beast epic

American  

noun

1. a long verse narrative in which the misadventures of animals satirize human foibles and follies.

---

Etymology

Origin of beast epic

First recorded in 1885–90

Example Sentences

Dominated by that slippery character, the beast epic no longer makes it altogether clear what lesson we are learning, or whether we should be learning it.

From The New Yorker • Apr. 27, 2015

Even a good-sized beast epic features no more than perhaps a dozen types of animal, each represented by only one or a few individuals, with names and rudimentary personalities.

From The New Yorker • Apr. 27, 2015

The main incidents of "Reynard the Fox" occur in folk-tales throughout Europe, and it has often been discussed whether the folk-tales were the foundation of the beast epic or vice versa.

From Europa's Fairy Book by Batten, John Dickson

Renard is, of course, the central personage in the gigantic beast epic, but we hear not a little of his wife Hermeline or Erme, of madam wolf, Dame Hersent, and of Harouge, the leopardess.

From Women of Mediæval France Woman: in all ages and in all countries Vol. 5 (of 10) by Butler, Pierce

The closely allied subject of the satirical beast epic of the middle ages also had a great charm for Jacob Grimm, and he published an edition of the Reinhart Fuchs in 1834.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 5 "Greek Law" to "Ground-Squirrel" by Various