opposite view altogether: he avows that he would rather live an inglorious life than embrace his death.  

Odysseus is a different kind of epic hero to Achilles; renowned more for his cunning and wits than for his martial prowess. Famously, it is Odysseus who supposedly concocted the ploy of the Trojan Horse, which effectively won the war for the Greeks. In the Odyssey, he draws on his cunning to repeatedly escape sticky situations which others might fall prey to. One of the most famous examples is found with his triumph over the Cyclops Polyphemus: Odysseus, after previously telling Polyphemus that his name is “Nobody,” manages to get Polyphemus drunk and blind him. When Polyphemus is asked who has hurt him, he cries out “Nobody” — meaning that nobody comes to his aid, and Odysseus is able to escape. 

With his war-winning, death-defying cunning, Odysseus reflects Eleazar M. Meletinsky’s profile of an archaic hero:

The Poetics of Myth

in archaic epics a heroic character becomes manifest in actions that have significance for the survival of the culture. There is usually an air of magic surrounding the hero, since magic and cunning are just as much part of the hero's repertoire as courage and physical strength. (The Poetics of Myth, 2013)

We have only scratched the surface of epic poetry with the examples above. For a fuller exploration, Perlego’s online library provides extensive coverage. A small selection can be found below:

The Ramayana (c. 7th century BCE – 3rd century CE) by Valmiki 

Mahabharata (c. 3rd century BCE – 4th century CE) by Vyasa

Paterson (1946–58) by William Carlos Williams

As in all genres, the later writers reshape or rethink the tradition, reacting to and often fighting against the work of their predecessors. This is inevitable in any literary tradition but is perhaps especially conspicuous in epic […]. (Rutherford, 2008)

From its oral beginnings, epic poetry has evolved into a discrete genre of poetry with truly epic levels of variety. Spanning multiple millennia and continents, the story of epic poetry continues to be written today. One intriguing thread of epic influence is outlined here by Innes: 

[Epic poetry] passes through various stages, with particularly critical resonance for English poetry as it accompanies the development of a nascent British Empire. Spenser and Milton both, in their own ways, seed their work with a peculiarly Protestant epic ethos. Recent modern writing such as Walcott’s Omeros and Atwood’s Penelopiad revisit this long history through their respective post-colonial and feminist intertextual retrospectives. (2013)

Although contemporary epic poetry is no longer as common as it once was, the epic spirit and influence lives on in poetry and many other forms — including novels, films, TV, and even video games. There are countless examples of works in these mediums which bear striking similarities with the epic poems of old: from their grand scope and subject matter to the involvement of the supernatural, and the centrality of heroic figures who win mighty victories of decisive importance for their culture at large.

The ancestors of epic poetry can be found in the rise of the epic novel, for example, as well as the epic fantasy series which have enjoyed enormous popularity. These modern manifestations of the epic may have more in common with their ancient poetic progenitors than we might expect — as long as they are epic in both spirit and scale, that is: “Thus War and Peace or The Lord of the Rings can be said to have something of the epic scope or spirit, although their medium is narrative prose” (Rutherford, 2008). In the narratives we enjoy today, ancient epic traditions continue to live on.  

Structures of Epic Poetry (2019), edited by Christiane Reitz and Simone Finkmann 

Homer and Early Greek Epic (2019) by Margalit Finkelberg

The Renaissance Epic and the Oral Past (2012) by Anthony Welch

Anonymous (2016) Beowulf. Simon & Schuster. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/779772 

Dante (2018) The Divine Comedy. Alma Classics. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1310114 

Dutt, R. (2012) The Ramayana and Mahabharata Condensed into English Verse. Dover Publications. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/111579 

Green, P. (2015) “Introduction,” in Homer, The Iliad. Translated by Peter Green. University of California Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/552616 

Homer (2015) The Iliad. Translated by Peter Green. University of California Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/552616 

Homer (2009) The Odyssey of Homer. Translated by Richmond Lattimore. HarperCollins e-books. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/594744 

Innes, P. (2013) Epic. Routledge. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1627275  

Johns-Putra, A. (2006) The History of the Epic. Palgrave Macmillan. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/3498850 

MacKendrick, P. et al. (2012) Classics in Translation, Volume I. University of Wisconsin Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/4386256 

Meletinsky, E. (2013) The Poetics of Myth. Translated by Guy Lanoue and Alexandre Sadetsky. Routledge. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1607949 

Milton, J. (2014) Milton: Paradise Lost. 2nd edn. Edited by Alastair Fowler. Taylor and Francis. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1555316/milton-paradise-lost-pdf  

Mitchell, S. (2010) Gilgamesh. Atria Books. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/779950 

Nohrnberg, J. (2014) Princeton Legacy Library. Princeton University Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/737529  

Quint, D. (2021) Epic and Empire. Princeton University Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1983518 

Rutherford, R. (2008) Classical Literature. Wiley-Blackwell. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/2755266  

Schein, S. (2023) The Mortal Hero. University of California Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/3905534 

Vergil and Ruden, S. (2008) The Aeneid. Yale University Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1161369 

Walcott, D. (2024) Omeros. Editorial Anagrama. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/4377361 

Williams, W. C. (2023) Paterson. Carcanet Classics. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/3841980 

Gladiator (2000) Directed by Ridley Scott. Universal Pictures.

What is Epic Poetry?

What is Modernist Literature?

What is Modernity?

What is Ergodic Literature?

What is Southern Gothic?

What is Stream of Consciousness? | Definition, Examples, & Analysis

Stream of consciousness is a narrative style or technique that tries to capture the thoughts, emotions, and experiences of the character, often through incorporating sensory information, incomplete thoughts and ideas, and unusual syntax and grammar. These language features help to mimic the often illogical, fragmentary, and distracted nature of human thought processes. Readers are effectively privy to the personal thoughts of the character or narrator through a type of inner monologue. 

The term was first coined by William James in The Principles of Psychology: 

The Principles of Psychology

Consciousness, then, does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as 'chain' or 'train' do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing jointed; it flows. A 'river' or a 'stream' are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life. (1893, [2019])

This form was popular among modernist writers, such as Dorothy Richardson, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, and Marcel Proust. 

May Sinclair was the first critic to use the term in her review of Dorothy Richardson’s serial work Pilgrimage in The Egoist in 1918, where she discusses how the reader is given insights into Richardson’s protagonist Miriam Henderson: 

In this series there is no drama, no situation, no set scene. Nothing happens. It is just life going on and on. It is Miriam Henderson’s stream of consciousness going on and on […] In identifying herself with this life, which is Miriam’s stream of consciousness, Miss Richardson produces her effect of being the first, of getting closer to reality than any of our novelists who are trying so desperately to get close. (“The Novels of Dorothy Richardson”)

As Jane Hu explains, stream of consciousness differs from a dramatic monologue or soliloquy, both of which have an implied audience; instead 

Stream of consciousness style is often identified by fictional techniques such as lack of punctuation, long and sometimes agrammatical sentences, and a series of unrelated impressions. Stream of consciousness technique tries to represent a character’s general mental state before it is condensed, organized, or edited down into narrative coherence or sense. While stream of consciousness is often read as an avant-garde technique, its aims were to get closer to the ‘reality’ of human thought processes. (“Stream of Consciousness,” Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism, 2016)

A key example of stream of consciousness is in T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock” (1915) in which the speaker struggles to summon the courage to approach a woman: 

The Waste Land, Prufrock, The Hollow Men and Other Poems

I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

(The Waste Land, Prufrock, The Hollow Men and Other Poems, [2022])

The speaker in Eliot’s poem flits between different thoughts; when he imagines walking upon the beach, for example, his train of thought then drifts to mermaids. The fragmented nature of the poem reflects the indecision and frustration of the speaker who is unable to properly articulate his emotions and desires. 

In this study guide, we will explore the features of stream of consciousness, as well as highlight some key examples of this in literature. 

Some of the features of stream-of-conscious writing include:

In this section, we will explore these features in further depth. 

Stream-of-consciousness writing often deviates from formal rules of syntax and grammar, replicating the character’s incomplete thoughts. This is exemplified in the following extract, taken from James Joyce’s 1922 text Ulysses (one of the most famous examples of stream of consciousness within fiction), from the perspective of the character Leopold Bloom:

Ulysses

Gasworks. Whooping cough they say it cures. Good job Milly never got it. Poor children! Doubles them up black and blue with convulsions. Shame really. Got oﬀ lightly with illness compared. Only measles. Flaxseed tea. Scarlatina, inﬂuenza epidemics. Canvassing for death. Don’t miss this chance. Dogs’ home over there. Poor old Athos! Be good to Athos, Leopold, is my last wish. My will be done. We obey them in the grave. ([2017])

This passage, as is characteristic of Joyce’s novel, is comprised of “incomplete, often verbless syntagms which simulate Bloom’s mental leaps as he associates ideas” (Monika Fludernik, An Introduction to Narratology, 2009). 

Free association, a psychoanalytic technique, describes how a word or image may prompt other thoughts, often without a logical connection. This is reflected in the stream-of-consciousness style, highlighting how the cognitive connections we make are not necessarily logical or clear. As Robert Humphrey writes, 

Stream of Consciousness in the Modern Novel

All stream-of-consciousness fiction is greatly dependent on the principles of free association. This is true of such different-textured techniques as direct interior monologue and simple omniscient description of consciousness. (Stream of Consciousness in the Modern Novel, 2023)

The inclusion of sensory imagery is often used in stream-of-consciousness writing to reflect how different sensory inputs can distract us and open up new lines of thought. In Ulysses, we can see how sensory cues, in this case, smell, can evoke memories and shape the thoughts of the narrator. In Ulysses, when Leopold Bloom smells a woman’s perfume in the air, this triggers thoughts about how perfume is dispersed:

Wait. Hm. Hm. Yes. That’s her perfume. Why she waved her hand. I leave you this to think of me when I’m far away on the pillow. What is it? Heliotrope? No. Hyacinth? Hm. Roses, I think. She’d like scent of that kind. Sweet and cheap: soon sour. Why Molly likes opoponax. Suits her, with a little jessamine mixed. Her high notes and her low notes. At the dance night she met him, dance of the hours. Heat brought it out. (Joyce, 1922, [2017])

Repetition is often used in stream of consciousness to reflect characters’ rumination or obsession with a thought, memory, or idea. In Faulkner’s Southern Gothic novel As I Lay Dying (1930), we can see the use of repetition in the thoughts of seventeen-year-old Dewey Dell as she reflects upon the recent death of her mother: 

As I Lay Dying

I heard that my mother is dead. I wish I had time to let her die. I wish I had time to wish I had. It is because in the wild and outraged earth too soon too soon too soon. It’s not that I wouldn’t and will not it’s that it is too soon too soon too soon. (2024)

The repetition here of “I wish” indicates Dewey Dell’s guilt over having insufficiently mourned her mother as she was preoccupied with her own problems (i.e., her unplanned pregnancy) at her mother’s deathbed. Repeated words and phrases can, as we see here, indicate an obsessive or preoccupation with a thought, idea, or feeling (in this case regret and guilt). Ruminating on how the death was “too soon” adds an element of denial to Dewey Dell’s grief. 

Dorothy Richardson, Pilgrimage: Pointed Roofs

As previously mentioned, the first use of the term “stream of consciousness” by a critic was in reference to Richardson’s thirteen-part novel Pilgrimage: 

Encyclopedia of Literary Modernism


Richardson's claim to be recognized as a key modernist figure lies principally in her avant-garde stylistic innovations, most notably her pioneering use of what May Sinclair first termed "stream-of-consciousness," pre-dating the more renowned achievements of Joyce and Woolf. (Ruth McElroy, “Richardson, Dorothy (1873- 1957),” Encyclopedia of Literary Modernism, 2003)

Richardson however, was not keen on the term in reference to her work, calling it a “lamentably ill-chosen metaphor” (“Novels,” Life and Letters To-day, 1948)

We can see an example of Richardson’s technique in the first work in the Pilgrimage series, Pointed Roofs (1915) in which the protagonist Miriam travels to Germany to teach English at a finishing school and hears student Emma Bergmann play the piano: 

Pointed Roofs

Miriam, her fatigue forgotten, slid to a featureless freedom. It seemed to her that the light with which the room was filled grew brighter and clearer. She felt that she was looking at nothing and yet was aware of the whole room like a picture in a dream. Fear left her. The human forms all round her lost their power. They grew suffused and dim.... The pensive swing of the music changed to urgency and emphasis.... It came nearer and nearer. It did not come from the candle-lit corner where the piano was.... It came from everywhere. It carried her out of the house, out of the world.
It hastened with her, on and on towards great brightness.... Everything was growing brighter and brighter....

Gertrude Goldring, the Australian, was making noises with her hands like inflated paper bags being popped.  ([2002])

Joyce Kelley describes the scene as “one of the most important modernist moments of the novel,” (Excursions into Modernism, 2017) and points to Caesar R Blake’s comments in the Spectator in which he described the scene as “‘opening’ vouchsafed to the contemplative consciousness” (1919; Quoted in Kelley, 2017).  

Excursions into Modernism

Such an “opening” may remind us of Richardson’s feeling in writing the novel, when she felt in tune with her unconscious. [...] Suddenly the music creates a new geographic space for Miriam’s wandering mind as the room itself becomes “like a picture in a dream.” [...] Music takes Miriam on a mental excursion to a new plane of existence, a space of “great brightness,” until there is an interruption of strange popping noises, which Miriam in her transformed state cannot recognize as applause. (2017)

It is through the dreamlike nature of stream of consciousness that the reader can step into the mind of Miriam, experiencing her wandering thoughts and memories. 

Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) is a modern take on Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey. In Joyce’s text, set in a single day in Dublin, we are privy to the internal thoughts of three main characters: Leopold Bloom, his wife Molly, and Stephen Dedalus (a character from Joyce’s previous novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 1916). 

The stream-of-consciousness passages for each character, of course, have different focuses. While Stephen Dedalus’ thoughts are predominantly introspective and concerned with philosophical and existential questions, Leopold’s thoughts are often personal and border on the mundane as he observes the world around him. An example of Leopold’s stream of consciousness is as follows: 

The sun was nearing the steeple of George’s church. Be a warm day I fancy. Specially in these black clothes feel it more. Black conducts, reflects, (refracts is it?), the heat. But I couldn’t go in that light suit. Make a picnic of it. His eyelids sank quietly often as he walked in happy warmth. Boland’s breadvan delivering with trays our daily but she prefers yesterday’s loaves turnovers crisp crowns hot. Makes you feel young. (Joyce, 1922, [2017])

Modernism

Sentences are fragmented; words are truncated. As we eavesdrop on Bloom’s inner thoughts, we don’t get perfectly polished sentences because we are seemingly not the intended audience. Bloom is talking to himself: a highly informal, even intimate, act. (Modernism, 2017)

One of the most celebrated sections of the novel is the final episode “Penelope”, where we experience the uninterrupted thoughts of Molly Bloom, told in only eight, unpunctuated sentences. Molly lies in bed contemplating her past lovers, infidelity, and memories with her husband, as well as her thoughts on ageing and social norms. As Molly recalls accepting Leopold’s proposal, she closes the novel with the famous words “yes I said yes I will Yes” (Joyce, 1922, [2017]) - Joyce wanted the novel to end on the most positive word in the English language. 

An Introduction to the English Novel: Volume 2

Here, with the abandonment of punctuation, there seems to be a more consistent attempt actually to reproduce the stream of consciousness. The thoughts are now no longer broken by objective statements in the third person, they glide on and into each other until consciousness is finally overcome by sleep. [...] Molly Bloom's thoughts need no punctuation because, lying in bed, action has been eliminated. The cross-play of thought and action is no longer a technical problem. It is significant that the stream of consciousness method can only come into play in its purest form when consciousness is no longer an active apprehension of the present but a mode of recollection and impulse divorced from actual activity. (An Introduction to the English Novel: Volume 2, 1953, [2016])

Using stream of consciousness is a hallmark of Joyce’s work, with his novel Finnegan’s Wake (1939), regarded by many as one of the most challenging books in the literature, taking stream of consciousness to another level. 

Virginia Woolf is regarded as one of the masters of the technique:

​​Cultural Memory, Consciousness, and The Modernist Novel

Virginia Woolf’s fictional experimentation pushes the boundaries of form. She makes use of interior monologue, fragmentation, irony, and dislocations of time. She raises epistemological questions in her novels about the mind and perspective. Woolf’s lyricism unwinds in passages of “Time Passes” in To the Lighthouse and in the interludes of The Waves. Her language takes flight in other stories with fluid, poetic phrasing, and stream of consciousness. (Robert McParland, ​​Cultural Memory, Consciousness, and The Modernist Novel, 2022)

A key example of how Woolf uses stream of consciousness can be seen in her novel Mrs Dalloway (1925) which, similar to Ulysses, follows the thoughts and experiences of the titular Clarissa Dalloway during a single day in London. In the extract below, Clarissa contemplates her relationship with the city: 

Mrs. Dalloway

For having lived in Westminster — how many years now? over twenty — one feels even in the midst of the traffic, or waking at night, Clarissa was positive, a particular hush, or solemnity; an indescribable pause; a suspense (but that might be her heart, affected, they said, by influenza) before Big Ben strikes. There! Out it boomed. First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved in the air. Such fools we are, she thought, crossing Victoria Street. (Woolf, 1925, [2019])

Woolf’s unconventional use of punctuation indicates interruptions in her thoughts and transitions between ideas, capturing the dynamic nature of consciousness. 

Though some of the most famous and influential examples of stream of consciousness are found in modernist literature, there are countless instances of this style in contemporary fiction, specifically Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) and the work of Max Porter. 

Toni Morrison’s much-celebrated novel Beloved (1987) is a haunting novel set in the aftermath of the American Civil War. In the novel, Sethe, a former enslaved woman, is haunted by her dead daughter (known as Beloved), and explores themes of trauma, memory, and the legacy of slavery. The following excerpt demonstrates how Morrison uses stream of consciousness to mimic the innermost thoughts of the character Beloved: 

I am alone   I want to be the two of us   I want the join   I come out of blue water after the bottoms of my feet swim away from me   I come up   I need to find a place to be   the air is heavy   I am not dead   I am not   there is a house   there is what she whispered to me   I am where she told me   I am not dead   I sit   the sun closes my eyes   when I open them I see the face I lost   Sethe’s is the face that left me   Sethe sees me see her and I see the smile   her smiling face is the place for me   it is the face I lost   she is my face smiling at me     doing it at last   a hot thing   now we can join   a hot thing  (1987, [2024])

The repeated use of the phrase “I am not dead” acts as a form of incantation as the spirit of Beloved tries to will herself back to life: 

Study Guide to Beloved by Toni Morrison

In what is the most surrealistic event in the novel, Beloved speaks, not just for herself, but as a representative of the 60 million Africans taken from their homeland who died in the middle passage. To mark its importance, Morrison suspends formal grammatical requirements, opting instead for short staccato-like sentences with very little punctuation of capitalization. [...] the style of the prose is stream-of-consciousness. We are finally inside Beloved’s head. (Intelligent Education, Study Guide to Beloved by Toni Morrison, 2020)

Another contemporary writer who utilizes this technique is Max Porter, writer of Grief is the Thing with Feathers (2015), Lanny (2019), The Death of Francis Bacon (2021), and Shy (2023). 

In Shy, Porter narrates the journey of a teenager, the eponymous Shy, over the course of one evening as he runs away from a juvenile reform home, Last Chance. Shy’s thoughts oscillate between his current situation and surroundings and his past, often broken up with his opinions on the music he listens to on his Walkman: 

Critical Perspectives on Max Porter

Its idiom is noticeably different from that of Porter’s former novels because it contains a lot of teen slang, the kind used by the teenage focalizer and his mates. There is a great formal variety between sections (all of which are unnumbered and untitled): some are composed of several-page-long paragraphs; others are highly fragmented and contain a lot of blank space. (Wojciech Drąg, “The Rise and Rise of Max Porter,” Critical Perspectives on Max Porter, 2024)

Stream of consciousness is used to achieve a different effect altogether in Lanny, creating a dreamlike narrative in this rural folktale. The story follows a couple who have just moved to a village in England from the city with their son, the imaginative and sensitive Lanny. This close-knit and seemingly uneventful village is thrown into turmoil when Lanny goes missing, lured away by the supernatural being Dead Papa Toothwart. 

Throughout the text, the reader is privy to the thoughts of many characters including Lanny’s parents, family friend and reclusive artist “Mad” Peter, various villagers, and Dead Papa Toothwart. Though these are the primary perspectives in the text, we also hear from numerous other villagers as they interrupt the narrative with their own dialogue and thoughts, adding a sense of disorientation and chaos. The range of narrative voices and intrusions reveals the deeply interconnected (and often contentious) nature of rural living. 

Though most prominently expressed in modernist literature, stream of consciousness continues to be used in contemporary fiction, such as Milkman (2018) by Anna Burns and Duck, Newburyport (2019) by Lucy Ellman. By reflecting the chaotic, unfiltered experience of human thought, these texts offer their readers a more intimate connection with the characters. 

The significance of the technique in creating an immersive reading experience is best explained by Virginia Woolf in her essay “Modern Fiction” (1925):

Essays

Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall, let us trace the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness. Let us not take it for granted that life exists more fully in what is commonly thought big than in what is commonly thought small. (Essays, 2021)

Modernist Fiction: An Introduction (2014) by Randall Stevenson 

Transparent Minds: Narrative Modes for Presenting Consciousness in Fiction (2020) by  Dorrit Claire Cohn

Virginia Woolf and the Madness of Language (2018) by Daniel Ferrer 

Burns, A. (2018) Milkman. Faber & Faber. Available at: 
https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571338757-milkman/ 

Drąg, W. (2024) “The Rise and Rise of Max Porter,” in Drąg, W., Rudrum, D., and Wojtas, P. (eds.) Critical Perspectives on Max Porter. Routledge. Available at: 

https://www.perlego.com/book/4330632/critical-perspectives-on-max-porter 

Eliot, T. S. (2022) The Waste Land, Prufrock, The Hollow Men and Other Poems. Dover Publications. Available at: 

​https://www.perlego.com/book/3277503/the-waste-land-prufrock-the-hollow-men-and-other-poems 

Ellman, L. (2019) Duck, Newburyport. Galley Beggar. Available at: 
https://www.galleybeggar.co.uk/paperback-shop/ritegxpqvavi286gp91sd0he23hzx4 

Faulkner, W. (2024) As I Lay Dying. Horizon Ridge Publications. Available at: 

https://www.perlego.com/book/4465921/as-i-lay-dying 

Fludernik, M. (2009) An Introduction to Narratology. Routledge. Available at: 

https://www.perlego.com/book/1609697/an-introduction-to-narratology 

Hu, J. (2016) “Stream of Consciousness,” in Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism. Routledge. Available at: 
https://uat-rem.routledge.com/articles/stream-of-consciousness 

Humphrey, R. (2023) Stream of Consciousness in the Modern Novel: A Study of James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Dorothy Richardson, William Faulkner, and Others. University of California Press. Available at: 

https://www.perlego.com/book/4258268/stream-of-consciousness-in-the-modern-novel-a-study-of-james-joyce-virginia-woolf-dorothy-richardson-william-faulkner-and-others 

Intelligent Education. (2020) Study Guide to Beloved by Toni Morrison. Influence Publishers. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/2934826/study-guide-to-beloved-by-toni-morrison 

James, W. (2019) The Principles of Psychology. Laurus Book Society. Available at: 
​​https://www.perlego.com/book/2899189/the-principles-of-psychology 

Joyce, J. (2017) Ulysses. Delphi Classics. Available at: 

https://www.perlego.com/book/1654296/ulysses-by-james-joyce-illustrated 

Joyce, J. (2019) A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Heritage Books. Available at: 

https://www.perlego.com/book/2912589/a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man 

Kelley, J. (2017) Excursions into Modernism: Women Writers, Travel, and the Body. Routledge. Available at: 

https://www.perlego.com/book/1496408/excursions-into-modernism-women-writers-travel-and-the-body 

Kettle, A. (2016) An Introduction to the English Novel: Volume 2. Routledge. Available at: 
https://www.perlego.com/book/1640023/an-introduction-to-the-english-novel-volume-ii 

McElroy, R. (2003) “Richardson, Dorothy (1873- 1957),” in Poplawski, P. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Literary Modernism. Available at: 
https://www.perlego.com/book/4167956/encyclopedia-of-literary-modernism 

McParland, R. (2022) ​​Cultural Memory, Consciousness, and The Modernist Novel. Academica Press. Available at: 

​​https://www.perlego.com/book/3267662/cultural-memory-consciousness-and-the-modernist-novel 

Morrison, T. (2024) Beloved. Penguin. Available at: 

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/354913/beloved-by-morrison-toni/9780099511656 

Porter, M. (2015) Grief is the Thing with Feathers. Faber & Faber. Available at: 
https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571383795-grief-is-the-thing-with-feathers/ 

Porter, M. (2019) Lanny. Faber & Faber. Available at: 

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