Heroic Age (literary theory)

Some 20th-century studies of oral poetry and traditional literature postulate Heroic Ages as stages in the development of human societies likely to give rise to legends about heroic deeds. According to some theorists, oral epic poetry would originate during an Heroic Age, and would be transmitted, by singers who displayed less creativity, through later periods. Scholars who adopted Heroic Age theories include:

• Maurice Bowra (1898–1971)
• Hector Munro Chadwick (1870–1947) and Nora Kershaw Chadwick (1891–1972)

A widely-shared view was that each society would pass through a Heroic Age only once. This apparently explains why, in the Chadwicks' survey of world-wide oral and traditional poetry, The Growth of Literature (published 1932–1940), medieval European epics such as the French Chansons de geste and the Spanish Cantar de Mio Cid are omitted: those societies are taken to have passed through a Heroic Age earlier.

Bryan Hainsworth has suggested that in the various so-called Heroic Ages named by modern scholars "what is described is a by-product ... of the tendency of heroic poetry to congeal into cycles, often ... around a signal event".

Conventionally, Heroic Ages may feature martial aristocratic and monarchical societies, with values focused on honor, reputation, bravery, generosity and friendship.