The female epic is a concept in literary criticism

Literary criticism

Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...

 that seeks to expand generic boundaries by identifying ways in which women authors have adapted the masculine epic tradition to express their own heroic visions.

Historically, epic

Epic poetry

An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...

 literature has been considered an exclusively male domain, to the extent that "epic and masculinity appear to be almost coterminous." From Homer

Homer

In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

's Iliad

Iliad

The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...

 to Milton

John Milton

John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...

's Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...

, the epic canon has been defined by works authored by men, and the characteristic subject matter and diction of the epic have carried connotations of masculinity. Recently, however, feminist literary critics have identified a number of texts written by women which, they argue, deserve to be considered epics, as they have many of the required qualities: emphasis on hero

Hero

A hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion...

ism, nation building, religious authority, a strong quest

Quest

In mythology and literature, a quest, a journey towards a goal, serves as a plot device and as a symbol. Quests appear in the folklore of every nation and also figure prominently in non-national cultures. In literature, the objects of quests require great exertion on the part of the hero, and...

 motif, and significant length. Because these texts post-date Milton’s Paradise Lost – conventionally considered to be the last authentic epic in the Western tradition – they are by default "modern epics".
However, argue these critics, this is by no means a contradiction. The epic remains an authentic and vital literary genre, and one to which women have made valuable contributions.

The breadth of these studies is indicated by the essays in Bernard Schweizer

Bernard Schweizer

Bernard Schweizer is an associate professor of English at Long Island University, Brooklyn. He has published several books and essay collections on topics in British and European literatures. He is a leading Rebecca West scholar and has edited or co-edited a number of Rebecca West’s previously...

's Approaches to the Anglo and American Female Epic, 1621-1982 (2006), which features studies of, among others, Lady Mary Wroth

Lady Mary Wroth

Lady Mary Wroth was an English poet of the Renaissance. A member of a distinguished literary English family, Wroth was among the first female British writers to have achieved an enduring reputation...

’s Urania, Mary Tighe

Mary Tighe

Mary Tighe , was an Anglo-Irish poet.She was born in Dublin to Theodosia Tighe, a Methodist leader, and William Blachford , a Church of Ireland clergyman and librarian...

’s Psyche, Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most prominent poets of the Victorian era. Her poetry was widely popular in both England and the United States during her lifetime. A collection of her last poems was published by her husband, Robert Browning, shortly after her death.-Early life:Members...

’s Aurora Leigh

Aurora Leigh

Aurora Leigh is an eponymous epic novel/poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The poem is written in blank verse and encompasses nine books . It is a first person narration, from the point of view of Aurora; its other heroine, Marian Erle, is an abused self-taught child of itinerant parents...

, Sharon Doubiago’s Hard Country, and Rebecca West

Rebecca West

Cicely Isabel Fairfield , known by her pen name Rebecca West, or Dame Rebecca West, DBE was an English author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. A prolific, protean author who wrote in many genres, West was committed to feminist and liberal principles and was one of the foremost public...

’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia is a travel book written by Dame Rebecca West, published in 1941.The book is of exceptional length . It gives an account of Balkan history and ethnography, and the significance of Nazism, structured about West's six week trip to Yugoslavia in...

.