HE EPIC HERO occupies a secure niche in modern criticism. His reassuring presence guarantees the unity of an epic poem and directs our scrutiny when we search for theme. If he is not easy to pick out, there ensues a quarrel over his identity, with a list of candidates for the post; the poem in question, especially if it is an ancient epic, is either disparaged as formless and episodic, or else praised for bold independence, held together on other and more interesting principles. Modern critics evidently see it as the norm for ancient and modern epics alike to be organized around an individual, who will embody the meaning of the poem. Scholes and Kellogg describe the nucleus of the epic as "the chronicle of the deeds of the hero"; by their account, "the epic plot is to a certain extent bespoken by epic characterization. The plot is inherent in the concept of the protagonist."' According to Northrop Frye, "In literary fictions the plot consists of somebody doing something. The somebody, if an individual, is the hero ... Fictions ... may be classified, not morally, but by the hero's power of action, which may be greater than ours, less, or roughly the same."" Of Frye's five classifications, the epic hero belongs to number three, the hero of the "high mimetic mode," "superior in degree to other men but not to his natural environment" (pp. 33-34). Morton W. Bloomfield, after a careful discussion of the meaning of the word "hero," asserts: "Whatever term be used for the major personage or personages of narrative or drama, that these genres have always been presented around such figures cannot be doubted."3