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The Epic

Hero

The epic hero has a double role. He (there are no epical woman heroes as far as I know) is an individual person with an habitual virtue from which his exploits flow, and he is representative of the group to whom the exploit is important. Since the performance of the exploit is important because of the group rather than the person, the man may be destroyed, but the group may be saved. The hero’s habitual virtue is specific to the kind of exploit; his goodness is not specific—it simply means that he is serious, and he will cope with the problem. The hero need not be responsible for the existence of his task, but only for its performance.