2009 Survivor Bonus Round Challenge #7: Middle Ages.

Lauren Hynde

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We're halfway through Survivor challenge. It's Summer, and one thing that I have been seeing in many places around here (in Portugal) over the last few weeks is Medieval Fairs.

For this Survivor Bonus Round Challenge, your mission is to try your hand at medieval poetry. Write an epic poem, a saga, a chanson de geste or an acritic song. Write about a hero, real or imaginary, and about his/her heroic deeds. The setting doesn't need to be medieval - it can be set today about a living person - but it should have the same basic principles as those used in medieval poetry.

You don't need to be participating in Survivor to take this challenge. If you are participating in Survivor, for your poem to be eligible for points under the Special Bonus Rounds heading, it needs to be submitted to Literotica.com and be posted between 07/15/2009 and 08/12/2009.

Feel free to use this thread to workshop this challenge, to banter about this challenge, to post links to your submissions to this challenge, and to give your opinion on poems submitted to this challenge.
 
A little research

If we follow the form for these sounds like there will be some long poems coming out!

Epic
noting or pertaining to a long poetic composition, usually centered upon a hero, in which a series of great achievements or events is narrated in elevated style: Homer's Iliad is an epic poem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_poetry
http://www.ehow.com/how_3334_write-epic-poem.html

saga
a medieval Icelandic or Norse prose narrative of achievements and events in the history of a personage, family, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saga

chanson de geste
(in medieval French literature) an epic poem written in assonant verse or rhyme about historical or legendary events or figures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanson_de_geste

Acritic song
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acritic_songs
 
Good grief this is like writing a novel and I am confusing myself already heaven help the poor reader! Pleeeeeeeeease don't make the next challenge so long as I will only have half the time to write it in.
 
I geuss if we're not stuck in the middle ages we can have our hero fight any sort of villian with whatever are the appropriate tools. I'm thinking of my hero being a programmer and overcoming all sorts of bugs and the like, sometimes with his 'bare hands'
 
I geuss if we're not stuck in the middle ages we can have our hero fight any sort of villian with whatever are the appropriate tools. I'm thinking of my hero being a programmer and overcoming all sorts of bugs and the like, sometimes with his 'bare hands'

Great idea!
 
I hope this stuff isn't supposed to rhyme

Nothing I've seen indicates any rhyme or meter requirements.
From oral storytelling traditions, so any auditory embellishments should be OK.
Long and heroic seem to be the big things, but may be comprised of many small pieces.
 
My hero has only just set out I have no idea where he is going or how he's going to be heroic. Wonder if the reviewers know what's in store for them also wonders if it's only you and me .....
 
I'll bet Pushkine and a couple others do it, too.
I have to get rolling again - summer doldrums or something.
Hopefully it comes out fast when I start.
 
Not just the two of you!

'My hero has only just set out I have no idea where he is going or how he's going to be heroic. Wonder if the reviewers know what's in store for them also wonders if it's only you and me ....."


I just joined the Poetry Survivor contest this past week so this is the first challenge I'll be trying. What a way to start!!! :eek:
 
'My hero has only just set out I have no idea where he is going or how he's going to be heroic. Wonder if the reviewers know what's in store for them also wonders if it's only you and me ....."


I just joined the Poetry Survivor contest this past week so this is the first challenge I'll be trying. What a way to start!!! :eek:

Hello and welcome! If you haven't had your scorecard go up yet send Lauren a Direct Message asking her to do it for you and Good Luck! Also worth picking a number on the Immunities thread although you don't score any points they do help you bypass the trickiest of forms
 
Welcome, we await your epic.

'My hero has only just set out I have no idea where he is going or how he's going to be heroic. Wonder if the reviewers know what's in store for them also wonders if it's only you and me ....."


I just joined the Poetry Survivor contest this past week so this is the first challenge I'll be trying. What a way to start!!! :eek:

Welcome! I've read and enjoyed a couple of your poems.:)

It looks like there are a couple of others who have survivor entry requests - perhaps Lauren has computer troubles again. At any rate, keep track of your survivor poems and update once the scorecard is ready.

My epic is there now, submitted late last night so didn't expect until Monday.
I hope its not too technical - non-programmers may not catch the significance of some of the words I used. None of the words are obscure, but have a different context in programmer parlance.
I had to post an image and some descriptive text after my previous poem (geology field work).;)
 
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Read and commented well done!

Thanks for the review. There'd have been a little more alliteration if I could have had my chosen title: "Norbert, Knight of Never-ending Nights", but just a little to long for lit. Also noticed a couple of typos: 'curios' s/b 'curious' and 'east' s/b 'each'. Spellchecker passes them and I missed them.
 
I did wonder about 'ralase' second line from the bottom but could be a proper computing word for all I know!
 
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