Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
The speaker is Creeley himself, as he clearly states in the third stanza. He takes on a critical tone throughout the text.
Form and Meter
The poem is written in free verse and broken up into four quatrains.
Metaphors and Similes
N/A
Alliteration and Assonance
N/A
Irony
N/A
Genre
Heroic poetry
Setting
The poem is set in an unspecified modern day location with glances back to the classical era
Tone
Respectful, critical
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonist is the speaker, Robert Creeley. There is no clearly defined antagonist.
Major Conflict
The major conflict of the poem is that the world still needs hero narratives, but the old way of writing them no longer functions.
Climax
The climax of the poem comes in the last stanza when Creeley comments that the world still awaits heroes and their stories.
Foreshadowing
The opening line foreshadows the fact that Creeley will be critiquing heroic epics in the rest of the poem.
Understatement
N/A
Allusions
Creeley makes allusions to the heroes Aeneas and Hercules as well as the poet Virgil, author of the Aeneid.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
N/A
Personification
The lines "in the way the mountains / and the desert are waiting," personify natural imagery with the use of the word "waiting."
Hyperbole
N/A
Onomatopoeia
N/A
