The Epic

[Luckieman]

Maybe in writing, but mulling on what you said, Michael Corleone happens to fit this definition of a hero perfectly xD Also perhaps Anakin Skywalker and Scarlett O'Hara.

If there is a question or a discussion topic buried in here it may be too deep to unearth.

Should you write an epic?  Are you concerned it may not be as popular as your other reams of verse (and everyone else's reams of verse)?
I wouldn't fret too much about modern readers at this point or really any readers.

Do you want to write an epic?  Write an epic.  It's the best reason

Nobody will read it but your mum either way but it's a poor reason to write poetry anyway.

The majority of modern (homogenised) cultures are antithetical to the concept of the 'hero' on which epics are anchored. Admittedly some aspects of most heroes were quite nasty (but of their times and societies) but the common factors are personal as opposed to corporate (in the generic sense) duty, and implacable and ineluctable fate. Neither is considered other than as a joke in our urban cultures, so heroes can't really exist. Batman, Superman and co are not heroes, they're just Dei ex machina - magic helpers for the incapable, which isn't the same thing as hero. Almost all heroes finish up dead as that's fated - it's part of their myth to die gracefully doing something dramatic. However small vestiges of heroism do sometimes show up and they can make powerful literature, if for no other reason than their rarity and thus surprise value.

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....and I just remembered Gone With the Wind started life as a book.

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....also The Godfather! xD

To my mind Corleone wasn't - he didn't have any sense of duty except to himself and his clan as an extension of himself. Skywalker was a half understood Hollywood attempt at an epic hero but turned out rather limp - with the trappings, but not the required strength of character (because Hollywood doesn't understand it), and Scarlet was just a spoiled brat. The Godfather too, had no sense of outward looking duty.

The same distinction exists in honour. The true hero's honour is outward 'I honour you' (which is why so many went knowingly and willingly to their deaths in the Trojan war when they could have sidestepped it) whereas the 'honour' of the Godfather and his kind is inward looking 'you honour me', which is just high pride. Neither in any of these characters is there a continuous recognition of their ultimate fate in the hands of an implacable external agency (e.g. 'the Gods'). It's a fundmental driver of heroic action as it's inescapable. Grettir's doom is foretold, and dictates his entire life's course until his end occurs exactly as foretold.