The dissertation challenges Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin’s argument that the epic is “semi-moribund”. The argument, that absolute epic distance may be “novelized”, is an original contribution to contemporary epic poetic theory. The creative half of the thesis is a contemporary epic poem, titled The Odour of Sanctity. It demonstrates the dissertation’s argument that a poem may be epic without maintaining “absolute epic distance”, and that the cultural truth of the contemporary epic is conveyed via a vast series of fragments.