Questão 66689

A university professor of English literature is planning a seminar on literary genres, aiming to discuss both tradition and innovation. He wants to challenge the students' tendency to view genres as rigid, timeless categories. The seminar's focus is on the evolution of the epic genre. The starting point is a canonical text, a selection from Homer's 'The Odyssey,' to establish the traditional features of the epic: a heroic protagonist, a vast setting, supernatural forces, and an elevated, formal style. The professor's goal is to demonstrate how these features have been transformed and subverted in modern and contemporary literature. To create a provocative juxtaposition, he decides to pair 'The Odyssey' with a contemporary work of 'docu-poetry,' such as Claudia Rankine's 'Citizen: An American Lyric.' 'Citizen' blends poetry, prose, and images to document the everyday experiences of racism and microaggressions faced by Black Americans. Some students in the seminar are likely to question this choice, arguing that 'Citizen' lacks a single heroic protagonist and a grand narrative, and therefore cannot be considered in relation to the epic. The professor's challenge is to articulate a theoretical basis for this comparison, showing how the concept of the epic can be expanded. He intends to argue that contemporary works can be 'epic' in their ambition to capture the collective experience and struggle of a community or a nation, even if they reject traditional forms.

What is the most compelling pedagogical argument for analyzing Claudia Rankine's 'Citizen' as an innovative form of the epic genre?