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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10716 ***
+
+The Epic: an Essay
+
+By Lascelles Abercrombie
+
+
+
+1914.
+
+
+
+By the same Author:
+
+
+Towards a Theory of Art
+Speculative Dialogues
+Four Short Plays
+Thomas Hardy: A Critical Study
+Principles of English Prosody
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+_As this essay is disposed to consider epic poetry as a species of
+literature, and not as a department of sociology or archaeology or
+ethnology, the reader will not find it anything material to the
+discussion which may be typified in those very interesting works,
+Gilbert Murray's "The Rise of the Greek Epic" and Andrew Lang's "The
+World of Homer." The distinction between a literary and a scientific
+attitude to Homer (and all other "authentic" epic) is, I think, finally
+summed up in Mr. Mackail's "Lectures on Greek Poetry"; the following
+pages, at any rate, assume that this is so. Theories about epic origins
+were therefore indifferent to my purpose. Besides, I do not see the need
+for any theories; I think it need only be said, of any epic poem
+whatever, that it was composed by a man and transmitted by men. But this
+is not to say that investigation of the "authentic" epic poet's_ milieu
+_may not be extremely profitable; and for settling the preliminaries of
+this essay, I owe a great deal to Mr. Chadwick's profoundly
+interesting study, "The Heroic Age"; though I daresay Mr. Chadwick would
+repudiate some of my conclusions. I must also acknowledge suggestions
+taken from Mr. Macneile Dixon's learned and vigorous "English Epic and
+Heroic Poetry"; and especially the assistance of Mr. John Clark's
+"History of Epic Poetry." Mr. Clark's book is so thorough and so
+adequate that my own would certainly have been superfluous, were it not
+that I have taken a particular point of view which his method seems to
+rule out--a point of view which seemed well worth taking. This is my
+excuse, too, for considering only the most conspicuous instances of epic
+poetry. They have been discussed often enough; but not often, so far as
+I know, primarily as stages of one continuous artistic development_.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+
+BEGINNINGS
+
+The invention of epic poetry corresponds with a definite and, in the
+history of the world, often recurring state of society. That is to say,
+epic poetry has been invented many times and independently; but, as the
+needs which prompted the invention have been broadly similar, so the
+invention itself has been. Most nations have passed through the same
+sort of chemistry. Before their hot racial elements have been thoroughly
+compounded, and thence have cooled into the stable convenience of
+routine which is the material shape of civilization--before this has
+firmly occurred, there has usually been what is called an "Heroic Age."
+It is apt to be the hottest and most glowing stage of the process. So
+much is commonplace. Exactly what causes the racial elements of a
+nation, with all their varying properties, to flash suddenly (as it
+seems) into the splendid incandescence of an Heroic Age, and thence to
+shift again into a comparatively rigid and perhaps comparatively
+lustreless civilization--this difficult matter has been very nicely
+investigated of late, and to interesting, though not decided, result.
+But I may not concern myself with this; nor even with the detailed
+characteristics, alleged or ascertained, of the Heroic Age of nations.
+It is enough for the purpose of this book that the name "Heroic Age" is
+a good one for this stage of the business; it is obviously, and on the
+whole rightly, descriptive. For the stage displays the first vigorous
+expression, as the natural thing and without conspicuous restraint, of
+private individuality. In savagery, thought, sentiment, religion and
+social organization may be exceedingly complicated, full of the most
+subtle and strange relationships; but they exist as complete and
+determined _wholes_, each part absolutely bound up with the rest.
+Analysis has never come near them. The savage is blinded to the glaring
+incongruities of his tribal ideas not so much by habit or reverence; it
+is simply that the mere possibility of such a thing as analysis has
+never occurred to him. He thinks, he feels, he lives, all in a whole.
+Each person is the tribe in little. This may make everyone an
+astoundingly complex character; but it makes strong individuality
+impossible in savagery, since everyone accepts the same elaborate
+unanalysed whole of tribal existence. That existence, indeed, would find
+in the assertion of private individuality a serious danger; and tribal
+organization guards against this so efficiently that it is doubtless
+impossible, so long as there is no interruption from outside. In some
+obscure manner, however, savage existence has been constantly
+interrupted; and it seems as if the long-repressed forces of
+individuality then burst out into exaggerated vehemence; for the result
+(if it is not slavery) is, that a people passes from its savage to its
+heroic age, on its way to some permanence of civilization. It must
+always have taken a good deal to break up the rigidity of savage
+society. It might be the shock of enforced mixture with a totally alien
+race, the two kinds of blood, full of independent vigour, compelled to
+flow together;[1] or it might be the migration, due to economic stress,
+from one tract of country to which the tribal existence was perfectly
+adapted to another for which it was quite unsuited, with the added
+necessity of conquering the peoples found in possession. Whatever the
+cause may have been, the result is obvious: a sudden liberation, a
+delighted expansion, of numerous private individualities.
+
+But the various appearances of the Heroic Age cannot, perhaps, be
+completely generalized. What has just been written will probably do for
+the Heroic Age which produced Homer, and for that which produced the
+_Nibelungenlied, Beowulf_, and the Northern Sagas. It may, therefore
+stand as the typical case; since Homer and these Northern poems are what
+most people have in their minds when they speak of "authentic" epic. But
+decidedly Heroic Ages have occurred much later than the latest of these
+cases; and they arose out of a state of society which cannot roundly be
+called savagery. Europe, for instance, had its unmistakable Heroic Age
+when it was fighting with the Moslem, whether that warfare was a cause
+or merely an accompaniment. And the period which preceded it, the period
+after the failure of Roman civilization, was sufficiently "dark" and
+devoid of individuality, to make the sudden plenty of potent and
+splendid individuals seem a phenomenon of the same sort as that which
+has been roughly described; it can scarcely be doubted that the age
+which is exhibited in the _Poem of the Cid_, the _Song of Roland_, and
+the lays of the Crusaders (_la Chanson d'Antioche_, for instance), was
+similar in all essentials to the age we find in Homer and the
+_Nibelungenlied_. Servia, too, has its ballad-cycles of Christian and
+Mahometan warfare, which suppose an age obviously heroic. But it hardly
+falls in with our scheme; Servia, at this time, might have been expected
+to have gone well past its Heroic Age. Either, then, it was somehow
+unusually prolonged, or else the clash of the Ottoman war revived it.
+The case of Servia is interesting in another way. The songs about the
+battle of Kossovo describe Servian defeat--defeat so overwhelming that
+poetry cannot possibly translate it, and does not attempt it, into
+anything that looks like victory. Even the splendid courage of its hero
+Milos, who counters an imputation of treachery by riding in full
+daylight into the Ottoman camp and murdering the Sultan, even this
+courage is rather near to desperation. The Marko cycle--Marko whose
+betrayal of his country seems wiped out by his immense prowess--has in a
+less degree this utter defeat of Servia as its background. But Servian
+history before all this has many glories, which, one would think, would
+serve the turn of heroic song better than appalling defeat and, indeed,
+enslavement. Why is the latter celebrated and not the former? The reason
+can only be this: heroic poetry depends on an heroic age, and an age is
+heroic because of what it is, not because of what it does. Servia's
+defeat by the armies of Amurath came at a time when its people was too
+strongly possessed by the heroic spirit to avoid uttering itself in
+poetry. And from this it appears, too, that when the heroic age sings,
+it primarily sings of itself, even when that means singing of its own
+humiliation.--One other exceptional kind of heroic age must just be
+mentioned, in this professedly inadequate summary. It is the kind which
+occurs quite locally and on a petty scale, with causes obscurer than
+ever. The Border Ballads, for instance, and the Robin Hood Ballads,
+clearly suppose a state of society which is nothing but a very
+circumscribed and not very important heroic age. Here the households of
+gentry take the place of courts, and the poetry in vogue there is
+perhaps instantly taken up by the taverns; or perhaps this is a case in
+which the heroes are so little removed from common folk that celebration
+of individual prowess begins among the latter, not, as seems usually to
+have happened, among the social equals of the heroes. But doubtless
+there are infinite grades in the structure of the Heroic Age.
+
+The note of the Heroic Age, then, is vehement private individuality
+freely and greatly asserting itself. The assertion is not always what we
+should call noble; but it is always forceful and unmistakable. There
+would be, no doubt, some social and religious scheme to contain the
+individual's self-assertion; but the latter, not the former, is the
+thing that counts. It is not an age that lasts for very long as a rule;
+and before there comes the state in which strong social organization and
+strong private individuality are compatible--mutually helpful instead of
+destroying one another, as they do, in opposite ways, in savagery and in
+the Heroic Age--before the state called civilization can arrive, there
+has commonly been a long passage of dark obscurity, which throws up into
+exaggerated brightness the radiance of the Heroic Age. The balance of
+private good and general welfare is at the bottom of civilized morals;
+but the morals of the Heroic Age are founded on individuality, and on
+nothing else. In Homer, for instance, it can be seen pretty clearly that
+a "good" man is simply a man of imposing, active individuality[2]; a
+"bad" man is an inefficient, undistinguished man--probably, too, like
+Thersites, ugly. It is, in fact, an absolutely aristocratic age--an age
+in which he who rules is thereby proven the "best." And from its nature
+it must be an age very heartily engaged in something; usually fighting
+whoever is near enough to be fought with, though in _Beowulf_ it seems
+to be doing something more profitable to the civilization which is to
+follow it--taming the fierceness of surrounding circumstance and man's
+primitive kind. But in any case it has a good deal of leisure; and the
+best way to prevent this from dragging heavily is (after feasting) to
+glory in the things it has done; or perhaps in the things it would like
+to have done. Hence heroic poetry. But exactly what heroic poetry was
+in its origin, probably we shall never know. It would scarcely be
+history, and it would scarcely be very ornate poetry. The first thing
+required would be to translate the prowess of champions into good and
+moving narrative; and this would be metrified, because so it becomes
+both more exciting and more easily remembered. Each succeeding bard
+would improve, according to his own notions, the material he received
+from his teachers; the prowess of the great heroes would become more and
+more astonishing, more and more calculated to keep awake the feasted
+nobles who listened to the song. In an age when writing, if it exists at
+all, is a rare and secret art, the mists of antiquity descend after a
+very few generations. There is little chance of the songs of the bards
+being checked by recorded actuality; for if anyone could write at all,
+it would be the bards themselves, who would use the mystery or purposes
+of their own trade. In quite a short time, oral tradition, in keeping of
+the bards, whose business is to purvey wonders, makes the champions
+perform easily, deeds which "the men of the present time" can only gape
+at; and every bard takes over the stock of tradition, not from original
+sources, but from the mingled fantasy and memory of the bard who came
+just before him. So that when this tradition survives at all, it
+survives in a form very different from what it was in the beginning. But
+apparently we can mark out several stages in the fortunes of the
+tradition. It is first of all court poetry, or perhaps baronial poetry;
+and it may survive as that. From this stage it may pass into possession
+of the common people, or at least into the possession of bards whose
+clients are peasants and not nobles; from being court poetry it becomes
+the poetry of cottages and taverns. It may survive as this. Finally, it
+may be taken up again by the courts, and become poetry of much greater
+sophistication and nicety than it was in either of the preceding stages.
+But each stage leaves its sign on the tradition.
+
+All this gives us what is conveniently called "epic material"; the
+material out of which epic poetry might be made. But it does not give us
+epic poetry. The world knows of a vast stock of epic material scattered
+up and down the nations; sometimes its artistic value is as
+extraordinary as its archaeological interest, but not always. Instances
+are our own Border Ballads and Robin Hood Ballads; the Servian cycles of
+the Battle of Kossovo and the prowess of Marko; the modern Greek songs
+of the revolt against Turkey (the conditions of which seem to have been
+similar to those which surrounded the growth of our riding ballads); the
+fragments of Finnish legend which were pieced together into the
+_Kalevala_; the Ossianic poetry; and perhaps some of the minor sagas
+should be put in here. Then there are the glorious Welsh stories of
+Arthur, Tristram, and the rest, and the not less glorious Irish stories
+of Deirdre and Cuchulain; both of these noble masses of legend seem to
+have only just missed the final shaping which turns epic material into
+epic poetry. For epic material, it must be repeated, is not the same
+thing as epic poetry. Epic material is fragmentary, scattered, loosely
+related, sometimes contradictory, each piece of comparatively small
+size, with no intention beyond hearty narrative. It is a heap of
+excellent stones, admirably quarried out of a great rock-face of
+stubborn experience. But for this to be worked into some great
+structure of epic poetry, the Heroic Age must be capable of producing
+individuality of much profounder nature than any of its fighting
+champions. Or rather, we should simply say that the production of epic
+poetry depends on the occurrence (always an accidental occurrence) of
+creative genius. It is quite likely that what Homer had to work on was
+nothing superior to the Arthurian legends. But Homer occurred; and the
+tales of Troy and Odysseus became incomparable poetry.
+
+An epic is not made by piecing together a set of heroic lays, adjusting
+their discrepancies and making them into a continuous narrative. An epic
+is not even a re-creation of old things; it is altogether a new
+creation, a new creation in terms of old things. And what else is any
+other poetry? The epic poet has behind him a tradition of matter and a
+tradition of style; and that is what every other poet has behind him
+too; only, for the epic poet, tradition is rather narrower, rather more
+strictly compelling. This must not be lost sight of. It is what the
+poet does with the tradition he falls in which is, artistically, the
+important thing. He takes a mass of confused splendours, and he makes
+them into something which they certainly were not before; something
+which, as we can clearly see by comparing epic poetry with mere epic
+material, the latter scarce hinted at. He makes this heap of matter into
+a grand design; he forces it to obey a single presiding unity of
+artistic purpose. Obviously, something much more potent is required for
+this than a fine skill in narrative and poetic ornament. Unity is not
+merely an external affair. There is only one thing which can master the
+perplexed stuff of epic material into unity; and that is, an ability to
+see in particular human experience some significant symbolism of man's
+general destiny.
+
+It is natural that, after the epic poet has arrived, the crude epic
+material in which he worked should scarcely be heard of. It could only
+be handed on by the minstrels themselves; and their audiences would not
+be likely to listen comfortably to the old piecemeal songs after they
+had heard the familiar events fall into the magnificent ordered pomp of
+the genuine epic poet. The tradition, indeed, would start afresh with
+him; but how the novel tradition fared as it grew old with his
+successors, is difficult guesswork. We can tell, however, sometimes, in
+what stage of the epic material's development the great unifying epic
+poet occurred. Three roughly defined stages have been mentioned. Homer
+perhaps came when the epic material was still in its first stage of
+being court-poetry. Almost certainly this is when the poets of the
+Crusading lays, of the _Song of Roland_, and the _Poem of the Cid_, set
+to work. Hesiod is a clear instance of the poet who masters epic
+material after it has passed into popular possession; and the
+_Nibelungenlied_ is thought to be made out of matter that has passed
+from the people back again to the courts.
+
+Epic poetry, then, as distinct from mere epic material, is the concern
+of this book. The intention is, to determine wherein epic poetry is a
+definite species of literature, what it characteristically does for
+conscious human life, and to find out whether this species and this
+function have shown, and are likely to show, any development. It must be
+admitted, that the great unifying poet who worked on the epic material
+before him, did not always produce something which must come within the
+scope of this intention. Hesiod has just been given as an instance of
+such a poet; but his work is scarcely an epic.[3] The great sagas, too,
+I must omit. They are epic enough in primary intention, but they are not
+poetry; and I am among those who believe that there is a difference
+between poetry and prose. If epic poetry is a definite species, the
+sagas do not fall within it. But this will leave me more of the
+"authentic" epic poetry than I can possibly deal with; and I shall have
+to confine myself to its greatest examples. Before, however, proceeding
+to consider epic poetry as a whole, as a constantly recurring form of
+art, continually responding to the new needs of man's developing
+consciousness, I must go, rapidly and generally, over the "literary
+epic"; and especially I must question whether it is really justifiable
+or profitable to divide epic poetry into the two contrasted departments
+of "authentic" and "literary."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: hos d' ote cheimarroi potamoi kat opesthi rheontes es
+misgagkeian xumballeton obrimon udor krounon ek melalon koilaes entosthe
+charadraes. _Iliad_, IV, 452.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Etymologically, the "good" man is the "admirable" man. In
+this sense, Homer's gods are certainly "good"; every epithet he gives
+them--Joyous-Thunderer, Far-Darter, Cloud-Gatherer and the
+rest--proclaims their unapproachable "goodness." If it had been said to
+Homer, that his gods cannot be "good" because their behaviour is
+consistently cynical, cruel, unscrupulous and scandalous, he would
+simply think he had not heard aright: Zeus is an habitual liar, of
+course, but what has that got to do with his "goodness"?--Only those who
+would have Homer a kind of Salvationist need regret this. Just because
+he could only make his gods "good" in this primitive style, he was able
+to treat their discordant family in that vein of exquisite comedy which
+is one of the most precious things in the world.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Scarcely what _we_ call epic. "Epos" might include Hesiod
+as well as epic material; "epopee" is the business that Homer started.]
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+LITERARY EPIC
+
+Epic poetry, then, was invented to supply the artistic demands of
+society in a certain definite and recognizable state. Or rather, it was
+the epic material which supplied that; the first epic poets gave their
+age, as genius always does, something which the age had never thought of
+asking for; which, nevertheless, when it was given, the age took good
+hold of, and found that, after all, this, too, it had wanted without
+knowing it. But as society went on towards civilization, the need for
+epic grew less and less; and its preservation, if not accidental, was an
+act of conscious aesthetic admiration rather than of unconscious
+necessity. It was preserved somehow, however; and after other kinds of
+literature had arisen as inevitably and naturally as epic, and had
+become, in their turn, things of less instant necessity than they were,
+it was found that, in the manner and purpose of epic poetry, something
+was given which was not given elsewhere; something of extraordinary
+value. Epic poetry would therefore be undertaken again; but now, of
+course, deliberately. With several different kinds of poetry to choose
+from, a man would decide that he would like best to be an epic poet, and
+he would set out, in conscious determination, on an epic poem. The
+result, good or bad, of such a determination is called "literary" epic.
+The poems of Apollonius Rhodius, Virgil, Lucan, Camoens, Tasso and
+Milton are "literary" epics. But such poetry as the _Odyssey_, the
+_Iliad,_ _Beowulf_, the _Song of Roland_, and the _Nibelungenlied_,
+poetry which seems an immediate response to some general and instant
+need in its surrounding community--such poetry is "authentic" epic.
+
+A great deal has been made of this distinction; it has almost been taken
+to divide epic poetry into two species. And, as the names commonly given
+to the two supposed species suggest, there is some notion that
+"literary" epic must be in a way inferior to "authentic" epic. The
+superstition of antiquity has something to do with this; but the
+presence of Homer among the "authentic" epics has probably still more to
+do with it. For Homer is the poet who is usually chosen to stand for
+"authentic" epic; and, by a facile association of ideas, the conspicuous
+characteristics of Homer seem to be the marks of "authentic" epic as a
+species. It is, of course, quite true, that, for sustained grandeur and
+splendour, no poet can be put beside Homer except Dante and Milton; but
+it is also quite clear that in Homer, as in Dante, and Milton, such
+conspicuous characteristics are simply the marks of peculiar poetic
+genius. If we leave Homer out, and consider poetic greatness only (the
+only important thing to consider), there is no "authentic" epic which
+can stand against _Paradise Lost_ or the _Aeneid_. Then there is the
+curious modern feeling--which is sometimes but dressed up by erroneous
+aesthetic theory (the worship of a quite national "lyricism," for
+instance) but which is really nothing but a sign of covert
+barbarism--that lengthy poetic composition is somehow undesirable; and
+Homer is thought to have had a better excuse for composing a long poem
+than Milton.
+
+But doubtless the real reason for the hard division of epic poetry into
+two classes, and for the presumed inferiority of "literary" to
+"authentic," lies in the application of that curiosity among false
+ideas, the belief in a "folk-spirit." This notion that such a thing as a
+"folk-spirit" can create art, and that the art which it does create must
+be somehow better than other art, is, I suppose, the offspring of
+democratic ideas in politics. The chief objection to it is that there
+never has been and never can be anything in actuality corresponding to
+the "folk-spirit" which this notion supposes. Poetry is the work of
+poets, not of peoples or communities; artistic creation can never be
+anything but the production of an individual mind. We may, if we like,
+think that poetry would be more "natural" if it were composed by the
+folk as the folk, and not by persons peculiarly endowed; and to think so
+is doubtless agreeable to the notion that the folk is more important
+than the individual. But there is nothing gained by thinking in this
+way, except a very illusory kind of pleasure; since it is impossible
+that the folk should ever be a poet. This indisputable axiom has been
+ignored more in theories about ballads--about epic material--than in
+theories about the epics themselves. But the belief in a real
+folk-origin for ballads, untenable though it be in a little examination,
+has had a decided effect on the common opinion of the authentic epics.
+In the first place, a poem constructed out of ballads composed, somehow
+or other, by the folk, ought to be more "natural" than a work of
+deliberate art--a "literary" epic; that is to say, these Rousseau-ish
+notions will admire it for being further from civilization and nearer to
+the noble savage; civilization being held, by some mysterious argument,
+to be deficient in "naturalness." In the second place, this belief has
+made it credible that the plain corruption of authentic epic by oral
+transmission, or very limited transmission through script, might be the
+sign of multiple authorship; for if you believe that a whole folk can
+compose a ballad, you may easily believe that a dozen poets can compose
+an epic.
+
+But all this rests on simple ignoring of the nature of poetic
+composition. The folk-origin of ballads and the multiple authorship of
+epics are heresies worse than the futilities of the Baconians; at any
+rate, they are based on the same resolute omission, and build on it a
+wilder fantasy. They omit to consider what poetry is. Those who think
+Bacon wrote _Hamlet_, and those who think several poets wrote the
+_Iliad_, can make out a deal of ingenious evidence for their doctrines.
+But it is all useless, because the first assumption in each case is
+unthinkable. It is psychologically impossible that the mind of Bacon
+should have produced _Hamlet_; but the impossibility is even more
+clamant when it comes to supposing that several poets, not in
+collaboration, but in haphazard succession, could produce a poem of vast
+sweeping unity and superbly consistent splendour of style. So far as
+mere authorship goes, then, we cannot make any real difference between
+"authentic" and "literary" epic. We cannot say that, while this is
+written by an individual genius, that is the work of a community.
+Individual genius, of whatever quality, is responsible for both. The
+folk, however, cannot be ruled out. Genius does the work; but the folk
+is the condition in which genius does it. And here we may find a genuine
+difference between "literary" and "authentic"; not so much in the nature
+of the condition as in its closeness and insistence.
+
+The kind of folk-spirit behind the poet is, indeed, different in the
+_Iliad_ and _Beowulf_ and the _Song of Roland_ from what it is in Milton
+and Tasso and Virgil. But there is also as much difference here between
+the members of each class as between the two classes themselves. You
+cannot read much of _Beowulf_ with Homer in your mind, without becoming
+conscious that the difference in individual genius is by no means the
+whole difference. Both poets maintain a similar ideal in life; but they
+maintain it within conditions altogether unlike. The folk-spirit behind
+_Beowulf_ is cloudy and tumultuous, finding grandeur in storm and gloom
+and mere mass--in the misty _lack_ of shape. Behind Homer it is, on the
+contrary, radiant and, however vehement, always delighting in measure,
+finding grandeur in brightness and clarity and shining outline. So,
+again, we may very easily see how Tasso's poetry implies the Italy of
+his time, and Milton's the England of his time. But where Homer and
+Beowulf together differ from Tasso and Milton is in the way the
+surrounding folk-spirit contains the poet's mind. It would be a very
+idle piece of work, to choose between the potency of Homer's genius and
+of Milton's; but it is clear that the immediate circumstance of the
+poet's life presses much more insistently on the _Iliad_ and the
+_Odyssey_ than on _Paradise Lost_. It is the difference between the
+contracted, precise, but vigorous tradition of an heroic age, and the
+diffused, eclectic, complicated culture of a civilization. And if it may
+be said that the insistence of racial circumstance in Homer gives him a
+greater intensity of cordial, human inspiration, it must also be said
+that the larger, less exacting conditions of Milton's mental life allow
+his art to go into greater scope and more subtle complexity of
+significance. Great epic poetry will always frankly accept the social
+conditions within which it is composed; but the conditions contract and
+intensify the conduct of the poem, or allow it to dilate and absorb
+larger matter, according as the narrow primitive torrents of man's
+spirit broaden into the greater but slower volume of civilized life. The
+change is neither desirable nor undesirable; it is merely inevitable. It
+means that epic poetry has kept up with the development of human life.
+
+It is because of all this that we have heard a good deal about the
+"authentic" epic getting "closer to its subject" than "literary" epic.
+It seems, on the face of it, very improbable that there should be any
+real difference here. No great poetry, of whatever kind, is conceivable
+unless the subject has become integrated with the poet's mind and mood.
+Milton is as close to his subject, Virgil to his, as Homer to Achilles
+or the Saxon poet to Beowulf. What is really meant can be nothing but
+the greater insistence of racial tradition in the "authentic" epics. The
+subject of the _Iliad_ is the fighting of heroes, with all its
+implications and consequences; the subject of the _Odyssey_ is adventure
+and its opposite, the longing for safety and home; in _Beowulf_ it is
+kingship--the ability to show man how to conquer the monstrous forces of
+his world; and so on. Such were the subjects which an imperious racial
+tradition pressed on the early epic poet, who delighted to be so
+governed. These were the matters which his people could understand, of
+which they could easily perceive the significance. For him, then, there
+could be no other matters than these, or the like of these. But it is
+not in such matters that a poet living in a time of less primitive and
+more expanded consciousness would find the highest importance. For a
+Roman, the chief matter for an epic poem would be Roman civilization;
+for a Puritan, it would be the relations of God and man. When,
+therefore, we consider how close to his subject an epic poet is, we must
+be careful to be quite clear what his subject is. And if he has gone
+beyond the immediate experiences of primitive society, we need not
+expect him to be as close as the early poets were to the fury of battle
+and the agony of wounds and the desolation of widows; or to the
+sensation of exploring beyond the familiar regions; or to the
+marsh-fiends and fire-drakes into which primitive imagination naturally
+translated the terrible unknown powers of the world. We need not, in a
+word, expect the "literary" epic to compete with the "authentic" epic;
+for the fact is, that the purpose of epic poetry, and therefore the
+nature of its subject, must continually develop. It is quite true that
+the later epics take over, to a very great extent, the methods and
+manners of the earlier poems; just as architecture hands on the style of
+wooden structure to an age that builds in stone, and again imposes the
+manners of stone construction on an age that builds in concrete and
+steel. But, in the case of epic at any rate, this is not merely the
+inertia of artistic convention. With the development of epic intention,
+and the subsequent choosing of themes larger and subtler than what
+common experience is wont to deal in, a certain duplicity becomes
+inevitable. The real intention of the _Aeneid_, and the real intention
+of _Paradise Lost_, are not easily brought into vivid apprehension. The
+natural thing to do, then, would be to use the familiar substance of
+early epic, but to use it as a convenient and pleasant solvent for the
+novel intention. It is what has been done in all the great "literary"
+epics. But hasty criticism, finding that where they resembled Homer
+they seemed not so close to their matter, has taken this as a pervading
+and unfortunate characteristic. It has not perceived that what in Homer
+was the main business of the epic, has become in later epic a device.
+Having so altered, it has naturally lost in significance; but in the
+greatest instances of later epic, that for which the device was used has
+been as profoundly absorbed into the poet's being as Homer's matter was
+into his being. It may be noted, too, that a corresponding change has
+also taken place in the opposite direction. As Homer's chief substance
+becomes a device in later epic, so a device of Homer's becomes in later
+epic the chief substance. Homer's supernatural machinery may be reckoned
+as a device--a device to heighten the general style and action of his
+poems; the _significance_ of Homer must be found among his heroes, not
+among his gods. But with Milton, it has become necessary to entrust to
+the supernatural action the whole aim and purport of the poem.
+
+On the whole, then, there is no reason why "literary" epic should not be
+as close to its subject as "authentic" epic; there is every reason why
+both kinds should be equally close. But in testing whether they actually
+are equally close, we have to remember that in the later epic it has
+become necessary to use the ostensible subject as a vehicle for the real
+subject. And who, with any active sympathy for poetry, can say that
+Milton felt his theme with less intensity than Homer? Milton is not so
+close to his fighting angels as Homer is to his fighting men; but the
+war in heaven is an incident in Milton's figurative expression of
+something that has become altogether himself--the mystery of individual
+existence in universal existence, and the accompanying mystery of sin,
+of individual will inexplicably allowed to tamper with the divinely
+universal will. Milton, of course, in closeness to his subject and in
+everything else, stands as supreme above the other poets of literary
+epic as Homer does above the poets of authentic epic. But what is true
+of Milton is true, in less degree, of the others. If there is any good
+in them, it is primarily because they have got very close to their
+subjects: that is required not only for epic, but for all poetry.
+Coleridge, in a famous estimate put twenty years for the shortest period
+in which an epic could be composed; and of this, ten years were to be
+for preparation. He meant that not less than ten years would do for the
+poet to fill all his being with the theme; and nothing else will serve,
+It is well known how Milton brooded over his subject, how Virgil
+lingered over his, how Camoen. carried the _Luisads_ round the world
+with him, with what furious intensity Tasso gave himself to writing
+_Jerusalem Delivered_. We may suppose, perhaps, that the poets of
+"authentic" epic had a somewhat easier task. There was no need for them
+to be "long choosing and beginning late." The pressure of racial
+tradition would see that they chose the right sort of subject; would
+see, too, that they lived right in the heart of their subject. For the
+poet of "literary" epic, however, it is his own consciousness that must
+select the kind of theme which will fulfil the epic intention for his
+own day; it is his own determination and studious endurance that will
+draw the theme into the secrets of his being. If he is not capable of
+getting close to his subject, we should not for that reason call his
+work "literary" epic. It would put him in the class of Milton, the most
+literary of all poets. We must simply call his stuff bad epic. There is
+plenty of it. Southey is the great instance. Southey would decide to
+write an epic about Spain, or India, or Arabia, or America. Next he
+would read up, in several languages, about his proposed subject; that
+would take him perhaps a year. Then he would versify as much strange
+information as he could remember; that might take a few months. The
+result is deadly; and because he was never anywhere near his subject. It
+is for the same reason that the unspeakable labours of Blackmore, Glover
+and Wilkie, and Voltaire's ridiculous _Henriade_, have gone to pile up
+the rubbish-heaps of literature.
+
+So far, supposed differences between "authentic" and "literary" epic
+have resolved themselves into little more than signs of development in
+epic intention; the change has not been found to produce enough artistic
+difference between early and later epic to warrant anything like a
+division into two distinct species. The epic, whether "literary" or
+"authentic," is a single form of art; but it is a form capable of
+adapting itself to the altering requirements of prevalent consciousness.
+In addition, however, to differences in general conception, there are
+certain mechanical differences which should be just noticed. The first
+epics were intended for recitation; the literary epic is meant to be
+read. It is more difficult to keep the attention of hearers than of
+readers. This in itself would be enough to rule out themes remote from
+common experience, supposing any such were to suggest themselves to the
+primitive epic poet. Perhaps, indeed, we should not be far wrong if we
+saw a chief reason for the pressure of surrounding tradition on the
+early epic in this very fact, that it is poetry meant for recitation.
+Traditional matter must be glorified, since it would be easier to listen
+to the re-creation of familiar stories than to quite new and unexpected
+things; the listeners, we must remember, needed poetry chiefly as the
+re-creation of tired hours. Traditional manner would be equally
+difficult to avoid; for it is a tradition that plainly embodies the
+requirements, fixed by experience, of _recited_ poetry. Those features
+of it which make for tedium when it is read--repetition, stock epithets,
+set phrases for given situations--are the very things best suited, with
+their recurring well-known syllables, to fix the attention of listeners
+more firmly, or to stir it when it drowses; at the least they provide a
+sort of recognizable scaffolding for the events, and it is remarkable
+how easily the progress of events may be missed when poetry is
+declaimed. Indeed, if the primitive epic poet could avoid some of the
+anxieties peculiar to the composition of literary epic, he had others to
+make up for it. He had to study closely the delicate science of holding
+auricular attention when once he had got it; and probably he would have
+some difficulty in getting it at all. The really great poet challenges
+it, like Homer, with some tremendous, irresistible opening; and in this
+respect the magnificent prelude to _Beowulf_ may almost be put beside
+Homer. But lesser poets have another way. That prolixity at the
+beginning of many primitive epics, their wordy deliberation in getting
+under way, is probably intentional. The _Song of Roland_, for instance,
+begins with a long series of exceedingly dull stanzas; to a reader, the
+preliminaries of the story seem insufferably drawn out. But by the time
+the reciter had got through this unimportant dreariness, no doubt his
+audience had settled down to listen. The _Chanson d'Antioche_ contains
+perhaps the most illuminating admission of this difficulty. In the first
+"Chant," the first section opens:[4]
+
+  Seigneurs, faites silence; et que tout bruit cesse,
+  Si vous voulez entendre une glorieuse chanson.
+  Aucun jongleur ne vous en dira une meilleure.
+
+Then some vaguely prelusive lines. But the audience is clearly not quite
+ready yet, for the second section begins:
+
+  Barons, écoutez-moi, et cessez vos querelles!
+  Je vous dirai une très-belle chanson.
+
+And after some further prelude, the section ends:
+
+  Ici commence la chanson où il y a tant à apprendre.
+
+The "Chanson" does, indeed, make some show of beginning in the third
+section, but it still moves with a cautious and prelusive air, as if
+anxious not to launch out too soon. And this was evidently prudent, for
+when the fourth section opens, direct exhortation to the audience has
+again become necessary:
+
+  Maintenant, seigneurs, écoutez ce que dit l'Écriture.
+
+And once more in the fifth section:
+
+  Barons, écoutez un excellent couplet.
+
+In the sixth, the jongleur is getting desperate:
+
+  Seigneurs, pour l'amour de Dieu, faites silence, écoutez-moi,
+  Pour qu'en partant de ce monde vous entriez dans un meilleur;
+
+but after this exclamation he has his way, though the story proper is
+still a good way off. Perhaps not all of these hortatory stanzas were
+commonly used; any or all of them could certainly be omitted without
+damaging the poem. But they were there to be used, according to the
+judgment of the jongleur and the temper of his audience, and their
+presence in the poem is very suggestive of the special difficulties in
+the art of rhapsodic poetry.
+
+But the gravest difficulty, and perhaps the most important, in poetry
+meant solely for recitation, is the difficulty of achieving verbal
+beauty, or rather of making verbal beauty tell. Vigorous but controlled
+imagination, formative power, insight into the significance of
+things--these are qualities which a poet must eminently possess; but
+these are qualities which may also be eminently possessed by men who
+cannot claim the title of poet. The real differentia of the poet is his
+command over the secret magic of words. Others may have as delighted a
+sense of this magic, but it is only the poet who can master it and do
+what he likes with it. And next to the invention of speaking itself, the
+most important invention for the poet has been the invention of writing
+and reading; for this has added immensely to the scope of his mastery
+over words. No poet will ever take the written word as a substitute for
+the spoken word; he knows that it is on the spoken word, and the spoken
+word only, that his art is founded. But he trusts his reader to do as he
+himself does--to receive written words always as the code of spoken
+words. To do so has wonderfully enlarged his technical opportunities;
+for apprehension is quicker and finer through the eye than through the
+ear. After the invention of reading, even poetry designed primarily for
+declamation (like drama or lyric) has depths and subtleties of art which
+were not possible for the primitive poet. Accordingly we find that, on
+the whole, in comparison with "literary" epic, the texture of
+"authentic" epic is flat and dull. The story may be superb, and its
+management may be superb; but the words in which the story lives do not
+come near the grandeur of Milton, or the exquisiteness of Virgil, or the
+deliciousness of Tasso. Indeed, if we are to say what is the real
+difference between _Beowulf_ and _Paradise Lost_, we must simply say
+that _Beowulf_ is not such good poetry. There is, of course, one
+tremendous exception; Homer is the one poet of authentic epic who had
+sufficient genius to make unfailingly, nobly beautiful poetry within the
+strict and hard conditions of purely auricular art. Compare Homer's
+ambrosial glory with the descent tap-water of Hesiod; compare his
+continuous burnished gleam of wrought metal with the sparse grains that
+lie in the sandy diction of all the "authentic" epics of the other
+nations. And, by all ancient accounts, the other early Greek epics would
+not fare much better in the comparison. Homer's singularity in this
+respect is overwhelming; but it is frequently forgotten, and especially
+by those who think to help in the Homeric question by comparing him with
+other "authentic" epics. Supposing (we can only just suppose it) a case
+were made out for the growth rather than the individual authorship of
+some "authentic" epic other than Homer; it could never have any bearing
+on the question of Homeric authorship, because no early epic is
+comparable with the _poetry_ of Homer. Nothing, indeed, is comparable
+with the poetry of Homer, except poetry for whose individual authorship
+history unmistakably vouches.
+
+So we cannot say that Homer was not as deliberate a craftsman in words
+as Milton himself. The scope of his craft was more restricted, as his
+repetitions and stock epithets show; he was restricted by the fact that
+he composed for recitation, and the auricular appreciation of diction is
+limited, the nature of poetry obeying, in the main, the nature of those
+for whom it is composed. But this is just a case in which genius
+transcends technical scope. The effects Homer produced with his methods
+were as great as any effects produced by later and more elaborate
+methods, after poetry began to be read as well as heard. But neither
+must we say that the other poets of "authentic" epic were not deliberate
+craftsmen in words. Poets will always get as much beauty out of words as
+they can. The fact that so often in the early epics a magnificent
+subject is told, on the whole, in a lumpish and tedious diction, is not
+to be explained by any contempt for careful art, as though it were a
+thing unworthy of such heroic singers; it is simply to be explained by
+lack of such genius as is capable of transcending the severe limitations
+of auricular poetry. And we may well believe that only the rarest and
+most potent kind of genius could transcend such limitations.
+
+In summary, then, we find certain conceptual differences and certain
+mechanical differences between "authentic" and "literary" epic. But
+these are not such as to enable us to say that there is, artistically,
+any real difference between the two kinds. Rather, the differences
+exhibit the changes we might expect in an art that has kept up with
+consciousness developing, and civilization becoming more intricate.
+"Literary" epic is as close to its subject as "authentic"; but, as a
+general rule, "authentic" epic, in response to its surrounding needs,
+has a simple and concrete subject, and the closeness of the poet to this
+is therefore more obvious than in "literary" epic, which (again in
+response to surrounding needs) has been driven to take for subject some
+great abstract idea and display this in a concrete but only ostensible
+subject. Then in craftsmanship, the two kinds of epic are equally
+deliberate, equally concerned with careful art; but "literary" epic has
+been able to take such advantage of the habit of reading that, with the
+single exception of Homer, it has achieved a diction much more
+answerable to the greatness of epic matter than the "authentic" poems.
+We may, then, in a general survey, regard epic poetry as being in all
+ages essentially the same kind of art, fulfilling always a similar,
+though constantly developing, intention. Whatever sort of society he
+lives in, whether he be surrounded by illiterate heroism or placid
+culture, the epic poet has a definite function to perform. We see him
+accepting, and with his genius transfiguring, the general circumstance
+of his time; we see him symbolizing, in some appropriate form, whatever
+sense of the significance of life he feels acting as the accepted
+unconscious metaphysic of his age. To do this, he takes some great story
+which has been absorbed into the prevailing consciousness of his people.
+As a rule, though not quite invariably, the story will be of things
+which are, or seem, so far back in the past, that anything may credibly
+happen in it; so imagination has its freedom, and so significance is
+displayed. But quite invariably, the materials of the story will have an
+unmistakable air of actuality; that is, they come profoundly out of
+human experience, whether they declare legendary heroism, as in Homer
+and Virgil, or myth, as in _Beowulf_ and _Paradise Lost_, or actual
+history, as in Lucan and Camoens and Tasso. And he sets out this story
+and its significance in poetry as lofty and as elaborate as he can
+compass. That, roughly, is what we see the epic poets doing, whether
+they be "literary" or "authentic"; and if this can be agreed on, we
+should now have come tolerably close to a definition of epic poetry.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 4: From the version of the Marquise de Sainte-Aulaire.]
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+THE NATURE OF EPIC
+
+Rigid definitions in literature are, however, dangerous. At bottom, it
+is what we feel, not what we think, that makes us put certain poems
+together and apart from others; and feelings cannot be defined, but only
+related. If we define a poem, we say what we think about it; and that
+may not sufficiently imply the essential thing the poem does for us.
+Hence the definition is liable either to be too strict, or to admit work
+which does not properly satisfy the criterion of feeling. It seems
+probable that, in the last resort, classification in literature rests on
+that least tangible, least definable matter, style; for style is the
+sign of the poem's spirit, and it is the spirit that we feel. If we can
+get some notion of how those poems, which we call epic, agree with one
+another in style, it is likely we shall be as close as may be to a
+definition of epic. I use the word "style," of course, in its largest
+sense--manner of conception as well as manner of composition.
+
+An easy way to define epic, though not a very profitable way, would be
+to say simply, that an epic is a poem which produces feelings similar to
+those produced by _Paradise Lost_ or the _Iliad_, _Beowulf_ or the _Song
+of Roland_. Indeed, you might include all the epics of Europe in this
+definition without losing your breath; for the epic poet is the rarest
+kind of artist. And while it is not a simple matter to say off-hand what
+it is that is common to all these poems, there seems to be general
+acknowledgment that they are clearly separable from other kinds of
+poetry; and this although the word epic has been rather badly abused.
+For instance, _The Faery Queene_ and _La Divina Commedia_ have been
+called epic poems; but I do not think that anyone could fail to admit,
+on a little pressure, that the experience of reading _The Faery Queene_
+or _La Divina Commedia_ is not in the least like the experience of
+reading _Paradise Lost_ or the _Iliad_. But as a poem may have lyrical
+qualities without being a lyric, so a poem may have epical qualities
+without being an epic. In all the poems which the world has agreed to
+call epics, there is a story told, and well told. But Dante's poem
+attempts no story at all, and Spenser's, though it attempts several,
+does not tell them well--it scarcely attempts to make the reader believe
+in them, being much more concerned with the decoration and the
+implication of its fables than with the fables themselves. What epic
+quality, detached from epic proper, do these poems possess, then, apart
+from the mere fact that they take up a great many pages? It is simply a
+question of their style--the style of their conception and the style of
+their writing; the whole style of their imagination, in fact. They take
+us into a region in which nothing happens that is not deeply
+significant; a dominant, noticeably symbolic, purpose presides over each
+poem, moulds it greatly and informs it throughout.
+
+This takes us some little way towards deciding the nature of epic. It
+must be a story, and the story must be told well and greatly; and,
+whether in the story itself or in the telling of it, significance must
+be implied. Does that mean that the epic must be allegorical? Many have
+thought so; even Homer has been accused of constructing allegories. But
+this is only a crude way of emphasizing the significance of epic; and
+there is a vast deal of difference between a significant story and an
+allegorical story. Reality of substance is a thing on which epic poetry
+must always be able to rely. Not only because Spenser does not tell his
+stories very well, but even more because their substance (not, of
+course, their meaning) is deliciously and deliberately unreal, _The
+Faery Queene_ is outside the strict sense of the word epic. Allegory
+requires material ingeniously manipulated and fantastic; what is more
+important, it requires material invented by the poet himself. That is a
+long way from the solid reality of material which epic requires. Not
+manipulation, but imaginative transfiguration of material; not
+invention, but selection of existing material appropriate to his genius,
+and complete absorption of it into his being; that is how the epic poet
+works. Allegory is a beautiful way of inculcating and asserting some
+special significance in life; but epic has a severer task, and a more
+impressive one. It has not to say, Life in the world _ought_ to mean
+this or that; it has to show life unmistakably _being_ significant. It
+does not gloss or interpret the fact of life, but re-creates it and
+charges the fact itself with the poet's own sense of ultimate values.
+This will be less precise than the definite assertions of allegory; but
+for that reason it will be more deeply felt. The values will be
+emotional and spiritual rather than intellectual. And they will be the
+poet's own only because he has made them part of his being; in him
+(though he probably does not know it) they will be representative of the
+best and most characteristic life of his time. That does not mean that
+the epic poet's image of life's significance is of merely contemporary
+or transient importance. No stage through which the general
+consciousness of men has gone can ever be outgrown by men; whatever
+happens afterwards does not displace it, but includes it. We could not
+do without _Paradise Lost_ nowadays; but neither can we do without the
+_Iliad_. It would not, perhaps, be far from the truth, if it were even
+said that the significance of _Paradise Lost_ cannot be properly
+understood unless the significance of the _Iliad_ be understood.
+
+The prime material of the epic poet, then, must be real and not
+invented. But when the story of the poem is safely concerned with some
+reality, he can, of course, graft on this as much appropriate invention
+as he pleases; it will be one of his ways of elaborating his main,
+unifying purpose--and to call it "unifying" is to assume that, however
+brilliant his surrounding invention may be, the purpose will always be
+firmly implicit in the central subject. Some of the early epics manage
+to do without any conspicuous added invention designed to extend what
+the main subject intends; but such nobly simple, forthright narrative as
+_Beowulf_ and the _Song of Roland_ would not do for a purpose slightly
+more subtle than what the makers of these ringing poems had in mind. The
+reality of the central subject is, of course, to be understood broadly.
+It means that the story must be founded deep in the general experience
+of men. A decisive campaign is not, for the epic poet, any more real
+than a legend full of human truth. All that the name of Caesar suggests
+is extremely important for mankind; so is all that the name of Satan
+suggests: Satan, in this sense, is as real as Caesar. And, as far as
+reality is concerned, there is nothing to choose between the Christians
+taking Jerusalem and the Greeks taking Troy; nor between Odysseus
+sailing into fairyland and Vasco da Gama sailing round the world. It is
+certainly possible that a poet might devise a story of such a kind that
+we could easily take it as something which might have been a real human
+experience. But that is not enough for the epic poet. He needs something
+which everyone knows about, something which indisputably, and
+admittedly, _has been_ a human experience; and even Grendel, the fiend
+of the marshes, was, we can clearly see, for the poet of _Beowulf_ a
+figure profoundly and generally accepted as not only true but real;
+what, indeed, can be more real for poetry than a devouring fiend which
+lives in pestilent fens? And the reason why epic poetry so imperiously
+demands reality of subject is clear; it is because such poetry has
+symbolically to re-create the actual fact and the actual particulars of
+human existence in terms of a general significance--the reader must feel
+that life itself has submitted to plastic imagination. No fiction will
+ever have the air, so necessary for this epic symbolism, not merely of
+representing, but of unmistakably _being_, human experience. This might
+suggest that history would be the thing for an epic poet; and so it
+would be, if history were superior to legend in poetic reality. But,
+simply as substance, there is nothing to choose between them; while
+history has the obvious disadvantage of being commonly too strict in the
+manner of its events to allow of creative freedom. Its details will
+probably be so well known, that any modification of them will draw more
+attention to discrepancy with the records than to achievement thereby of
+poetic purpose. And yet modification, or at least suppression and
+exaggeration, of the details of history will certainly be necessary. Not
+to declare what happened, and the results of what happened, is the
+object of an epic; but to accept all this as the mere material in which
+a single artistic purpose, a unique, vital symbolism may be shaped. And
+if legend, after passing for innumerable years through popular
+imagination, still requires to be shaped at the hands of the epic poet,
+how much more must the crude events of history require this! For it is
+not in events as they happen, however notably, that man may see symbols
+of vital destiny, but in events as they are transformed by plastic
+imagination.
+
+Yet it has been possible to use history as the material of great epic
+poetry; Camoens and Tasso did this--the chief subject of the _Lusiads_
+is even contemporary history. But evidently success in these cases was
+due to the exceptional and fortunate fact that the fixed notorieties of
+history were combined with a strange and mysterious geography. The
+remoteness and, one might say, the romantic possibilities of the places
+into which Camoens and Tasso were led by their themes, enable
+imagination to deal pretty freely with history. But in a little more
+than ten years after Camoens glorified Portugal in an historical epic,
+Don Alonso de Ercilla tried to do the same for Spain. He puts his action
+far enough from home: the Spaniards are conquering Chili. But the world
+has grown smaller and more familiar in the interval: the astonishing
+things that could easily happen in the seas of Madagascar cannot now
+conveniently happen in Chili. The _Araucana_ is versified history, not
+epic. That is to say, the action has no deeper significance than any
+other actual warfare; it has not been, and could not have been, shaped
+to any symbolic purpose. Long before Tasso and Camoens and Ercilla, two
+Scotchmen had attempted to put patriotism into epic form; Barbour had
+written his _Bruce_ and Blind Harry his _Wallace_. But what with the
+nearness of their events, and what with the rusticity of their authors,
+these tolerable, ambling poems are quite unable to get the better of the
+hardness of history. Probably the boldest attempt to make epic of
+well-known, documented history is Lucan's _Pharsalia_. It is a brilliant
+performance, and a deliberate effort to carry on the development of
+epic. At the very least it has enriched the thought of humanity with
+some imperishable lines. But it is true, what the great critic said of
+it: the _Pharsalia_ partakes more of the nature of oratory than of
+poetry. It means that Lucan, in choosing history, chose something which
+he had to declaim about, something which, at best, he could
+imaginatively realize; but not something which he could imaginatively
+re-create. It is quite different with poems like the _Song of Roland_.
+They are composed in, or are drawn immediately out of, an heroic age; an
+age, that is to say, when the idea of history has not arisen, when
+anything that happens turns inevitably, and in a surprisingly short
+time, into legend. Thus, an unimportant, probably unpunished, attack by
+Basque mountaineers on the Emperor's rear-guard has become, in the _Song
+of Roland_, a great infamy of Saracenic treachery, which must be greatly
+avenged.
+
+Such, in a broad description, is the nature of epic poetry. To define it
+with any narrower nicety would probably be rash. We have not been
+discovering what an epic poem ought to be, but roughly examining what
+similarity of quality there is in all those poems which we feel,
+strictly attending to the emotional experience of reading them, can be
+classed together and, for convenience, termed epic. But it is not much
+good having a name for this species of poetry if it is given as well to
+poems of quite a different nature. It is not much good agreeing to call
+by the name of epic such poems as the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_,
+_Beowulf_ and the _Song of Roland_, _Paradise Lost_ and _Gerusalemme
+Liberata_, if epic is also to be the title for _The Faery Queene_ and
+_La Divina Commedia_, _The Idylls of the King_ and _The Ring and the
+Book_. But I believe most of the importance in the meaning of the word
+epic, when it is reasonably used, will be found in what is written
+above. Apart from the specific form of epic, it shares much of its
+ultimate intention with the greatest kind of drama (though not with all
+drama). And just as drama, whatever grandeur of purpose it may attempt,
+must be a good play, so epic must be a good story. It will tell its tale
+both largely and intensely, and the diction will be carried on the
+volume of a powerful, flowing metre. To distinguish, however, between
+merely narrative poetry, and poetry which goes beyond being mere
+narrative into the being of epic, must often be left to feeling which
+can scarcely be precisely analysed. A curious instance of the
+difficulty in exactly defining epic (but not in exactly deciding what is
+epic) may be found in the work of William Morris. Morris left two long
+narrative poems, _The Life and Death of Jason_, and _The Story of Sigurd
+the Volsung_.
+
+I do not think anyone need hesitate to put _Sigurd_ among the epics; but
+I do not think anyone who will scrupulously compare the experience of
+reading _Jason_ with the experience of reading _Sigurd_, can help
+agreeing that _Jason_ should be kept out of the epics. There is nothing
+to choose between the subjects of the two poems. For an Englishman,
+Greek mythology means as much as the mythology of the North. And I
+should say that the bright, exact diction and the modest metre of
+_Jason_ are more interesting and attractive than the diction, often
+monotonous and vague, and the metre, often clumsily vehement, of
+_Sigurd_. Yet for all that it is the style of _Sigurd_ that puts it with
+the epics and apart from _Jason_; for style goes beyond metre and
+diction, beyond execution, into conception. The whole imagination of
+_Sigurd_ is incomparably larger than that of _Jason_. In _Sigurd_, you
+feel that the fashioning grasp of imagination has not only seized on the
+show of things, and not only on the physical or moral unity of things,
+but has somehow brought into the midst of all this, and has kneaded into
+the texture of it all, something of the ultimate and metaphysical
+significance of life. You scarcely feel that in _Jason_.
+
+Yes, epic poetry must be an affair of evident largeness. It was well
+said, that "the praise of an epic poem is to feign a person exceeding
+Nature." "Feign" here means to imagine; and imagine does not mean to
+invent. But, like most of the numerous epigrams that have been made
+about epic poetry, the remark does not describe the nature of epic, but
+rather one of the conspicuous signs that that nature is fulfilling
+itself. A poem which is, in some sort, a summation for its time of the
+values of life, will inevitably concern itself with at least one figure,
+and probably with several, in whom the whole virtue, and perhaps also
+the whole failure, of living seems superhumanly concentrated. A story
+weighted with the epic purpose could not proceed at all, unless it were
+expressed in persons big enough to support it. The subject, then, as the
+epic poet uses it, will obviously be an important one. Whether, apart
+from the way the poet uses it, the subject ought to be an important one,
+would not start a very profitable discussion. Homer has been praised for
+making, in the _Iliad_, a first-rate poem out of a second-rate subject.
+It is a neat saying; but it seems unlikely that anything really
+second-rate should turn into first-rate epic. I imagine Homer would have
+been considerably surprised, if anyone had told him that the vast train
+of tragic events caused by the gross and insupportable insult put by
+Agamemnon, the mean mind in authority, on Achilles, the typical
+hero--that this noble and profoundly human theme was a second-rate
+subject. At any rate, the subject must be of capital importance in its
+treatment. It must symbolize--not as a particular and separable
+assertion, but at large and generally--some great aspect of vital
+destiny, without losing the air of recording some accepted reality of
+human experience, and without failing to be a good story; and the
+pressure of high purpose will inform diction and metre, as far, at
+least, as the poet's verbal art will let it.
+
+The usual attempts at stricter definition of epic than anything this
+chapter contains, are either, in spite of what they try for, so vague
+that they would admit almost any long stretch of narrative poetry; or
+else they are based on the accidents or devices of epic art; and in that
+case they are apt to exclude work which is essentially epic because
+something inessential is lacking. It has, for instance, been seriously
+debated, whether an epic should not contain a catalogue of heroes. Other
+things, which epics have been required to contain, besides much that is
+not worth mentioning,[5] are a descent into hell and some supernatural
+machinery. Both of these are obviously devices for enlarging the scope
+of the action. The notion of a visit to the ghosts has fascinated many
+poets, and Dante elaborated this Homeric device into the main scheme of
+the greatest of non-epical poems, as Milton elaborated the other
+Homeric device into the main scheme of the greatest of literary epics.
+But a visit to the ghosts is, of course, like games or single combat or
+a set debate, merely an incident which may or may not be useful.
+Supernatural machinery, however, is worth some short discussion here,
+though it must be alluded to further in the sequel. The first and
+obvious thing to remark is, that an unquestionably epic effect can be
+given without any supernatural machinery at all. The poet of _Beowulf_
+has no need of it, for instance. A Christian redactor has worked over
+the poem, with more piety than skill; he can always be detected, and his
+clumsy little interjections have nothing to do with the general tenour
+of the poem. The human world ends off, as it were, precipitously; and
+beyond there is an endless, impracticable abyss in which dwells the
+secret governance of things, an unknowable and implacable
+fate--"Wyrd"--neither malign nor benevolent, but simply inscrutable. The
+peculiar cast of noble and desolate courage which this bleak conception
+gives to the poem is perhaps unique among the epics.
+
+But very few epic poets have ventured to do without supernatural
+machinery of some sort. And it is plain that it must greatly assist the
+epic purpose to surround the action with immortals who are not only
+interested spectators of the event, but are deeply implicated in it;
+nothing could more certainly liberate, or at least more appropriately
+decorate, the significant force of the subject. We may leave Milton out,
+for there can be no question about _Paradise Lost_ here; the
+significance of the subject is not only liberated by, it entirely exists
+in, the supernatural machinery. But with the other epic poets, we should
+certainly expect them to ask us for our belief in their immortals. That,
+however, is just what they seem curiously careless of doing. The
+immortals are there, they are the occasion of splendid poetry; they do
+what they are intended to do--they declare, namely, by their speech and
+their action, the importance to the world of what is going on in the
+poem. Only--there is no obligation to believe in them; and will not that
+mean, no obligation to believe in their concern for the subject, and all
+that that implies? Homer begins this paradox. Think of that lovely and
+exquisitely mischievous passage in the _Iliad_ called _The Cheating of
+Zeus_. The salvationist school of commentators calls this an
+interpolation; but the spirit of it is implicit throughout the whole of
+Homer's dealing with the gods; whenever, at least, he deals with them at
+length, and not merely incidentally. Not to accept that spirit is not to
+accept Homer. The manner of describing the Olympian family at the end of
+the first book is quite continuous throughout, and simply reaches its
+climax in the fourteenth book. Nobody ever believed in Homer's gods, as
+he must believe in Hektor and Achilles. (Puritans like Xenophanes were
+annoyed not with the gods for being as Homer described them, but with
+Homer for describing them as he did.) Virgil is more decorous; but can
+we imagine Virgil praying, or anybody praying, to the gods of the
+_Aeneid_? The supernatural machinery of Camoens and Tasso is frankly
+absurd; they are not only careless of credibility, but of sanity. Lucan
+tried to do without gods; but his witchcraft engages belief even more
+faintly than the mingled Paganism and Christianity of Camoens, and
+merely shows how strongly the most rationalistic of epic poets felt the
+value of some imaginary relaxation in the limits of human existence. Is
+it, then, only as such a relaxation that supernatural machinery is
+valuable? Or only as a superlative kind of ornament? It is surely more
+than that. In spite of the fact that we are not seriously asked to
+believe in it, it does beautifully and strikingly crystallize the poet's
+determination to show us things that go past the reach of common
+knowledge. But by putting it, whether instinctively or deliberately, on
+a lower plane of credibility than the main action, the poet obeys his
+deepest and gravest necessity: the necessity of keeping his poem
+emphatically an affair of recognizable _human_ events. It is of man, and
+man's purpose in the world, that the epic poet has to sing; not of the
+purpose of gods. The gods must only illustrate man's destiny; and they
+must be kept within the bounds of beautiful illustration. But it
+requires a finer genius than most epic poets have possessed, to keep
+supernatural machinery just sufficiently fanciful without missing its
+function. Perhaps only Homer and Virgil have done that perfectly.
+Milton's revolutionary development marks a crisis in the general process
+of epic so important, that it can only be discussed when that process is
+considered, in the following chapter, as a whole.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 5: Such as similes and episodes. It is as if a man were to
+say, the essential thing about a bridge is that it should be painted.]
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+THE EPIC SERIES
+
+By the general process of epic poetry, I mean the way this form of art
+has constantly responded to the profound needs of the society in which
+it was made. But the development of human society does not go straight
+forward; and the epic process will therefore be a recurring process, the
+series a recurring series--though not in exact repetition. Thus, the
+Homeric poems, the _Argonautica_, the _Aeneid_, the _Pharsalia_, and the
+later Latin epics, form one series: the _Aeneid_ would be the climax of
+the series, which thence declines, were it not that the whole originates
+with the incomparable genius of Homer--a fact which makes it seem to
+decline from start to finish. Then the process begins again, and again
+fulfils itself, in the series which goes from _Beowulf_, the _Song of
+Roland_, and the _Nibelungenlied_, through Camoens and Tasso up to
+Milton. And in this case Milton is plainly the climax. There is nothing
+like _Paradise Lost_ in the preceding poems, and epic poetry has done
+nothing since but decline from that towering glory.
+
+But it will be convenient not to make too much of chronology, in a
+general account of epic development. It has already appeared that the
+duties of all "authentic" epic are broadly the same, and the poems of
+this kind, though two thousand years may separate their occurrence, may
+be properly brought together as varieties of one sub-species. "Literary"
+epic differs much more in the specific purpose of its art, as civilized
+societies differ much more than heroic, and also as the looser _milieu_
+of a civilization allows a less strictly traditional exercise of
+personal genius than an heroic age. Still, it does not require any
+manipulation to combine the "literary" epics from both series into a
+single process. Indeed, if we take Homer, Virgil and Milton as the
+outstanding events in the whole progress of epic poetry, and group the
+less important poems appropriately round these three names, we shall not
+be far from the _ideal truth_ of epic development. We might say, then,
+that Homer begins the whole business of epic, imperishably fixes its
+type and, in a way that can never be questioned, declares its artistic
+purpose; Virgil perfects the type; and Milton perfects the purpose.
+Three such poets are not, heaven knows, summed up in a phrase; I mean
+merely to indicate how they are related one to another in the general
+scheme of epic poetry. For discriminating their merits, deciding their
+comparative eminence, I have no inclination; and fortunately it does not
+come within the requirements of this essay. Indeed, I think the reader
+will easily excuse me, if I touch very slightly on the poetic manner, in
+the common and narrow sense, of the poets whom I shall have to mention;
+since these qualities have been so often and sometimes so admirably
+dealt with. It is at the broader aspects of artistic purpose that I wish
+to look.
+
+"From Homer," said Goethe, "I learn every day more clearly, that in our
+life here above ground we have, properly speaking, to enact Hell." It is
+rather a startling sentence at first. That poetry which, for us, in
+Thoreau's excellent words, "lies in the east of literature," scarcely
+suggests, in the usual opinion of it, Hell. We are tempted to think of
+Homer as the most fortunate of poets. It seems as if he had but to open
+his mouth and speak, to create divine poetry; and it does not lessen our
+sense of his good fortune when, on looking a little closer, we see that
+this is really the result of an unerring and unfailing art, an
+extraordinarily skilful technique. He had it entirely at his command;
+and he exercised it in a language in which, though it may be singularly
+artificial and conventional, we can still feel the wonder of its
+sensuous beauty and the splendour of its expressive power. It is a
+language that seems alive with eagerness to respond to imagination. Open
+Homer anywhere, and the casual grandeur of his untranslatable language
+appears; such lines as:
+
+    amphi de naees
+  smerdaleon konabaesan ausanton hup' Achaion.[6]
+
+That, you might say, is Homer at his ease; when he exerts himself you
+get a miracle like:
+
+    su den strophalingi koniaes
+  keiso megas megalosti, lelasmenos hipposunaon.[7]
+
+It seems the art of one who walked through the world of things endowed
+with the senses of a god, and able, with that perfection of effort that
+looks as if it were effortless, to fashion his experience into
+incorruptible song; whether it be the dance of flies round a byre at
+milking-time, or a forest-fire on the mountains at night. The shape and
+clamour of waves breaking on the beach in a storm is as irresistibly
+recorded by Homer as the gleaming flowers which earth put forth to be
+the bed of Zeus and Hera in Gargaros, when a golden cloud was their
+coverlet, and Sleep sat on a pine tree near by in the likeness of a
+murmuring night-jar. It is an art so balanced, that when it tells us,
+with no special emphasis, how the Trojans came on with a din like the
+clangour of a flock of cranes, but the Achaians came on in silence, the
+temper of the two hosts is discriminated for the whole poem; or, in the
+supreme instance, when it tells us how the old men looked at Helen and
+said, "No wonder the young men fight for her!" then Helen's beauty must
+be accepted by the faith of all the world. The particulars of such
+poetry could be enumerated for pages; and this is the poetry which is
+filled, more than any other literature, in the _Iliad_ with the nobility
+of men and women, in the _Odyssey_ with the light of natural magic. And
+think of those gods of Homer's; he is the one poet who has been able to
+make the dark terrors of religion beautiful, harmless and quietly
+entertaining. It is easy to read this poetry and simply _enjoy_ it; it
+is easy to say, the man whose spirit held this poetry must have been
+divinely happy. But this is the poetry whence Goethe learnt that the
+function of man is "to enact Hell."
+
+Goethe is profoundly right; though possibly he puts it in a way to which
+Homer himself might have demurred. For the phrase inevitably has its
+point in the word "Hell"; Homer, we may suppose, would have preferred
+the point to come in the word "enact." In any case, the details of
+Christian eschatology must not engage us much in interpreting Goethe's
+epigram. There is truth in it, not simply because the two poems take
+place in a theatre of calamity; not simply, for instance, because of the
+beloved Hektor's terrible agony of death, and the woes of Andromache and
+Priam. Such things are the partial, incidental expressions of the whole
+artistic purpose. Still less is it because of a strain of latent
+savagery in, at any rate, the _Iliad_; as when the sage and reverend
+Nestor urges that not one of the Greeks should go home until he has lain
+with the wife of a slaughtered Trojan, or as in the tremendous words of
+the oath: "Whoever first offend against this oath, may their brains be
+poured out on the ground like this wine, their own and their children's,
+and may their wives be made subject to strangers." All that is one of
+the accidental qualities of Homer. But the force of the word "enact" in
+Goethe's epigram will certainly come home to us when we think of those
+famous speeches in which courage is unforgettably declared--such
+speeches as that of Sarpedon to Glaukos, or of Glaukos to Diomedes, or
+of Hektor at his parting with Andromache. What these speeches mean,
+however, in the whole artistic purpose of Homer, will assuredly be
+missed if they are _detached_ for consideration; especially we shall
+miss the deep significance of the fact that in all of these speeches the
+substantial thought falls, as it were, into two clauses. Courage is in
+the one clause, a deliberate facing of death; but something equally
+important is in the other. Is it honour? The Homeric hero makes a great
+deal of honour; but it is honour paid to himself, living; what he wants
+above everything is to be admired--"always to be the best"; that is what
+true heroism is. But he is to go where he knows death will strike at
+him; and he does not make much of honour after death; for him, the
+meanest man living is better than a dead hero. Death ends everything, as
+far as he is concerned, honour and all; his courage looks for no reward
+hereafter. No; but _since_ ten thousand fates of death are always
+instant round us; _since_ the generations of men are of no more account
+than leaves of a tree; _since_ Troy and all its people will soon be
+destroyed--he will stand in death's way. Sarpedon emphasizes this with
+its converse: There would be no need of daring and fighting, he says,
+of "man-ennobling battle," if we could be for ever ageless and
+deathless. That is the heroic age; any other would say, If only we could
+not be killed, how pleasant to run what might have been risks! For the
+hero, that would simply not be worth while. Does he find them pleasant,
+then, just because they are risky? Not quite; that, again, is to detach
+part of the meaning from the whole. If anywhere, we shall, perhaps, find
+the whole meaning of Homer most clearly indicated in such words as those
+given (without any enforcement) to Achilles and Thetis near the
+beginning of the _Iliad_, as if to sound the pitch of Homer's poetry:
+
+  mêter, hepi m hetekes ge minynthadion per heonta,
+  timên per moi hophellen Olympios engyalixai
+  Zeus hypsibremetês.[8]
+       *       *       *       *       *
+  timêson moi yion hos hôkymorôtatos hallon
+  heplet'.[9]
+
+Minunthadion--hôkymorôtatos: those are the imporportant words;
+key-words, they might be called. If we really understand these lines, if
+we see in them what it is that Agamemnon's insult has deprived Achilles
+of--the sign and acknowledgment of his fellows' admiration while he is
+still living among them, the one thing which makes a hero's life worth
+living, which enables him to enact his Hell--we shall scarcely complain
+that the _Iliad_ is composed on a second-rate subject. The significance
+of the poem is not in the incidents surrounding the "Achilleis"; the
+whole significance is centred in the Wrath of Achilles, and thence made
+to impregnate every part.
+
+Life is short; we must make the best of it. How trite that sounds! But
+it is not trite at all really. It seems difficult, sometimes, to believe
+that there was a time when sentiments now become habitual, sentiments
+that imply not only the original imperative of conduct, but the original
+metaphysic of living, were by no means altogether habitual. It is
+difficult to imagine backwards into the time when self-consciousness was
+still so fresh from its emergence out of the mere tribal consciousness
+of savagery, that it must not only accept the fact, but first intensely
+_realize_, that man is hôkymorôtatos--a thing of swiftest doom. And it
+was for men who were able, and forced, to do that, that the _Iliad_ and
+the _Odyssey_ and the other early epics were composed. But life is not
+only short; it is, in itself, _valueless_. "As the generation of leaves,
+so is the generation of men." The life of man matters to nobody but
+himself. It happens incidentally in universal destiny; but beyond just
+happening it has no function. No function, of course, except for man
+himself. If man is to find any value in life it is he himself that must
+create the value. For the sense of the ultimate uselessness of life, of
+the blankness of imperturbable darkness that surrounds it, Goethe's word
+"Hell" is not too shocking. But no one has properly lived who has not
+felt this Hell; and we may easily believe that in an heroic age, the
+intensity of this feeling was the secret of the intensity of living. For
+where will the primitive instinct of man, where will the hero, find the
+chance of creating a value for life? In danger, and in the courage that
+welcomes danger. That not only evaluates life; it derives the value from
+the very fact that forces man to create value--the fact of his swift and
+instant doom--hôkymorôtatos once more; it makes this dreadful fact
+_enjoyable_. And so, with courage as the value of life, and man thence
+delightedly accepting whatever can be made of his passage, the doom of
+life is not simply suffered; man enacts his own life; he has mastered
+it.
+
+We need not say that this is the lesson of Homer. And all this, barely
+stated, is a very different matter from what it is when it is poetically
+symbolized in the vast and shapely substance of the _Iliad_ and the
+_Odyssey_. It is quite possible, of course, to appreciate, pleasantly
+and externally, the _Iliad_ with its pressure of thronging life and its
+daring unity, and the _Odyssey_ with its serener life and its superb
+construction, though much more sectional unity. But we do not appreciate
+what Homer did for his time, and is still doing for all the world, we do
+not appreciate the spirit of his music, unless we see the warfare and
+the adventure as symbols of the primary courage of life; and there is
+more in those words than seems when they are baldly written. And it is
+not his morals, but Homer's art that does that for us. And what Homer's
+art does supremely, the other early epics do in their way too. Their way
+is not to be compared with Homer's way. They are very much nearer than
+he is to the mere epic material--to the moderate accomplishment of the
+primitive ballad. Apart from their greatness, and often successful
+greatness, of intention, perhaps the only one that has an answerable
+greatness in the detail of its technique is _Beowulf_. That is not on
+account of its "kennings"--the strange device by which early popular
+poetry (Hesiod is another instance) tries to liberate and master the
+magic of words. A good deal has been made of these "kennings"; but it
+does not take us far towards great poetry, to have the sea called
+"whale-road" or "swan-road" or "gannet's-bath"; though we are getting
+nearer to it when the sun is called "candle of the firmament" or
+"heaven's gem." On the whole, the poem is composed in an elaborate,
+ambitious diction which is not properly governed. Alliteration proves a
+somewhat dangerous principle; it seems mainly responsible for the way
+the poet makes his sentences by piling up clauses, like shooting a load
+of stones out of a cart. You cannot always make out exactly what he
+means; and it is doubtful whether he always had a clearly-thought
+meaning. Most of the subsidiary matter is foisted in with monstrous
+clumsiness. Yet _Beowulf_ has what we do not find, out of Homer, in the
+other early epics. It has occasionally an unforgettable grandeur of
+phrasing. And it has other and perhaps deeper poetic qualities. When the
+warriors are waiting in the haunted hall for the coming of the
+marsh-fiend Grendel, they fall into untroubled sleep; and the poet adds,
+with Homeric restraint: "Not one of them thought that he should thence
+be ever seeking his loved home again, his people or free city, where he
+was nurtured." The opening is magnificent, one of the noblest things
+that have been done in language. There is some wonderful grim landscape
+in the poem; towards the middle there is a great speech on deterioration
+through prosperity, a piece of sustained intensity that reads like an
+Aeschylean chorus; and there is some admirable fighting, especially the
+fight with Grendel in the hall, and with Grendel's mother under the
+waters, while Beowulf's companions anxiously watch the troubled surface
+of the mere. The fact that the action of the poem is chiefly made of
+single combat with supernatural creatures and that there is not tapestry
+figured with radiant gods drawn between the life of men and the ultimate
+darkness, gives a peculiar and notable character to the way Beowulf
+symbolizes the primary courage of life. One would like to think, with
+some enthusiasts, that this great poem, composed in a language totally
+unintelligible to the huge majority of Englishmen--further from English
+than Latin is from Italian--and perhaps not even composed in England,
+certainly not concerned either with England or Englishmen, might
+nevertheless be called an English epic.
+
+But of course the early epics do not, any of them, merely repeat the
+significance of Homer in another form. They might do that, if poetry had
+to inculcate a moral, as some have supposed. But however nicely we may
+analyse it, we shall never find in poetry a significance which is really
+detachable, and expressible in another way. The significance _is_ the
+poetry. What _Beowulf_ or the _Iliad_ or the _Odyssey_ means is simply
+what it is in its whole nature; we can but roughly indicate it. And as
+poetry is never the same, so its significance is never quite the same.
+Courage as the first necessary value of life is most naively and simply
+expressed, perhaps, in the _Poem of the Cid_; but even here the
+expression is, as in all art, unique, and chiefly because it is
+contrived through solidly imagined characters. There is splendid
+characterization, too, in the _Song of Roland_, together with a fine
+sense of poetic form; not fine enough, however, to avoid a prodigious
+deal of conventional gag. The battling is lavish, but always exciting;
+and in, at least, that section which describes how the dying Oliver,
+blinded by weariness and wounds, mistakes Roland for a pagan and feebly
+smites him with his sword, there is real and piercing pathos. But for
+all his sense of character, the poet has very little discretion in his
+admiration of his heroes. Christianity, in these two poems, has less
+effect than one might think. The conspicuous value of life is still the
+original value, courage; but elaboration and refinement of this begin
+to appear, especially in the _Song of Roland_, as passionately conscious
+patriotism and loyalty. The chief contribution of the _Nibelungenlied_
+to the main process of epic poetry is _plot_ in narrative; a
+contribution, that is, to the manner rather than to the content of epic
+symbolism. There is something that can be called plot in Homer; but with
+him, as in all other early epics, it is of no great account compared
+with the straightforward linking of incidents into a direct chain of
+narrative. The story of the _Nibelungenlied_, however, is not a chain
+but a web. Events and the influence of characters are woven closely and
+intricately together into one tragic pattern; and this requires not only
+characterization, but also the adding to the characters of persistent
+and dominant motives.
+
+Epic poetry exhibits life in some great symbolic attitude. It cannot
+strictly be said to symbolize life itself, but always some manner of
+life. But life as courage--the turning of the dark, hard condition of
+life into something which can be exulted in--this, which is the deep
+significance of the art of the first epics, is the absolutely necessary
+foundation for any subsequent valuation of life; Man can achieve nothing
+until he has first achieved courage. And this, much more than any
+inheritance of manner, is what makes all the writers of deliberate or
+"literary" epic imply the existence of Homer. If Homer had not done his
+work, they could not have done theirs. But "literary" epics are as
+necessary as Homer. We cannot go on with courage as the solitary
+valuation of life. We must have the foundation, but we must also have
+the superstructure. Speaking comparatively, it may be said that the
+function of Homeric epic has been to create imperishable symbolism for
+the actual courageous consciousness of life, but the duty of "literary"
+epic has been to develop this function, answerably to the development of
+life itself, into symbolism of some conscious _idea_ of life--something
+at once more formalized and more subtilized than the primary virtue of
+courage. The Greeks, however, were too much overshadowed by the
+greatness of Homer to do much towards this. The _Argonautica_, the
+half-hearted epic of Apollonius Rhodius, is the only attempt that need
+concern us. It is not a poem that can be read straight through; it is
+only enjoyable in moments--moments of charming, minute observation, like
+the description of a sunbeam thrown quivering on the wall from a basin
+of water "which has just been poured out," lines not only charming in
+themselves, but finely used as a simile for Medea's agitated heart; or
+moments of romantic fantasy, as when the Argonauts see the eagle flying
+towards Prometheus, and then hear the Titan's agonized cry. But it is
+not in such passages that what Apollonius did for epic abides. A great
+deal of his third book is a real contribution to the main process, to
+epic content as well as to epic manner. To the manner of epic he added
+analytic psychology. No one will ever imagine character more deeply or
+more firmly than Homer did in, say, Achilles; but Apollonius was the man
+who showed how epic as well as drama may use the nice minutiae of
+psychological imagination. Through Virgil, this contribution to epic
+manner has pervaded subsequent literature. Apollonius, too, in his
+fumbling way, as though he did not quite know what he was doing, has yet
+done something very important for the development of epic significance.
+Love has been nothing but a subordinate incident, almost one might say
+an ornament, in the early epics; in Apollonius, though working through a
+deal of gross and lumbering mythological machinery, love becomes for the
+first time one of the primary values of life. The love of Jason and
+Medea is the vital symbolism of the _Argonautica_.
+
+But it is Virgil who really begins the development of epic art. He took
+over from Apollonius love as part of the epic symbolism of life, and
+delicate psychology as part of the epic method. And, like Apollonius, he
+used these novelties chiefly in the person of a heroine. But in Virgil
+they belong to an incomparably greater art; and it is through Virgil
+that they have become necessities of the epic tradition. More than this,
+however, was required of him. The epic poet collaborates with the spirit
+of his time in the composition of his work. That is, if he is
+successful; the time may refuse to work with him, but he may not refuse
+to work with his time. Virgil not only implies, he often clearly states,
+the original epic values of life, the Homeric values; as in the famous:
+
+  Stat sua cuique dies; breve et inreparabile tempus
+  Omnibus est vitae: sed famam extendere factis,
+  Hoc virtutis opus.[10]
+
+But to write a poem chiefly to symbolize this simple, heroic metaphysic
+would scarcely have done for Virgil; it would certainly not have done
+for his time. It was eminently a time of social organization, one might
+perhaps say of social consciousness. After Sylla and Marius and Caesar,
+life as an affair of sheer individualism would not very strongly appeal
+to a thoughtful Roman. Accordingly, as has so often been remarked, the
+_Aeneid_ celebrates the Roman Empire. A political idea does not seem a
+very likely subject for a kind of poetry which must declare greatly the
+fundamentals of living; not even when it is a political idea unequalled
+in the world, the idea of the Roman Empire. Had Virgil been a _good
+Roman_, the _Aeneid_ might have been what no doubt Augustus, and Rome
+generally, desired, a political epic. But Virgil was not a good Roman;
+there was something in him that was not Roman at all. It was this
+strange incalculable element in him that seems for ever making him
+accomplish something he had not thought of; it was surely this that made
+him, unintentionally it may be, use the idea of the Roman Empire as a
+vehicle for a much profounder valuation of life. We must remember here
+the Virgil of the Fourth Eclogue--that extraordinary, impassioned poem
+in which he dreams of man attaining to some perfection of living. It is
+still this Virgil, though saddened and resigned, who writes the
+_Aeneid_. Man creating his own destiny, man, however wearied with the
+long task of resistance, achieving some conscious community of
+aspiration, and dreaming of the perfection of himself: the poet whose
+lovely and noble art makes us a great symbol of _that_, is assuredly
+carrying on the work of Homer. This was the development in epic
+intention required to make epic poetry answer to the widening needs of
+civilization.
+
+But even more important, in the whole process of epic, than what
+Virgil's art does, is the way it does it. And this in spite of the fact
+which everyone has noticed, that Virgil does not compare with Homer as a
+poet of seafaring and warfaring. He is not, indeed, very interested in
+either; and it is unfortunate that, in managing the story of Aeneas (in
+itself an excellent medium for his symbolic purpose) he felt himself
+compelled to try for some likeness to the _Odyssey_ and the _Iliad_--to
+do by art married to study what the poet of the _Odyssey_ and the
+_Iliad_ had done by art married to intuitive experience. But his failure
+in this does not matter much in comparison with his technical success
+otherwise. Virgil showed how poetry may be made deliberately adequate to
+the epic purpose. That does not mean that Virgil is more artistic than
+Homer. Homer's redundance, wholesale repetition of lines, and stock
+epithets cannot be altogether dismissed as "faults"; they are
+characteristics of a wonderfully accomplished and efficient technique.
+But epic poetry cannot be written as Homer composed it; whereas it must
+be written something as Virgil wrote it; yes, if epic poetry is to be
+_written_, Virgil must show how that is to be done. The superb Virgilian
+economy is the thing for an epic poet now; the concision, the
+scrupulousness, the loading of every word with something appreciable of
+the whole significance. After the _Aeneid_, the epic style must be of
+this fashion:
+
+  Ibant ovscuri sola sub nocte per umbram
+  Perque domos Ditis vacuas et inania regna:
+  Quale per incertam lunam sub luce maligna
+  Est iter in silvis, ubi caelum condidit umbra
+  Jupiter, et rebus nox abstulit atra colorem.[11]
+
+Lucan is much more of a Roman than Virgil; and the _Pharsalia_, so far
+as it is not an historical epic, is a political one; the idea of
+political liberty is at the bottom of it. That is not an unworthy theme;
+and Lucan evidently felt the necessity for development in epic. But he
+made the mistake, characteristically Roman, of thinking history more
+real than legend; and, trying to lead epic in this direction,
+supernatural machinery would inevitably go too. That, perhaps, was
+fortunate, for it enabled Lucan safely to introduce one of his great and
+memorable lines:
+
+  Jupiter est quodcunque vides, quodcunque moveris;[12]
+
+which would certainly explode any supernatural machinery that could be
+invented. The _Pharsalia_ could not be anything more than an interesting
+but unsuccessful attempt; it was not on these lines that epic poetry was
+to develop. Lucan died at an age when most poets have done nothing very
+remarkable; that he already had achieved a poem like the _Pharsalia_,
+would make us think he might have gone to incredible heights, were it
+not that the mistake of the _Pharsalia_ seems to belong incurably to his
+temperament.
+
+Lucan's determined stoicism may, philosophically, be more consistent
+than the dubious stoicism of Virgil. But Virgil knew that, in epic,
+supernatural imagination is better than consistency. It was an important
+step when he made Jupiter, though a personal god, a power to which no
+limits are assigned; when he also made the other divinities but shadows,
+or, at most, functions, of Jupiter. This answers to his conviction that
+spirit universally and singly pervades matter; but, what is more, it
+answers to the needs of epic development. When we come to Tasso and
+Camoens, we seem to have gone backward in this respect; we seem to come
+upon poetry in which supernatural machinery is in a state of chronic
+insubordination. But that, too, was perhaps necessary. In comparison
+with the _Aeneid, Gerusalemme Liberata_ and _Os Lusiadas_ lack
+intellectual control and spiritual depth; but in comparison with the
+Roman, the two modern poems thrill with a new passion of life, a new
+wine of life, heady, as it seems, with new significance--a significance
+as yet only felt, not understood. Both Tasso and Camoens clearly join on
+to the main epic tradition: Tasso derives chiefly from the _Aeneid_ and
+the _Iliad_, Camoens from the _Aeneid_ and the _Odyssey_. Tasso is
+perhaps more Virgilian than Camoens; the plastic power of his
+imagination is more assured. But the advantage Camoens has over Tasso
+seems to repeat the advantage Homer has over Virgil; the ostensible
+subject of the _Lusiads_ glows with the truth of experience. But the
+real subject is behind these splendid voyagings, just as the real
+subject of Tasso is behind the battles of Christian and Saracen; and in
+both poets the inmost theme is broadly the same. It is the consciousness
+of modern Europe. _Jerusalem Delivered_ and the _Lusiads_ are drenched
+with the spirit of the Renaissance; and that is chiefly responsible for
+their lovely poetry. But they reach out towards the new Europe that was
+then just beginning. Europe making common cause against the peoples that
+are not Europe; Europe carrying her domination round the world--is that
+what Tasso and Camoens ultimately mean? It would be too hard and too
+narrow a matter by itself to make these poems what they are. No; it is
+not the action of Europe, but the spirit of European consciousness, that
+gave Tasso and Camoens their deepest inspiration. But what European
+consciousness really is, these poets rather vaguely suggest than master
+into clear and irresistible expression, into the supreme symbolism of
+perfectly adequate art. They still took European consciousness as an
+affair of geography and race rather than simply as a triumphant stage in
+the general progress of man's knowledge of himself. Their time imposed a
+duty on them; that they clearly understood. But they did not clearly
+understand what the duty was; partly, no doubt, because they were both
+strongly influenced by mediaeval religion. And so it is atmosphere, in
+Tasso and Camoens, that counts much more than substance; both poets seem
+perpetually thrilled by something they cannot express--the _non so che_
+of Tasso. And what chiefly gives this sense of quivering, uncertain
+significance to their poetry is the increase of freedom and decrease of
+control in the supernatural. Supernaturalism was emphasized, because
+they instinctively felt that this was the means epic poetry must use to
+accomplish its new duties; it was disorderly, because they did not quite
+know what use these duties required. Tasso and Camoens, for all the
+splendour and loveliness of their work, leave epic poetry, as it were,
+consciously dissatisfied--knowing that its future must achieve some
+significance larger and deeper than anything it had yet done, and
+knowing that this must be done somehow through imagined supernaturalism.
+It waited nearly a hundred years for the poet who understood exactly
+what was to be done and exactly how to do it.
+
+In _Paradise Lost_, the development of epic poetry culminates, as far as
+it has yet gone. The essential inspiration of the poem implies a
+particular sense of human existence which has not yet definitely
+appeared in the epic series, but which the process of life in Europe
+made it absolutely necessary that epic poetry should symbolize. In
+Milton, the poet arose who was supremely adequate to the greatest task
+laid on epic poetry since its beginning with Homer; Milton's task was
+perhaps even more exacting than that original one. "His work is not the
+greatest of heroic poems, only because it is not the first." The epigram
+might just as reasonably have been the other way round. But nothing
+would be more unprofitable than a discussion in which Homer and Milton
+compete for supremacy of genius. Our business here is quite otherwise.
+
+With the partial exception of Tasso and Camoens, all epic poetry before
+Milton is some symbolism of man's sense of his own will. It is simply
+this in Homer; and the succeeding poets developed this intention but
+remained well within it. Not even Virgil, with his metaphysic of
+individual merged into social will--not even Virgil went outside it. In
+fact, it is a sort of _monism_ of consciousness that inspires all
+pre-Miltonic epic. But in Milton, it has become a _dualism_. Before him,
+the primary impulse of epic is an impassioned sense of man's nature
+_being contained_--by his destiny: _his_ only because he is in it and
+belongs to it, as we say "_my_ country." With Milton, this has
+necessarily become not only a sense of man's rigorously contained
+nature, but equally a sense of that which contains man--in fact,
+simultaneously a sense of individual will and of universal necessity.
+The single sense of these two irreconcilables is what Milton's poetry
+has to symbolize. Could they be reconciled, the two elements in man's
+modern consciousness of existence would form a monism. But this
+consciousness is a dualism; its elements are absolutely opposed.
+_Paradise Lost_ is inspired by intense consciousness of the eternal
+contradiction between the general, unlimited, irresistible will of
+universal destiny, and defined individual will existing within this, and
+inexplicably capable of acting on it, even against it. Or, if that seems
+too much of an antinomy to some philosophies (and it is perhaps possible
+to make it look more apparent than real), the dualism can be unavoidably
+declared by putting it entirely in terms of consciousness: destiny
+creating within itself an existence which stands against and apart from
+destiny by being _conscious_ of it. In Milton's poetry the spirit of man
+is equally conscious of its own limited reality and of the unlimited
+reality of that which contains him and drives him with its motion--of
+his own will striving in the midst of destiny: destiny irresistible, yet
+his will unmastered.
+
+This is not to examine the development of epic poetry by looking at that
+which is not _poetry_. In this kind of art, more perhaps than in any
+other, we must ignore the wilful theories of those who would set
+boundaries to the meaning of the word poetry. In such a poem as
+Milton's, whatever is in it is its poetry; the poetry of _Paradise Lost_
+is just--_Paradise Lost_! Its pomp of divine syllables and glorious
+images is no more the poetry of Milton than the idea of man which he
+expressed. But the general manner of an art is for ever similar; it is
+its inspiration that is for ever changing. We need never expect words
+and metre to do more than they do here:
+
+          they, fondly thinking to allay
+  Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit
+  Chewed bitter ashes, which the offended taste
+  With spattering noise rejected: oft they assayed,
+  Hunger and thirst constraining; drugged as oft,
+  With hatefullest disrelish writhed their jaws,
+  With soot and cinders filled;
+
+or more than they do here:
+
+    What though the field be lost?
+  All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
+  And study of revenge, immortal hate,
+  And courage never to submit or yield,
+  And what is else not to be overcome.
+
+But what Homer's words, and perhaps what Virgil's words, set out to do,
+they do just as marvellously. There is no sure way of comparison here.
+How words do their work in poetry, and how we appreciate the way they do
+it--this seems to involve the obscurest processes of the mind: analysis
+can but fumble at it. But we can compare inspiration--the nature of the
+inmost urgent motive of poetry. And it is not irrelevant to add (it
+seems to me mere fact), that Milton had the greatest motive that has
+ever ruled a poet.
+
+For the vehicle of this motive, a fable of purely human action would
+obviously not suffice. What Milton has to express is, of course,
+altogether human; destiny is an entirely human conception. But he has to
+express not simply the sense of human existence occurring in destiny;
+that brings in destiny only mediately, through that which is destined.
+He has to express the sense of destiny immediately, at the same time as
+he expresses its opponent, the destined will of man. Destiny will appear
+in poetry as an omnipotent God; Virgil had already prepared poetry for
+that. But the action at large must clearly consist now, and for the
+first time, overwhelmingly of supernatural imagination. Milton has been
+foolishly blamed for making his supernaturalism too human. But nothing
+can come into poetry that is not shaped and recognizable; how else but
+in anthropomorphism could destiny, or (its poetic equivalent) deity,
+exist in _Paradise Lost_?
+
+We may see what a change has come over epic poetry, if we compare this
+supernatural imagination of Milton's with the supernatural machinery of
+any previous epic poet. Virgil is the most scrupulous in this respect;
+and towards the inevitable change, which Milton completed and perfected
+from Camoens and Tasso, Virgil took a great step in making Jupiter
+professedly almighty. But compare Virgil's "Tantaene animis celestibus
+irae?" with Milton's "Evil, be thou my good!" It is the difference
+between an accidental device and essential substance. That, in order to
+symbolize in epic form--that is to say, in _narrative_ form--the
+dualistic sense of destiny and the destined, and both immediately
+--Milton had to dissolve his human action completely in a
+supernatural action, is the sign not merely of a development, but of a
+re-creation, of epic art.
+
+It has been said that Satan is the hero of _Paradise Lost_. The offence
+which the remark has caused is due, no doubt, to injudicious use of the
+word "hero." It is surely the simple fact that if _Paradise Lost_ exists
+for any one figure, that is Satan; just as the _Iliad_ exists for
+Achilles, and the _Odyssey_ for Odysseus. It is in the figure of Satan
+that the imperishable significance of _Paradise Lost_ is centred; his
+vast unyielding agony symbolizes the profound antinomy of modern
+consciousness. And if this is what he is in significance it is worth
+noting what he is in technique. He is the blending of the poem's human
+plane with its supernatural plane. The epic hero has always represented
+humanity by being superhuman; in Satan he has grown into the
+supernatural. He does not thereby cease to symbolize human existence;
+but he is thereby able to symbolize simultaneously the sense of its
+irreconcilable condition, of the universal destiny that contains it. Out
+of Satan's colossal figure, the single urgency of inspiration, which
+this dualistic consciousness of existence makes, radiates through all
+the regions of Milton's vast and rigorous imagination. "Milton," says
+Landor, "even Milton rankt with living men!"
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 6: 'And all round the ships echoed terribly to the shouting
+Achaians.']
+
+[Footnote 7:
+  'When in a dusty whirlwind thou didst lie,
+    Thy valour lost, forgot thy chivalry.'--OGILBY.
+(The version leaves out megas megalosti.)
+]
+
+[Footnote 8: 'Mother, since thou didst bear me to be so short-lived,
+Olympian Zeus that thunders from on high should especially have bestowed
+honour on me.']
+
+[Footnote 9: 'Honour my son for me, for the swiftest doom of all is
+his.']
+
+[Footnote 10: "For everyone his own day is appointed; for all men the
+period of life is short and not to be recalled: but to spread glory by
+deeds, that is what valour can do."]
+
+[Footnote 11:
+  "They wer' amid the shadows by night in loneliness obscure
+  Walking forth i' the void and vasty dominyon of Ades;
+  As by an uncertain moonray secretly illumin'd
+  One goeth in the forest, when heav'n is gloomily clouded,
+  And black night hath robb'd the colours and beauty from all things."
+--ROBERT BRIDGES.
+]
+
+[Footnote 12: "All that is known, all that is felt, is God."]
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+AFTER MILTON
+
+And after Milton, what is to happen? First, briefly, for a few instances
+of what has happened. We may leave out experiments in religious
+sentiment like Klopstock's _Messiah_. We must leave out also poems which
+have something of the look of epic at first glance, but have nothing of
+the scope of epic intention; such as Scott's longer poems. These might
+resemble the "lays" out of which some people imagine "authentic" epic to
+have been made. But the lays are not the epic. Scott's poems have not
+the depth nor the definiteness of symbolic intention--what is sometimes
+called the epic unity--and this is what we can always discover in any
+poetry which gives us the peculiar experience we must associate with the
+word epic, if it is to have any precision of meaning. What applies to
+Scott, will apply still more to Byron's poems; Byron is one of the
+greatest of modern poets, but that does not make him an epic poet. We
+must keep our minds on epic intention. Shelley's _Revolt of Islam_ has
+something of it, but too vaguely and too fantastically; the generality
+of human experience had little to do with this glittering poem. Keats's
+_Hyperion_ is wonderful; but it does not go far enough to let us form
+any judgment of it appropriate to the present purpose.[13] Our search
+will not take us far before we notice something very remarkable; poems
+which look superficially like epic turn out to have scarce anything of
+real epic intention; whereas epic intention is apt to appear in poems
+that do not look like epic at all. In fact, it seems as if epic manner
+and epic content were trying for a divorce. If this be so, the
+traditional epic manner will scarcely survive the separation. Epic
+content, however, may very well be looking out for a match with a new
+manner; though so far it does not seem to have found an altogether
+satisfactory partner.
+
+But there are one or two poems in which the old union seems still happy.
+Most noteworthy is Goethe's _Hermann und Dorothea_. You may say that it
+does not much matter whether such poetry should be called epic or, as
+some hold, idyllic. But it is interesting to note, first, that the poem
+is deliberately written with epic style and epic intention; and, second,
+that, though singularly beautiful, it makes no attempt to add anything
+to epic development. It is interesting, too, to see epic poetry trying
+to get away from its heroes, and trying to use material the poetic
+importance of which seems to depend solely on the treatment, not on
+itself. This was a natural and, for some things, a laudable reaction.
+But it inevitably meant that epic must renounce the triumphs which
+Milton had won for it. William Morris saw no reason for abandoning
+either the heroes or anything else of the epic tradition. The chief
+personages of _Sigurd the Volsung_ are admittedly more than human, the
+events frankly marvellous. The poem is an impressive one, and in one way
+or another fulfils all the main qualifications of epic. But perhaps no
+great poem ever had so many faults. These have nothing to do with its
+management of supernaturalism; those who object to this simply show
+ignorance of the fundamental necessities of epic poetry. The first book
+is magnificent; everything that epic narrative should be; but after this
+the poem grows long-winded, and that is the last thing epic poetry
+should be. It is written with a running pen; so long as the verse keeps
+going on, Morris seems satisfied, though it is very often going on
+about unimportant things, and in an uninteresting manner. After the
+first book, indeed, as far as Morris's epic manner is concerned, Virgil
+and Milton might never have lived. It attempts to be the grand manner by
+means of vagueness. In an altogether extraordinary way, the poem slurs
+over the crucial incidents (as in the inept lines describing the death
+of Fafnir, and those, equally hollow, describing the death of
+Guttorm--two noble opportunities simply not perceived) and tirelessly
+expatiates on the mere surroundings of the story. Yet there is no
+attempt to make anything there credible: Morris seems to have mixed up
+the effects of epic with the effects of a fairy-tale. The poem lacks
+intellect; it has no clear-cut thought. And it lacks sensuous images; it
+is full of the sentiment, not of the sense of things, which is the wrong
+way round. Hence the protracted conversations are as a rule amazingly
+windy and pointless, as the protracted descriptions are amazingly
+useless and tedious. And the superhuman virtues of the characters are
+not shown in the poem so much as energetically asserted. It says much
+for the genius of Morris that _Sigurd the Volsung_, with all these
+faults, is not to be condemned; that, on the contrary, to read it is
+rather a great than a tiresome experience; and not only because the
+faults are relieved, here and there, by exquisite beauties and
+dignities, indeed by incomparable lines, but because the poem as a whole
+does, as it goes on, accumulate an immense pressure of significance. All
+the great epics of the world have, however, perfectly clearly a
+significance in close relation with the spirit of their time; the
+intense desire to symbolize the consciousness of man as far as it has
+attained, is what vitally inspires an epic poet, and the ardour of this
+infects his whole style. Morris, in this sense, was not vitally
+inspired. _Sigurd the Volsung_ is a kind of set exercise in epic poetry.
+It is great, but it is not _needed_. It is, in fact, an attempt to write
+epic poetry as it might have been written, and to make epic poetry mean
+what it might have meant, in the days when the tale of Sigurd and the
+Niblungs was newly come among men's minds. Mr. Doughty, in his
+surprising poem _The Dawn in Britain_, also seems trying to compose an
+epic exercise, rather than to be obeying a vital necessity of
+inspiration. For all that, it is a great poem, full of irresistible
+vision and memorable diction. But it is written in a revolutionary
+syntax, which, like most revolutions of this kind, achieves nothing
+beyond the fact of being revolutionary; and Mr. Doughty often uses the
+unexpected effects of his queer syntax instead of the unexpected effects
+of poetry, which makes the poem even longer psychologically than it is
+physically. Lander's _Gebir_ has much that can truly be called epic in
+it; and it has learned the lessons in manner which Virgil and Milton so
+nobly taught. It has perhaps learned them too well; never were
+concision, and the loading of each word with heavy duties, so thoroughly
+practised. The action is so compressed that it is difficult to make out
+exactly what is going on; we no sooner realize that an incident has
+begun than we find ourselves in the midst of another. Apart from these
+idiosyncrasies, the poetry of _Gebir_ is a curious mixture of splendour
+and commonplace. If fiction could ever be wholly, and not only
+partially, epic, it would be in _Gebir_.
+
+In all these poems, we see an epic intention still combined with a
+recognizably epic manner. But what is quite evident is, that in all of
+them there is no attempt to carry on the development of epic, to take up
+its symbolic power where Milton left it. On the contrary, this seems to
+be deliberately avoided. For any tentative advance on Miltonic
+significance, even for any real acceptance of it, we must go to poetry
+which tries to put epic intention into a new form. Some obvious
+peculiarities of epic style are sufficiently definite to be detachable.
+Since Theocritus, a perverse kind of pleasure has often been obtained by
+putting some of the peculiarities of epic--peculiarities really required
+by a very long poem--into the compass of a very short poem. An epic
+idyll cannot, of course, contain any considerable epic intention; it is
+wrought out of the mere shell of epic, and avoids any semblance of epic
+scope. But by devising somehow a connected sequence of idylls, something
+of epic scope can be acquired again. As Hugo says, in his preface to _La
+Legende des Siècles_: "Comme dans une mosaïque, chaque pierre a sa
+couleur et sa forme propre; l'ensemble donne une figure. La figure de ce
+livre," he goes on, "c'est l'homme." To get an epic design or _figure_
+through a sequence of small idylls need not be the result of mere
+technical curiosity. It may be a valuable method for the future of epic.
+Tennyson attempted this method in _Idylls of the King_; not, as is now
+usually admitted, with any great success. The sequence is admirable for
+sheer craftsmanship, for astonishing craftsmanship; but it did not
+manage to effect anything like a conspicuous symbolism. You have but to
+think of _Paradise Lost_ to see what _Idylls of the King_ lacks. Victor
+Hugo, however, did better in _La Legende des Siècles_. "La figure, c'est
+l'homme"; there, at any rate, is the intention of epic symbolism. And,
+however pretentious the poem may be, it undoubtedly does make a
+passionate effort to develop the significance which Milton had achieved;
+chiefly to enlarge the scope of this significance.[14] Browning's _The
+Ring and the Book_ also uses this notion of an idyllic sequence; but
+without any semblance of epic purpose, purely for the exhibition of
+human character.
+
+It has already been remarked that the ultimate significance of great
+drama is the same as that of epic. Since the vital epic purpose--the
+kind of epic purpose which answers to the spirit of the time--is
+evidently looking for some new form to inhabit, it is not surprising,
+then, that it should have occasionally tried on dramatic form. And,
+unquestionably, for great poetic symbolism of the depths of modern
+consciousness, for such symbolism as Milton's, we must go to two such
+invasions of epic purpose into dramatic manner--to Goethe's _Faust_ and
+Hardy's _The Dynasts_. But dramatic significance and epic significance
+have been admitted to be broadly the same; to take but one instance,
+Aeschylus's Prometheus is closely related to Milton's Satan (though I
+think Prometheus really represents a monism of consciousness--that which
+is destined--as Satan represents a dualism--at once the destined and the
+destiny). How then can we speak of epic purpose invading drama? Surely
+in this way. Drama seeks to present its significance with narrowed
+intensity, but epic in a large dilatation: the one contracts, the other
+expatiates. When, therefore, we find drama setting out its significance
+in such a way as to become epically dilated, we may say that dramatic
+has grown into epic purpose. Or, even more positively, we may say that
+epic has taken over drama and adapted it to its peculiar needs. In any
+case, with one exception to be mentioned presently, it is only in
+_Faust_ and _The Dynasts_ that we find any great development of Miltonic
+significance. These are the poems that give us immense and shapely
+symbols of the spirit of man, conscious not only of the sense of his
+own destined being, but also of some sense of that which destines. In
+fact, these two are the poems that develop and elaborate, in their own
+way, the Miltonic significance, as all the epics in between Homer and
+Milton develop and elaborate Homeric significance. And yet, in spite of
+_Faust_ and _The Dynasts_, it may be doubted whether the union of epic
+and drama is likely to be permanent. The peculiar effects which epic
+intention, in whatever manner, must aim at, seem to be as much hindered
+as helped by dramatic form; and possibly it is because the detail is
+necessarily too much enforced for the broad perfection of epic effect.
+
+The real truth seems to be, that there is an inevitable and profound
+difficulty in carrying on the Miltonic significance in anything like a
+story. Regular epic having reached its climax in _Paradise Lost_, the
+epic purpose must find some other way of going on. Hugo saw this, when
+he strung his huge epic sequence together not on a connected story but
+on a single idea: "la figure, c'est l'homme." If we are to have, as we
+must have, direct symbolism of the way man is conscious of his being
+nowadays, which means direct symbolism both of man's spirit and of the
+(philosophical) opponent of this, the universal fate of things--if we
+are to have all this, it is hard to see how any story can be adequate to
+such symbolic requirements, unless it is a story which moves in some
+large region of imagined supernaturalism. And it seems questionable
+whether we have enough _formal_ "belief" nowadays to allow of such a
+story appearing as solid and as vividly credible as epic poetry needs.
+It is a decided disadvantage, from the purely epic point of view, that
+those admirable "Intelligences" in Hardy's _The Dynasts_ are so
+obviously abstract ideas disguised. The supernaturalism of epic, however
+incredible it may be in the poem, must be worked up out of the material
+of some generally accepted belief. I think it would be agreed, that what
+was possible for Milton would scarcely be possible to-day; and even more
+impossible would be the naïveté of Homer and the quite different but
+equally impracticable naïveté of Tasso and Camoens. The conclusion seems
+to be, that the epic purpose will have to abandon the necessity of
+telling a story.
+
+Hugo's way may prove to be the right one. But there may be another; and
+what has happened in the past may suggest what may happen in the future.
+Epic poetry in the regular epic form has before now seemed unlikely. It
+seemed unlikely after the Alexandrians had made such poor attempts at
+standing upright under the immensity of Homer; it seemed so, until,
+after several efforts, Latin poetry became triumphantly epic in Virgil.
+And again, when the mystical prestige of Virgil was domineering
+everything, regular epic seemed unlikely; until, after the doubtful
+attempts of Boiardo and Ariosto, Tasso arrived. But in each case, while
+the occurrence of regular epic was seeming so improbable, it
+nevertheless happened that poetry was written which was certainly
+nothing like epic in form, but which was strongly charged with a
+profound pressure of purpose closely akin to epic purpose; and _De Rerum
+Natura_ and _La Divina Commedia_ are very suggestive to speculation now.
+Of course, the fact that, in both these cases, regular epic did
+eventually occur, must warn us that in artistic development anything may
+happen; but it does seem as if there were a deeper improbability for
+the occurrence of regular epic now than in the times just before Virgil
+and Tasso--of regular epic, that is, inspired by some vital import, not
+simply, like _Sigurd the Volsung_, by archaeological import. Lucretius is
+a good deal more suggestive than Dante; for Dante's form is too exactly
+suited to his own peculiar genius and his own peculiar time to be
+adaptable. But the method of Lucretius is eminently adaptable. That
+amazing image of the sublime mind of Lucretius is exactly the kind of
+lofty symbolism that the continuation of epic purpose now seems to
+require--a subjective symbolism. I believe Wordsworth felt this, when he
+planned his great symbolic poem, and partly executed it in _The Prelude_
+and _The Excursion_: for there, more profoundly than anywhere out of
+Milton himself, Milton's spiritual legacy is employed. It may be, then,
+that Lucretius and Wordsworth will preside over the change from
+objective to subjective symbolism which Milton has, perhaps, made
+necessary for the continued development of the epic purpose: after
+Milton, it seems likely that there is nothing more to be done with
+objective epic. But Hugo's method, of a connected sequence of separate
+poems, instead of one continuous poem, may come in here. The
+determination to keep up a continuous form brought both Lucretius and
+Wordsworth at times perilously near to the odious state of didactic
+poetry; it was at least responsible for some tedium. Epic poetry will
+certainly never be didactic. What we may imagine--who knows how vainly
+imagine?--is, then, a sequence of odes expressing, in the image of some
+fortunate and lofty mind, as much of the spiritual significance which
+the epic purpose must continue from Milton, as is possible, in the style
+of Lucretius and Wordsworth, for subjective symbolism. A pregnant
+experiment towards something like this has already been seen--in George
+Meredith's magnificent set of _Odes in Contribution to the Song of the
+French History_. The subject is ostensibly concrete; but France in her
+agonies and triumphs has been personified into a superb symbol of
+Meredith's own reading of human fate. The series builds up a decidedly
+epic significance, and its manner is extraordinarily suggestive of a new
+epic method. Nevertheless, something more Lucretian in central
+imagination, something less bound to concrete and particular event,
+seems required for the complete development of epic purpose.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 13: In the greatest poetry, all the elements of human nature
+are burning in a single flame. The artifice of criticism is to detect
+what peculiar radiance each element contributes to the whole light; but
+this no more affects the singleness of the compounded energy in poetry
+than the spectroscopic examination of fire affects the single nature of
+actual flame. For the purposes of this book, it has been necessary to
+look chiefly at the contribution of intellect to epic poetry; for it is
+in that contribution that the development of poetry, so far as there is
+any development at all, really consists. This being so, it might be
+thought that Keats could hardly have done anything for the real progress
+of epic. But Keats's apparent (it is only apparent) rejection of
+intellect in his poetry was the result of youthful theory; his letters
+show that, in fact, intellect was a thing unusually vigorous in his
+nature. If the Keats of the letters be added to the Keats of the poems,
+a personality appears that seems more likely than any of his
+contemporaries, or than anyone who has come after him, for the work of
+carrying Miltonic epic forward without forsaking Miltonic form.]
+
+[Footnote 14: For all I know, Hugo may never have read Milton; judging
+by some silly remarks of his, I should hope not. But Hugo could feel the
+things in the spirit of man that Milton felt; not only because they were
+still there, but because the secret influence of Milton has intensified
+the consciousness of them in thousands who think they know nothing of
+_Paradise Lost_. Modern literary history will not be properly understood
+until it is realized that Milton is one of the dominating minds of
+Europe, whether Europe know it or not. There are scarcely half a dozen
+figures that can be compared with Milton for irresistible
+influence--quite apart from his unapproachable supremacy in the
+technique of poetry. When Addison remarked that _Paradise Lost_ is
+universally and perpetually interesting, he said what is not to be
+questioned; though he did not perceive the real reason for his
+assertion. Darwin no more injured the significance of _Paradise Lost_
+than air-planes have injured Homer.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Epic, by Lascelles Abercrombie
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10716 ***
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+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of
+    The Epic: an Essay,
+    by  Lascelles Abercrombie.
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10716 ***</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h1>The Epic: an Essay</h1>
+<center>
+<b>By Lascelles Abercrombie </b>
+</center>
+<p>
+London mcmxxii
+</p>
+<p>
+First published 1914.
+</p>
+<p>
+New Edition, reset 1922.
+</p>
+<p>
+By the same Author:
+</p>
+
+<ul>
+  <li>Towards a Theory of Art</li>
+  <li>Speculative Dialogues</li>
+  <li>Four Short Plays</li>
+  <li>Thomas Hardy: A Critical Study</li>
+  <li>Principles of English Prosody</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p>
+<b>Table of Contents</b>
+</p>
+<p><a href="#PRF">PREFACE</a></p>
+<p><a href="#RULE4_1">I. BEGINNINGS</a></p>
+<p><a href="#RULE4_2">II. LITERARY EPIC</a></p>
+<p><a href="#RULE4_3">III. THE NATURE OF EPIC</a></p>
+<p><a href="#RULE4_4">IV. THE EPIC SERIES</a></p>
+<p><a href="#RULE4_5">V. AFTER MILTON</a></p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<a name="PRF"><!-- PRF --></a>
+<h2>
+	PREFACE
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+<i>As this essay is disposed to consider epic poetry as a species of
+literature, and not as a department of sociology or archaeology or
+ethnology, the reader will not find it anything material to the
+discussion which may be typified in those very interesting works,
+Gilbert Murray's "The Rise of the Greek Epic" and Andrew Lang's "The
+World of Homer." The distinction between a literary and a scientific
+attitude to Homer (and all other "authentic" epic) is, I think, finally
+summed up in Mr. Mackail's "Lectures on Greek Poetry"; the following
+pages, at any rate, assume that this is so. Theories about epic origins
+were therefore indifferent to my purpose. Besides, I do not see the need
+for any theories; I think it need only be said, of any epic poem
+whatever, that it was composed by a man and transmitted by men. But this
+is not to say that investigation of the "authentic" epic poet's</i> milieu
+<i>may not be extremely profitable; and for settling the preliminaries of
+this essay, I owe a great deal to Mr. Chadwick's profoundly
+interesting study, "The Heroic Age"; though I daresay Mr. Chadwick would
+repudiate some of my conclusions. I must also acknowledge suggestions
+taken from Mr. Macneile Dixon's learned and vigorous "English Epic and
+Heroic Poetry"; and especially the assistance of Mr. John Clark's
+"History of Epic Poetry." Mr. Clark's book is so thorough and so
+adequate that my own would certainly have been superfluous, were it not
+that I have taken a particular point of view which his method seems to
+rule out&mdash;a point of view which seemed well worth taking. This is my
+excuse, too, for considering only the most conspicuous instances of epic
+poetry. They have been discussed often enough; but not often, so far as
+I know, primarily as stages of one continuous artistic development</i>.
+</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="RULE4_1"><!-- RULE4 1 --></a>
+<h2>
+	I.
+</h2>
+<center>
+BEGINNINGS
+</center>
+<p>
+The invention of epic poetry corresponds with a definite and, in the
+history of the world, often recurring state of society. That is to say,
+epic poetry has been invented many times and independently; but, as the
+needs which prompted the invention have been broadly similar, so the
+invention itself has been. Most nations have passed through the same
+sort of chemistry. Before their hot racial elements have been thoroughly
+compounded, and thence have cooled into the stable convenience of
+routine which is the material shape of civilization&mdash;before this has
+firmly occurred, there has usually been what is called an "Heroic Age."
+It is apt to be the hottest and most glowing stage of the process. So
+much is commonplace. Exactly what causes the racial elements of a
+nation, with all their varying properties, to flash suddenly (as it
+seems) into the splendid incandescence of an Heroic Age, and thence to
+shift again into a comparatively rigid and perhaps comparatively
+lustreless civilization&mdash;this difficult matter has been very nicely
+investigated of late, and to interesting, though not decided, result.
+But I may not concern myself with this; nor even with the detailed
+characteristics, alleged or ascertained, of the Heroic Age of nations.
+It is enough for the purpose of this book that the name "Heroic Age" is
+a good one for this stage of the business; it is obviously, and on the
+whole rightly, descriptive. For the stage displays the first vigorous
+expression, as the natural thing and without conspicuous restraint, of
+private individuality. In savagery, thought, sentiment, religion and
+social organization may be exceedingly complicated, full of the most
+subtle and strange relationships; but they exist as complete and
+determined <i>wholes</i>, each part absolutely bound up with the rest.
+Analysis has never come near them. The savage is blinded to the glaring
+incongruities of his tribal ideas not so much by habit or reverence; it
+is simply that the mere possibility of such a thing as analysis has
+never occurred to him. He thinks, he feels, he lives, all in a whole.
+Each person is the tribe in little. This may make everyone an
+astoundingly complex character; but it makes strong individuality
+impossible in savagery, since everyone accepts the same elaborate
+unanalysed whole of tribal existence. That existence, indeed, would find
+in the assertion of private individuality a serious danger; and tribal
+organization guards against this so efficiently that it is doubtless
+impossible, so long as there is no interruption from outside. In some
+obscure manner, however, savage existence has been constantly
+interrupted; and it seems as if the long-repressed forces of
+individuality then burst out into exaggerated vehemence; for the result
+(if it is not slavery) is, that a people passes from its savage to its
+heroic age, on its way to some permanence of civilization. It must
+always have taken a good deal to break up the rigidity of savage
+society. It might be the shock of enforced mixture with a totally alien
+race, the two kinds of blood, full of independent vigour, compelled to
+flow together;[<a href="#note-1">1</a>] or it might be the migration, due to economic stress,
+from one tract of country to which the tribal existence was perfectly
+adapted to another for which it was quite unsuited, with the added
+necessity of conquering the peoples found in possession. Whatever the
+cause may have been, the result is obvious: a sudden liberation, a
+delighted expansion, of numerous private individualities.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the various appearances of the Heroic Age cannot, perhaps, be
+completely generalized. What has just been written will probably do for
+the Heroic Age which produced Homer, and for that which produced the
+<i>Nibelungenlied, Beowulf</i>, and the Northern Sagas. It may, therefore
+stand as the typical case; since Homer and these Northern poems are what
+most people have in their minds when they speak of "authentic" epic. But
+decidedly Heroic Ages have occurred much later than the latest of these
+cases; and they arose out of a state of society which cannot roundly be
+called savagery. Europe, for instance, had its unmistakable Heroic Age
+when it was fighting with the Moslem, whether that warfare was a cause
+or merely an accompaniment. And the period which preceded it, the period
+after the failure of Roman civilization, was sufficiently "dark" and
+devoid of individuality, to make the sudden plenty of potent and
+splendid individuals seem a phenomenon of the same sort as that which
+has been roughly described; it can scarcely be doubted that the age
+which is exhibited in the <i>Poem of the Cid</i>, the <i>Song of Roland</i>, and
+the lays of the Crusaders (<i>la Chanson d'Antioche</i>, for instance), was
+similar in all essentials to the age we find in Homer and the
+<i>Nibelungenlied</i>. Servia, too, has its ballad-cycles of Christian and
+Mahometan warfare, which suppose an age obviously heroic. But it hardly
+falls in with our scheme; Servia, at this time, might have been expected
+to have gone well past its Heroic Age. Either, then, it was somehow
+unusually prolonged, or else the clash of the Ottoman war revived it.
+The case of Servia is interesting in another way. The songs about the
+battle of Kossovo describe Servian defeat&mdash;defeat so overwhelming that
+poetry cannot possibly translate it, and does not attempt it, into
+anything that looks like victory. Even the splendid courage of its hero
+Milos, who counters an imputation of treachery by riding in full
+daylight into the Ottoman camp and murdering the Sultan, even this
+courage is rather near to desperation. The Marko cycle&mdash;Marko whose
+betrayal of his country seems wiped out by his immense prowess&mdash;has in a
+less degree this utter defeat of Servia as its background. But Servian
+history before all this has many glories, which, one would think, would
+serve the turn of heroic song better than appalling defeat and, indeed,
+enslavement. Why is the latter celebrated and not the former? The reason
+can only be this: heroic poetry depends on an heroic age, and an age is
+heroic because of what it is, not because of what it does. Servia's
+defeat by the armies of Amurath came at a time when its people was too
+strongly possessed by the heroic spirit to avoid uttering itself in
+poetry. And from this it appears, too, that when the heroic age sings,
+it primarily sings of itself, even when that means singing of its own
+humiliation.&mdash;One other exceptional kind of heroic age must just be
+mentioned, in this professedly inadequate summary. It is the kind which
+occurs quite locally and on a petty scale, with causes obscurer than
+ever. The Border Ballads, for instance, and the Robin Hood Ballads,
+clearly suppose a state of society which is nothing but a very
+circumscribed and not very important heroic age. Here the households of
+gentry take the place of courts, and the poetry in vogue there is
+perhaps instantly taken up by the taverns; or perhaps this is a case in
+which the heroes are so little removed from common folk that celebration
+of individual prowess begins among the latter, not, as seems usually to
+have happened, among the social equals of the heroes. But doubtless
+there are infinite grades in the structure of the Heroic Age.
+</p>
+<p>
+The note of the Heroic Age, then, is vehement private individuality
+freely and greatly asserting itself. The assertion is not always what we
+should call noble; but it is always forceful and unmistakable. There
+would be, no doubt, some social and religious scheme to contain the
+individual's self-assertion; but the latter, not the former, is the
+thing that counts. It is not an age that lasts for very long as a rule;
+and before there comes the state in which strong social organization and
+strong private individuality are compatible&mdash;mutually helpful instead of
+destroying one another, as they do, in opposite ways, in savagery and in
+the Heroic Age&mdash;before the state called civilization can arrive, there
+has commonly been a long passage of dark obscurity, which throws up into
+exaggerated brightness the radiance of the Heroic Age. The balance of
+private good and general welfare is at the bottom of civilized morals;
+but the morals of the Heroic Age are founded on individuality, and on
+nothing else. In Homer, for instance, it can be seen pretty clearly that
+a "good" man is simply a man of imposing, active individuality[<a href="#note-2">2</a>]; a
+"bad" man is an inefficient, undistinguished man&mdash;probably, too, like
+Thersites, ugly. It is, in fact, an absolutely aristocratic age&mdash;an age
+in which he who rules is thereby proven the "best." And from its nature
+it must be an age very heartily engaged in something; usually fighting
+whoever is near enough to be fought with, though in <i>Beowulf</i> it seems
+to be doing something more profitable to the civilization which is to
+follow it&mdash;taming the fierceness of surrounding circumstance and man's
+primitive kind. But in any case it has a good deal of leisure; and the
+best way to prevent this from dragging heavily is (after feasting) to
+glory in the things it has done; or perhaps in the things it would like
+to have done. Hence heroic poetry. But exactly what heroic poetry was
+in its origin, probably we shall never know. It would scarcely be
+history, and it would scarcely be very ornate poetry. The first thing
+required would be to translate the prowess of champions into good and
+moving narrative; and this would be metrified, because so it becomes
+both more exciting and more easily remembered. Each succeeding bard
+would improve, according to his own notions, the material he received
+from his teachers; the prowess of the great heroes would become more and
+more astonishing, more and more calculated to keep awake the feasted
+nobles who listened to the song. In an age when writing, if it exists at
+all, is a rare and secret art, the mists of antiquity descend after a
+very few generations. There is little chance of the songs of the bards
+being checked by recorded actuality; for if anyone could write at all,
+it would be the bards themselves, who would use the mystery or purposes
+of their own trade. In quite a short time, oral tradition, in keeping of
+the bards, whose business is to purvey wonders, makes the champions
+perform easily, deeds which "the men of the present time" can only gape
+at; and every bard takes over the stock of tradition, not from original
+sources, but from the mingled fantasy and memory of the bard who came
+just before him. So that when this tradition survives at all, it
+survives in a form very different from what it was in the beginning. But
+apparently we can mark out several stages in the fortunes of the
+tradition. It is first of all court poetry, or perhaps baronial poetry;
+and it may survive as that. From this stage it may pass into possession
+of the common people, or at least into the possession of bards whose
+clients are peasants and not nobles; from being court poetry it becomes
+the poetry of cottages and taverns. It may survive as this. Finally, it
+may be taken up again by the courts, and become poetry of much greater
+sophistication and nicety than it was in either of the preceding stages.
+But each stage leaves its sign on the tradition.
+</p>
+<p>
+All this gives us what is conveniently called "epic material"; the
+material out of which epic poetry might be made. But it does not give us
+epic poetry. The world knows of a vast stock of epic material scattered
+up and down the nations; sometimes its artistic value is as
+extraordinary as its archaeological interest, but not always. Instances
+are our own Border Ballads and Robin Hood Ballads; the Servian cycles of
+the Battle of Kossovo and the prowess of Marko; the modern Greek songs
+of the revolt against Turkey (the conditions of which seem to have been
+similar to those which surrounded the growth of our riding ballads); the
+fragments of Finnish legend which were pieced together into the
+<i>Kalevala</i>; the Ossianic poetry; and perhaps some of the minor sagas
+should be put in here. Then there are the glorious Welsh stories of
+Arthur, Tristram, and the rest, and the not less glorious Irish stories
+of Deirdre and Cuchulain; both of these noble masses of legend seem to
+have only just missed the final shaping which turns epic material into
+epic poetry. For epic material, it must be repeated, is not the same
+thing as epic poetry. Epic material is fragmentary, scattered, loosely
+related, sometimes contradictory, each piece of comparatively small
+size, with no intention beyond hearty narrative. It is a heap of
+excellent stones, admirably quarried out of a great rock-face of
+stubborn experience. But for this to be worked into some great
+structure of epic poetry, the Heroic Age must be capable of producing
+individuality of much profounder nature than any of its fighting
+champions. Or rather, we should simply say that the production of epic
+poetry depends on the occurrence (always an accidental occurrence) of
+creative genius. It is quite likely that what Homer had to work on was
+nothing superior to the Arthurian legends. But Homer occurred; and the
+tales of Troy and Odysseus became incomparable poetry.
+</p>
+<p>
+An epic is not made by piecing together a set of heroic lays, adjusting
+their discrepancies and making them into a continuous narrative. An epic
+is not even a re-creation of old things; it is altogether a new
+creation, a new creation in terms of old things. And what else is any
+other poetry? The epic poet has behind him a tradition of matter and a
+tradition of style; and that is what every other poet has behind him
+too; only, for the epic poet, tradition is rather narrower, rather more
+strictly compelling. This must not be lost sight of. It is what the
+poet does with the tradition he falls in which is, artistically, the
+important thing. He takes a mass of confused splendours, and he makes
+them into something which they certainly were not before; something
+which, as we can clearly see by comparing epic poetry with mere epic
+material, the latter scarce hinted at. He makes this heap of matter into
+a grand design; he forces it to obey a single presiding unity of
+artistic purpose. Obviously, something much more potent is required for
+this than a fine skill in narrative and poetic ornament. Unity is not
+merely an external affair. There is only one thing which can master the
+perplexed stuff of epic material into unity; and that is, an ability to
+see in particular human experience some significant symbolism of man's
+general destiny.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is natural that, after the epic poet has arrived, the crude epic
+material in which he worked should scarcely be heard of. It could only
+be handed on by the minstrels themselves; and their audiences would not
+be likely to listen comfortably to the old piecemeal songs after they
+had heard the familiar events fall into the magnificent ordered pomp of
+the genuine epic poet. The tradition, indeed, would start afresh with
+him; but how the novel tradition fared as it grew old with his
+successors, is difficult guesswork. We can tell, however, sometimes, in
+what stage of the epic material's development the great unifying epic
+poet occurred. Three roughly defined stages have been mentioned. Homer
+perhaps came when the epic material was still in its first stage of
+being court-poetry. Almost certainly this is when the poets of the
+Crusading lays, of the <i>Song of Roland</i>, and the <i>Poem of the Cid</i>, set
+to work. Hesiod is a clear instance of the poet who masters epic
+material after it has passed into popular possession; and the
+<i>Nibelungenlied</i> is thought to be made out of matter that has passed
+from the people back again to the courts.
+</p>
+<p>
+Epic poetry, then, as distinct from mere epic material, is the concern
+of this book. The intention is, to determine wherein epic poetry is a
+definite species of literature, what it characteristically does for
+conscious human life, and to find out whether this species and this
+function have shown, and are likely to show, any development. It must be
+admitted, that the great unifying poet who worked on the epic material
+before him, did not always produce something which must come within the
+scope of this intention. Hesiod has just been given as an instance of
+such a poet; but his work is scarcely an epic.[<a href="#note-3">3</a>] The great sagas, too,
+I must omit. They are epic enough in primary intention, but they are not
+poetry; and I am among those who believe that there is a difference
+between poetry and prose. If epic poetry is a definite species, the
+sagas do not fall within it. But this will leave me more of the
+"authentic" epic poetry than I can possibly deal with; and I shall have
+to confine myself to its greatest examples. Before, however, proceeding
+to consider epic poetry as a whole, as a constantly recurring form of
+art, continually responding to the new needs of man's developing
+consciousness, I must go, rapidly and generally, over the "literary
+epic"; and especially I must question whether it is really justifiable
+or profitable to divide epic poetry into the two contrasted departments
+of "authentic" and "literary."
+</p>
+<center>
+FOOTNOTES:
+</center>
+<p>
+<a name="note-1"><!-- Note Anchor 1 --></a>[Footnote 1: hos d' ote cheimarroi potamoi kat opesthi rheontes es
+misgagkeian xumballeton obrimon udor krounon ek melalon koilaes entosthe
+charadraes. <i>Iliad</i>, IV, 452.]
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="note-2"><!-- Note Anchor 2 --></a>[Footnote 2: Etymologically, the "good" man is the "admirable" man. In
+this sense, Homer's gods are certainly "good"; every epithet he gives
+them&mdash;Joyous-Thunderer, Far-Darter, Cloud-Gatherer and the
+rest&mdash;proclaims their unapproachable "goodness." If it had been said to
+Homer, that his gods cannot be "good" because their behaviour is
+consistently cynical, cruel, unscrupulous and scandalous, he would
+simply think he had not heard aright: Zeus is an habitual liar, of
+course, but what has that got to do with his "goodness"?&mdash;Only those who
+would have Homer a kind of Salvationist need regret this. Just because
+he could only make his gods "good" in this primitive style, he was able
+to treat their discordant family in that vein of exquisite comedy which
+is one of the most precious things in the world.]
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="note-3"><!-- Note Anchor 3 --></a>[Footnote 3: Scarcely what <i>we</i> call epic. "Epos" might include Hesiod
+as well as epic material; "epopee" is the business that Homer started.]
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<a name="RULE4_2"><!-- RULE4 2 --></a>
+<h2>
+	II.
+</h2>
+
+<center>
+LITERARY EPIC
+</center>
+<p>
+Epic poetry, then, was invented to supply the artistic demands of
+society in a certain definite and recognizable state. Or rather, it was
+the epic material which supplied that; the first epic poets gave their
+age, as genius always does, something which the age had never thought of
+asking for; which, nevertheless, when it was given, the age took good
+hold of, and found that, after all, this, too, it had wanted without
+knowing it. But as society went on towards civilization, the need for
+epic grew less and less; and its preservation, if not accidental, was an
+act of conscious aesthetic admiration rather than of unconscious
+necessity. It was preserved somehow, however; and after other kinds of
+literature had arisen as inevitably and naturally as epic, and had
+become, in their turn, things of less instant necessity than they were,
+it was found that, in the manner and purpose of epic poetry, something
+was given which was not given elsewhere; something of extraordinary
+value. Epic poetry would therefore be undertaken again; but now, of
+course, deliberately. With several different kinds of poetry to choose
+from, a man would decide that he would like best to be an epic poet, and
+he would set out, in conscious determination, on an epic poem. The
+result, good or bad, of such a determination is called "literary" epic.
+The poems of Apollonius Rhodius, Virgil, Lucan, Camoens, Tasso and
+Milton are "literary" epics. But such poetry as the <i>Odyssey</i>, the
+<i>Iliad,</i> <i>Beowulf</i>, the <i>Song of Roland</i>, and the <i>Nibelungenlied</i>,
+poetry which seems an immediate response to some general and instant
+need in its surrounding community&mdash;such poetry is "authentic" epic.
+</p>
+<p>
+A great deal has been made of this distinction; it has almost been taken
+to divide epic poetry into two species. And, as the names commonly given
+to the two supposed species suggest, there is some notion that
+"literary" epic must be in a way inferior to "authentic" epic. The
+superstition of antiquity has something to do with this; but the
+presence of Homer among the "authentic" epics has probably still more to
+do with it. For Homer is the poet who is usually chosen to stand for
+"authentic" epic; and, by a facile association of ideas, the conspicuous
+characteristics of Homer seem to be the marks of "authentic" epic as a
+species. It is, of course, quite true, that, for sustained grandeur and
+splendour, no poet can be put beside Homer except Dante and Milton; but
+it is also quite clear that in Homer, as in Dante, and Milton, such
+conspicuous characteristics are simply the marks of peculiar poetic
+genius. If we leave Homer out, and consider poetic greatness only (the
+only important thing to consider), there is no "authentic" epic which
+can stand against <i>Paradise Lost</i> or the <i>Aeneid</i>. Then there is the
+curious modern feeling&mdash;which is sometimes but dressed up by erroneous
+aesthetic theory (the worship of a quite national "lyricism," for
+instance) but which is really nothing but a sign of covert
+barbarism&mdash;that lengthy poetic composition is somehow undesirable; and
+Homer is thought to have had a better excuse for composing a long poem
+than Milton.
+</p>
+<p>
+But doubtless the real reason for the hard division of epic poetry into
+two classes, and for the presumed inferiority of "literary" to
+"authentic," lies in the application of that curiosity among false
+ideas, the belief in a "folk-spirit." This notion that such a thing as a
+"folk-spirit" can create art, and that the art which it does create must
+be somehow better than other art, is, I suppose, the offspring of
+democratic ideas in politics. The chief objection to it is that there
+never has been and never can be anything in actuality corresponding to
+the "folk-spirit" which this notion supposes. Poetry is the work of
+poets, not of peoples or communities; artistic creation can never be
+anything but the production of an individual mind. We may, if we like,
+think that poetry would be more "natural" if it were composed by the
+folk as the folk, and not by persons peculiarly endowed; and to think so
+is doubtless agreeable to the notion that the folk is more important
+than the individual. But there is nothing gained by thinking in this
+way, except a very illusory kind of pleasure; since it is impossible
+that the folk should ever be a poet. This indisputable axiom has been
+ignored more in theories about ballads&mdash;about epic material&mdash;than in
+theories about the epics themselves. But the belief in a real
+folk-origin for ballads, untenable though it be in a little examination,
+has had a decided effect on the common opinion of the authentic epics.
+In the first place, a poem constructed out of ballads composed, somehow
+or other, by the folk, ought to be more "natural" than a work of
+deliberate art&mdash;a "literary" epic; that is to say, these Rousseau-ish
+notions will admire it for being further from civilization and nearer to
+the noble savage; civilization being held, by some mysterious argument,
+to be deficient in "naturalness." In the second place, this belief has
+made it credible that the plain corruption of authentic epic by oral
+transmission, or very limited transmission through script, might be the
+sign of multiple authorship; for if you believe that a whole folk can
+compose a ballad, you may easily believe that a dozen poets can compose
+an epic.
+</p>
+<p>
+But all this rests on simple ignoring of the nature of poetic
+composition. The folk-origin of ballads and the multiple authorship of
+epics are heresies worse than the futilities of the Baconians; at any
+rate, they are based on the same resolute omission, and build on it a
+wilder fantasy. They omit to consider what poetry is. Those who think
+Bacon wrote <i>Hamlet</i>, and those who think several poets wrote the
+<i>Iliad</i>, can make out a deal of ingenious evidence for their doctrines.
+But it is all useless, because the first assumption in each case is
+unthinkable. It is psychologically impossible that the mind of Bacon
+should have produced <i>Hamlet</i>; but the impossibility is even more
+clamant when it comes to supposing that several poets, not in
+collaboration, but in haphazard succession, could produce a poem of vast
+sweeping unity and superbly consistent splendour of style. So far as
+mere authorship goes, then, we cannot make any real difference between
+"authentic" and "literary" epic. We cannot say that, while this is
+written by an individual genius, that is the work of a community.
+Individual genius, of whatever quality, is responsible for both. The
+folk, however, cannot be ruled out. Genius does the work; but the folk
+is the condition in which genius does it. And here we may find a genuine
+difference between "literary" and "authentic"; not so much in the nature
+of the condition as in its closeness and insistence.
+</p>
+<p>
+The kind of folk-spirit behind the poet is, indeed, different in the
+<i>Iliad</i> and <i>Beowulf</i> and the <i>Song of Roland</i> from what it is in Milton
+and Tasso and Virgil. But there is also as much difference here between
+the members of each class as between the two classes themselves. You
+cannot read much of <i>Beowulf</i> with Homer in your mind, without becoming
+conscious that the difference in individual genius is by no means the
+whole difference. Both poets maintain a similar ideal in life; but they
+maintain it within conditions altogether unlike. The folk-spirit behind
+<i>Beowulf</i> is cloudy and tumultuous, finding grandeur in storm and gloom
+and mere mass&mdash;in the misty <i>lack</i> of shape. Behind Homer it is, on the
+contrary, radiant and, however vehement, always delighting in measure,
+finding grandeur in brightness and clarity and shining outline. So,
+again, we may very easily see how Tasso's poetry implies the Italy of
+his time, and Milton's the England of his time. But where Homer and
+Beowulf together differ from Tasso and Milton is in the way the
+surrounding folk-spirit contains the poet's mind. It would be a very
+idle piece of work, to choose between the potency of Homer's genius and
+of Milton's; but it is clear that the immediate circumstance of the
+poet's life presses much more insistently on the <i>Iliad</i> and the
+<i>Odyssey</i> than on <i>Paradise Lost</i>. It is the difference between the
+contracted, precise, but vigorous tradition of an heroic age, and the
+diffused, eclectic, complicated culture of a civilization. And if it may
+be said that the insistence of racial circumstance in Homer gives him a
+greater intensity of cordial, human inspiration, it must also be said
+that the larger, less exacting conditions of Milton's mental life allow
+his art to go into greater scope and more subtle complexity of
+significance. Great epic poetry will always frankly accept the social
+conditions within which it is composed; but the conditions contract and
+intensify the conduct of the poem, or allow it to dilate and absorb
+larger matter, according as the narrow primitive torrents of man's
+spirit broaden into the greater but slower volume of civilized life. The
+change is neither desirable nor undesirable; it is merely inevitable. It
+means that epic poetry has kept up with the development of human life.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is because of all this that we have heard a good deal about the
+"authentic" epic getting "closer to its subject" than "literary" epic.
+It seems, on the face of it, very improbable that there should be any
+real difference here. No great poetry, of whatever kind, is conceivable
+unless the subject has become integrated with the poet's mind and mood.
+Milton is as close to his subject, Virgil to his, as Homer to Achilles
+or the Saxon poet to Beowulf. What is really meant can be nothing but
+the greater insistence of racial tradition in the "authentic" epics. The
+subject of the <i>Iliad</i> is the fighting of heroes, with all its
+implications and consequences; the subject of the <i>Odyssey</i> is adventure
+and its opposite, the longing for safety and home; in <i>Beowulf</i> it is
+kingship&mdash;the ability to show man how to conquer the monstrous forces of
+his world; and so on. Such were the subjects which an imperious racial
+tradition pressed on the early epic poet, who delighted to be so
+governed. These were the matters which his people could understand, of
+which they could easily perceive the significance. For him, then, there
+could be no other matters than these, or the like of these. But it is
+not in such matters that a poet living in a time of less primitive and
+more expanded consciousness would find the highest importance. For a
+Roman, the chief matter for an epic poem would be Roman civilization;
+for a Puritan, it would be the relations of God and man. When,
+therefore, we consider how close to his subject an epic poet is, we must
+be careful to be quite clear what his subject is. And if he has gone
+beyond the immediate experiences of primitive society, we need not
+expect him to be as close as the early poets were to the fury of battle
+and the agony of wounds and the desolation of widows; or to the
+sensation of exploring beyond the familiar regions; or to the
+marsh-fiends and fire-drakes into which primitive imagination naturally
+translated the terrible unknown powers of the world. We need not, in a
+word, expect the "literary" epic to compete with the "authentic" epic;
+for the fact is, that the purpose of epic poetry, and therefore the
+nature of its subject, must continually develop. It is quite true that
+the later epics take over, to a very great extent, the methods and
+manners of the earlier poems; just as architecture hands on the style of
+wooden structure to an age that builds in stone, and again imposes the
+manners of stone construction on an age that builds in concrete and
+steel. But, in the case of epic at any rate, this is not merely the
+inertia of artistic convention. With the development of epic intention,
+and the subsequent choosing of themes larger and subtler than what
+common experience is wont to deal in, a certain duplicity becomes
+inevitable. The real intention of the <i>Aeneid</i>, and the real intention
+of <i>Paradise Lost</i>, are not easily brought into vivid apprehension. The
+natural thing to do, then, would be to use the familiar substance of
+early epic, but to use it as a convenient and pleasant solvent for the
+novel intention. It is what has been done in all the great "literary"
+epics. But hasty criticism, finding that where they resembled Homer
+they seemed not so close to their matter, has taken this as a pervading
+and unfortunate characteristic. It has not perceived that what in Homer
+was the main business of the epic, has become in later epic a device.
+Having so altered, it has naturally lost in significance; but in the
+greatest instances of later epic, that for which the device was used has
+been as profoundly absorbed into the poet's being as Homer's matter was
+into his being. It may be noted, too, that a corresponding change has
+also taken place in the opposite direction. As Homer's chief substance
+becomes a device in later epic, so a device of Homer's becomes in later
+epic the chief substance. Homer's supernatural machinery may be reckoned
+as a device&mdash;a device to heighten the general style and action of his
+poems; the <i>significance</i> of Homer must be found among his heroes, not
+among his gods. But with Milton, it has become necessary to entrust to
+the supernatural action the whole aim and purport of the poem.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the whole, then, there is no reason why "literary" epic should not be
+as close to its subject as "authentic" epic; there is every reason why
+both kinds should be equally close. But in testing whether they actually
+are equally close, we have to remember that in the later epic it has
+become necessary to use the ostensible subject as a vehicle for the real
+subject. And who, with any active sympathy for poetry, can say that
+Milton felt his theme with less intensity than Homer? Milton is not so
+close to his fighting angels as Homer is to his fighting men; but the
+war in heaven is an incident in Milton's figurative expression of
+something that has become altogether himself&mdash;the mystery of individual
+existence in universal existence, and the accompanying mystery of sin,
+of individual will inexplicably allowed to tamper with the divinely
+universal will. Milton, of course, in closeness to his subject and in
+everything else, stands as supreme above the other poets of literary
+epic as Homer does above the poets of authentic epic. But what is true
+of Milton is true, in less degree, of the others. If there is any good
+in them, it is primarily because they have got very close to their
+subjects: that is required not only for epic, but for all poetry.
+Coleridge, in a famous estimate put twenty years for the shortest period
+in which an epic could be composed; and of this, ten years were to be
+for preparation. He meant that not less than ten years would do for the
+poet to fill all his being with the theme; and nothing else will serve,
+It is well known how Milton brooded over his subject, how Virgil
+lingered over his, how Camoen. carried the <i>Luisads</i> round the world
+with him, with what furious intensity Tasso gave himself to writing
+<i>Jerusalem Delivered</i>. We may suppose, perhaps, that the poets of
+"authentic" epic had a somewhat easier task. There was no need for them
+to be "long choosing and beginning late." The pressure of racial
+tradition would see that they chose the right sort of subject; would
+see, too, that they lived right in the heart of their subject. For the
+poet of "literary" epic, however, it is his own consciousness that must
+select the kind of theme which will fulfil the epic intention for his
+own day; it is his own determination and studious endurance that will
+draw the theme into the secrets of his being. If he is not capable of
+getting close to his subject, we should not for that reason call his
+work "literary" epic. It would put him in the class of Milton, the most
+literary of all poets. We must simply call his stuff bad epic. There is
+plenty of it. Southey is the great instance. Southey would decide to
+write an epic about Spain, or India, or Arabia, or America. Next he
+would read up, in several languages, about his proposed subject; that
+would take him perhaps a year. Then he would versify as much strange
+information as he could remember; that might take a few months. The
+result is deadly; and because he was never anywhere near his subject. It
+is for the same reason that the unspeakable labours of Blackmore, Glover
+and Wilkie, and Voltaire's ridiculous <i>Henriade</i>, have gone to pile up
+the rubbish-heaps of literature.
+</p>
+<p>
+So far, supposed differences between "authentic" and "literary" epic
+have resolved themselves into little more than signs of development in
+epic intention; the change has not been found to produce enough artistic
+difference between early and later epic to warrant anything like a
+division into two distinct species. The epic, whether "literary" or
+"authentic," is a single form of art; but it is a form capable of
+adapting itself to the altering requirements of prevalent consciousness.
+In addition, however, to differences in general conception, there are
+certain mechanical differences which should be just noticed. The first
+epics were intended for recitation; the literary epic is meant to be
+read. It is more difficult to keep the attention of hearers than of
+readers. This in itself would be enough to rule out themes remote from
+common experience, supposing any such were to suggest themselves to the
+primitive epic poet. Perhaps, indeed, we should not be far wrong if we
+saw a chief reason for the pressure of surrounding tradition on the
+early epic in this very fact, that it is poetry meant for recitation.
+Traditional matter must be glorified, since it would be easier to listen
+to the re-creation of familiar stories than to quite new and unexpected
+things; the listeners, we must remember, needed poetry chiefly as the
+re-creation of tired hours. Traditional manner would be equally
+difficult to avoid; for it is a tradition that plainly embodies the
+requirements, fixed by experience, of <i>recited</i> poetry. Those features
+of it which make for tedium when it is read&mdash;repetition, stock epithets,
+set phrases for given situations&mdash;are the very things best suited, with
+their recurring well-known syllables, to fix the attention of listeners
+more firmly, or to stir it when it drowses; at the least they provide a
+sort of recognizable scaffolding for the events, and it is remarkable
+how easily the progress of events may be missed when poetry is
+declaimed. Indeed, if the primitive epic poet could avoid some of the
+anxieties peculiar to the composition of literary epic, he had others to
+make up for it. He had to study closely the delicate science of holding
+auricular attention when once he had got it; and probably he would have
+some difficulty in getting it at all. The really great poet challenges
+it, like Homer, with some tremendous, irresistible opening; and in this
+respect the magnificent prelude to <i>Beowulf</i> may almost be put beside
+Homer. But lesser poets have another way. That prolixity at the
+beginning of many primitive epics, their wordy deliberation in getting
+under way, is probably intentional. The <i>Song of Roland</i>, for instance,
+begins with a long series of exceedingly dull stanzas; to a reader, the
+preliminaries of the story seem insufferably drawn out. But by the time
+the reciter had got through this unimportant dreariness, no doubt his
+audience had settled down to listen. The <i>Chanson d'Antioche</i> contains
+perhaps the most illuminating admission of this difficulty. In the first
+"Chant," the first section opens:[<a href="#note-4">4</a>]
+</p>
+
+<PRE>
+Seigneurs, faites silence; et que tout bruit cesse,
+Si vous voulez entendre une glorieuse chanson.
+Aucun jongleur ne vous en dira une meilleure.
+</PRE>
+
+<p>
+Then some vaguely prelusive lines. But the audience is clearly not quite
+ready yet, for the second section begins:
+</p>
+
+<PRE>
+Barons, &eacute;coutez-moi, et cessez vos querelles!
+Je vous dirai une tr&egrave;s-belle chanson.
+</PRE>
+
+<p>
+And after some further prelude, the section ends:
+</p>
+
+<PRE>
+Ici commence la chanson o&ugrave; il y a tant &agrave; apprendre.
+</PRE>
+
+<p>
+The "Chanson" does, indeed, make some show of beginning in the third
+</p>
+
+<PRE>
+Maintenant, seigneurs, &eacute;coutez ce que dit l'&Eacute;criture.
+</PRE>
+
+<p>
+And once more in the fifth section:
+</p>
+
+<PRE>
+Barons, &eacute;coutez un excellent couplet.
+</PRE>
+
+<p>
+In the sixth, the jongleur is getting desperate:
+</p>
+
+<PRE>
+Seigneurs, pour l'amour de Dieu, faites silence, &eacute;coutez-moi,
+Pour qu'en partant de ce monde vous entriez dans un meilleur;
+</PRE>
+
+<p>
+but after this exclamation he has his way, though the story proper is
+still a good way off. Perhaps not all of these hortatory stanzas were
+commonly used; any or all of them could certainly be omitted without
+damaging the poem. But they were there to be used, according to the
+judgment of the jongleur and the temper of his audience, and their
+presence in the poem is very suggestive of the special difficulties in
+the art of rhapsodic poetry.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the gravest difficulty, and perhaps the most important, in poetry
+meant solely for recitation, is the difficulty of achieving verbal
+beauty, or rather of making verbal beauty tell. Vigorous but controlled
+imagination, formative power, insight into the significance of
+things&mdash;these are qualities which a poet must eminently possess; but
+these are qualities which may also be eminently possessed by men who
+cannot claim the title of poet. The real differentia of the poet is his
+command over the secret magic of words. Others may have as delighted a
+sense of this magic, but it is only the poet who can master it and do
+what he likes with it. And next to the invention of speaking itself, the
+most important invention for the poet has been the invention of writing
+and reading; for this has added immensely to the scope of his mastery
+over words. No poet will ever take the written word as a substitute for
+the spoken word; he knows that it is on the spoken word, and the spoken
+word only, that his art is founded. But he trusts his reader to do as he
+himself does&mdash;to receive written words always as the code of spoken
+words. To do so has wonderfully enlarged his technical opportunities;
+for apprehension is quicker and finer through the eye than through the
+ear. After the invention of reading, even poetry designed primarily for
+declamation (like drama or lyric) has depths and subtleties of art which
+were not possible for the primitive poet. Accordingly we find that, on
+the whole, in comparison with "literary" epic, the texture of
+"authentic" epic is flat and dull. The story may be superb, and its
+management may be superb; but the words in which the story lives do not
+come near the grandeur of Milton, or the exquisiteness of Virgil, or the
+deliciousness of Tasso. Indeed, if we are to say what is the real
+difference between <i>Beowulf</i> and <i>Paradise Lost</i>, we must simply say
+that <i>Beowulf</i> is not such good poetry. There is, of course, one
+tremendous exception; Homer is the one poet of authentic epic who had
+sufficient genius to make unfailingly, nobly beautiful poetry within the
+strict and hard conditions of purely auricular art. Compare Homer's
+ambrosial glory with the descent tap-water of Hesiod; compare his
+continuous burnished gleam of wrought metal with the sparse grains that
+lie in the sandy diction of all the "authentic" epics of the other
+nations. And, by all ancient accounts, the other early Greek epics would
+not fare much better in the comparison. Homer's singularity in this
+respect is overwhelming; but it is frequently forgotten, and especially
+by those who think to help in the Homeric question by comparing him with
+other "authentic" epics. Supposing (we can only just suppose it) a case
+were made out for the growth rather than the individual authorship of
+some "authentic" epic other than Homer; it could never have any bearing
+on the question of Homeric authorship, because no early epic is
+comparable with the <i>poetry</i> of Homer. Nothing, indeed, is comparable
+with the poetry of Homer, except poetry for whose individual authorship
+history unmistakably vouches.
+</p>
+<p>
+So we cannot say that Homer was not as deliberate a craftsman in words
+as Milton himself. The scope of his craft was more restricted, as his
+repetitions and stock epithets show; he was restricted by the fact that
+he composed for recitation, and the auricular appreciation of diction is
+limited, the nature of poetry obeying, in the main, the nature of those
+for whom it is composed. But this is just a case in which genius
+transcends technical scope. The effects Homer produced with his methods
+were as great as any effects produced by later and more elaborate
+methods, after poetry began to be read as well as heard. But neither
+must we say that the other poets of "authentic" epic were not deliberate
+craftsmen in words. Poets will always get as much beauty out of words as
+they can. The fact that so often in the early epics a magnificent
+subject is told, on the whole, in a lumpish and tedious diction, is not
+to be explained by any contempt for careful art, as though it were a
+thing unworthy of such heroic singers; it is simply to be explained by
+lack of such genius as is capable of transcending the severe limitations
+of auricular poetry. And we may well believe that only the rarest and
+most potent kind of genius could transcend such limitations.
+</p>
+<p>
+In summary, then, we find certain conceptual differences and certain
+mechanical differences between "authentic" and "literary" epic. But
+these are not such as to enable us to say that there is, artistically,
+any real difference between the two kinds. Rather, the differences
+exhibit the changes we might expect in an art that has kept up with
+consciousness developing, and civilization becoming more intricate.
+"Literary" epic is as close to its subject as "authentic"; but, as a
+general rule, "authentic" epic, in response to its surrounding needs,
+has a simple and concrete subject, and the closeness of the poet to this
+is therefore more obvious than in "literary" epic, which (again in
+response to surrounding needs) has been driven to take for subject some
+great abstract idea and display this in a concrete but only ostensible
+subject. Then in craftsmanship, the two kinds of epic are equally
+deliberate, equally concerned with careful art; but "literary" epic has
+been able to take such advantage of the habit of reading that, with the
+single exception of Homer, it has achieved a diction much more
+answerable to the greatness of epic matter than the "authentic" poems.
+We may, then, in a general survey, regard epic poetry as being in all
+ages essentially the same kind of art, fulfilling always a similar,
+though constantly developing, intention. Whatever sort of society he
+lives in, whether he be surrounded by illiterate heroism or placid
+culture, the epic poet has a definite function to perform. We see him
+accepting, and with his genius transfiguring, the general circumstance
+of his time; we see him symbolizing, in some appropriate form, whatever
+sense of the significance of life he feels acting as the accepted
+unconscious metaphysic of his age. To do this, he takes some great story
+which has been absorbed into the prevailing consciousness of his people.
+As a rule, though not quite invariably, the story will be of things
+which are, or seem, so far back in the past, that anything may credibly
+happen in it; so imagination has its freedom, and so significance is
+displayed. But quite invariably, the materials of the story will have an
+unmistakable air of actuality; that is, they come profoundly out of
+human experience, whether they declare legendary heroism, as in Homer
+and Virgil, or myth, as in <i>Beowulf</i> and <i>Paradise Lost</i>, or actual
+history, as in Lucan and Camoens and Tasso. And he sets out this story
+and its significance in poetry as lofty and as elaborate as he can
+compass. That, roughly, is what we see the epic poets doing, whether
+they be "literary" or "authentic"; and if this can be agreed on, we
+should now have come tolerably close to a definition of epic poetry.
+</p>
+<center>
+FOOTNOTES:
+</center>
+<p>
+<a name="note-4"><!-- Note Anchor 4 --></a>[Footnote 4: From the version of the Marquise de Sainte-Aulaire.]
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<a name="RULE4_3"><!-- RULE4 3 --></a>
+<h2>
+	III.
+</h2>
+
+<center>
+THE NATURE OF EPIC
+</center>
+<p>
+Rigid definitions in literature are, however, dangerous. At bottom, it
+is what we feel, not what we think, that makes us put certain poems
+together and apart from others; and feelings cannot be defined, but only
+related. If we define a poem, we say what we think about it; and that
+may not sufficiently imply the essential thing the poem does for us.
+Hence the definition is liable either to be too strict, or to admit work
+which does not properly satisfy the criterion of feeling. It seems
+probable that, in the last resort, classification in literature rests on
+that least tangible, least definable matter, style; for style is the
+sign of the poem's spirit, and it is the spirit that we feel. If we can
+get some notion of how those poems, which we call epic, agree with one
+another in style, it is likely we shall be as close as may be to a
+definition of epic. I use the word "style," of course, in its largest
+sense&mdash;manner of conception as well as manner of composition.
+</p>
+<p>
+An easy way to define epic, though not a very profitable way, would be
+to say simply, that an epic is a poem which produces feelings similar to
+those produced by <i>Paradise Lost</i> or the <i>Iliad</i>, <i>Beowulf</i> or the <i>Song
+of Roland</i>. Indeed, you might include all the epics of Europe in this
+definition without losing your breath; for the epic poet is the rarest
+kind of artist. And while it is not a simple matter to say off-hand what
+it is that is common to all these poems, there seems to be general
+acknowledgment that they are clearly separable from other kinds of
+poetry; and this although the word epic has been rather badly abused.
+For instance, <i>The Faery Queene</i> and <i>La Divina Commedia</i> have been
+called epic poems; but I do not think that anyone could fail to admit,
+on a little pressure, that the experience of reading <i>The Faery Queene</i>
+or <i>La Divina Commedia</i> is not in the least like the experience of
+reading <i>Paradise Lost</i> or the <i>Iliad</i>. But as a poem may have lyrical
+qualities without being a lyric, so a poem may have epical qualities
+without being an epic. In all the poems which the world has agreed to
+call epics, there is a story told, and well told. But Dante's poem
+attempts no story at all, and Spenser's, though it attempts several,
+does not tell them well&mdash;it scarcely attempts to make the reader believe
+in them, being much more concerned with the decoration and the
+implication of its fables than with the fables themselves. What epic
+quality, detached from epic proper, do these poems possess, then, apart
+from the mere fact that they take up a great many pages? It is simply a
+question of their style&mdash;the style of their conception and the style of
+their writing; the whole style of their imagination, in fact. They take
+us into a region in which nothing happens that is not deeply
+significant; a dominant, noticeably symbolic, purpose presides over each
+poem, moulds it greatly and informs it throughout.
+</p>
+<p>
+This takes us some little way towards deciding the nature of epic. It
+must be a story, and the story must be told well and greatly; and,
+whether in the story itself or in the telling of it, significance must
+be implied. Does that mean that the epic must be allegorical? Many have
+thought so; even Homer has been accused of constructing allegories. But
+this is only a crude way of emphasizing the significance of epic; and
+there is a vast deal of difference between a significant story and an
+allegorical story. Reality of substance is a thing on which epic poetry
+must always be able to rely. Not only because Spenser does not tell his
+stories very well, but even more because their substance (not, of
+course, their meaning) is deliciously and deliberately unreal, <i>The
+Faery Queene</i> is outside the strict sense of the word epic. Allegory
+requires material ingeniously manipulated and fantastic; what is more
+important, it requires material invented by the poet himself. That is a
+long way from the solid reality of material which epic requires. Not
+manipulation, but imaginative transfiguration of material; not
+invention, but selection of existing material appropriate to his genius,
+and complete absorption of it into his being; that is how the epic poet
+works. Allegory is a beautiful way of inculcating and asserting some
+special significance in life; but epic has a severer task, and a more
+impressive one. It has not to say, Life in the world <i>ought</i> to mean
+this or that; it has to show life unmistakably <i>being</i> significant. It
+does not gloss or interpret the fact of life, but re-creates it and
+charges the fact itself with the poet's own sense of ultimate values.
+This will be less precise than the definite assertions of allegory; but
+for that reason it will be more deeply felt. The values will be
+emotional and spiritual rather than intellectual. And they will be the
+poet's own only because he has made them part of his being; in him
+(though he probably does not know it) they will be representative of the
+best and most characteristic life of his time. That does not mean that
+the epic poet's image of life's significance is of merely contemporary
+or transient importance. No stage through which the general
+consciousness of men has gone can ever be outgrown by men; whatever
+happens afterwards does not displace it, but includes it. We could not
+do without <i>Paradise Lost</i> nowadays; but neither can we do without the
+<i>Iliad</i>. It would not, perhaps, be far from the truth, if it were even
+said that the significance of <i>Paradise Lost</i> cannot be properly
+understood unless the significance of the <i>Iliad</i> be understood.
+</p>
+<p>
+The prime material of the epic poet, then, must be real and not
+invented. But when the story of the poem is safely concerned with some
+reality, he can, of course, graft on this as much appropriate invention
+as he pleases; it will be one of his ways of elaborating his main,
+unifying purpose&mdash;and to call it "unifying" is to assume that, however
+brilliant his surrounding invention may be, the purpose will always be
+firmly implicit in the central subject. Some of the early epics manage
+to do without any conspicuous added invention designed to extend what
+the main subject intends; but such nobly simple, forthright narrative as
+<i>Beowulf</i> and the <i>Song of Roland</i> would not do for a purpose slightly
+more subtle than what the makers of these ringing poems had in mind. The
+reality of the central subject is, of course, to be understood broadly.
+It means that the story must be founded deep in the general experience
+of men. A decisive campaign is not, for the epic poet, any more real
+than a legend full of human truth. All that the name of Caesar suggests
+is extremely important for mankind; so is all that the name of Satan
+suggests: Satan, in this sense, is as real as Caesar. And, as far as
+reality is concerned, there is nothing to choose between the Christians
+taking Jerusalem and the Greeks taking Troy; nor between Odysseus
+sailing into fairyland and Vasco da Gama sailing round the world. It is
+certainly possible that a poet might devise a story of such a kind that
+we could easily take it as something which might have been a real human
+experience. But that is not enough for the epic poet. He needs something
+which everyone knows about, something which indisputably, and
+admittedly, <i>has been</i> a human experience; and even Grendel, the fiend
+of the marshes, was, we can clearly see, for the poet of <i>Beowulf</i> a
+figure profoundly and generally accepted as not only true but real;
+what, indeed, can be more real for poetry than a devouring fiend which
+lives in pestilent fens? And the reason why epic poetry so imperiously
+demands reality of subject is clear; it is because such poetry has
+symbolically to re-create the actual fact and the actual particulars of
+human existence in terms of a general significance&mdash;the reader must feel
+that life itself has submitted to plastic imagination. No fiction will
+ever have the air, so necessary for this epic symbolism, not merely of
+representing, but of unmistakably <i>being</i>, human experience. This might
+suggest that history would be the thing for an epic poet; and so it
+would be, if history were superior to legend in poetic reality. But,
+simply as substance, there is nothing to choose between them; while
+history has the obvious disadvantage of being commonly too strict in the
+manner of its events to allow of creative freedom. Its details will
+probably be so well known, that any modification of them will draw more
+attention to discrepancy with the records than to achievement thereby of
+poetic purpose. And yet modification, or at least suppression and
+exaggeration, of the details of history will certainly be necessary. Not
+to declare what happened, and the results of what happened, is the
+object of an epic; but to accept all this as the mere material in which
+a single artistic purpose, a unique, vital symbolism may be shaped. And
+if legend, after passing for innumerable years through popular
+imagination, still requires to be shaped at the hands of the epic poet,
+how much more must the crude events of history require this! For it is
+not in events as they happen, however notably, that man may see symbols
+of vital destiny, but in events as they are transformed by plastic
+imagination.
+</p>
+<p>
+Yet it has been possible to use history as the material of great epic
+poetry; Camoens and Tasso did this&mdash;the chief subject of the <i>Lusiads</i>
+is even contemporary history. But evidently success in these cases was
+due to the exceptional and fortunate fact that the fixed notorieties of
+history were combined with a strange and mysterious geography. The
+remoteness and, one might say, the romantic possibilities of the places
+into which Camoens and Tasso were led by their themes, enable
+imagination to deal pretty freely with history. But in a little more
+than ten years after Camoens glorified Portugal in an historical epic,
+Don Alonso de Ercilla tried to do the same for Spain. He puts his action
+far enough from home: the Spaniards are conquering Chili. But the world
+has grown smaller and more familiar in the interval: the astonishing
+things that could easily happen in the seas of Madagascar cannot now
+conveniently happen in Chili. The <i>Araucana</i> is versified history, not
+epic. That is to say, the action has no deeper significance than any
+other actual warfare; it has not been, and could not have been, shaped
+to any symbolic purpose. Long before Tasso and Camoens and Ercilla, two
+Scotchmen had attempted to put patriotism into epic form; Barbour had
+written his <i>Bruce</i> and Blind Harry his <i>Wallace</i>. But what with the
+nearness of their events, and what with the rusticity of their authors,
+these tolerable, ambling poems are quite unable to get the better of the
+hardness of history. Probably the boldest attempt to make epic of
+well-known, documented history is Lucan's <i>Pharsalia</i>. It is a brilliant
+performance, and a deliberate effort to carry on the development of
+epic. At the very least it has enriched the thought of humanity with
+some imperishable lines. But it is true, what the great critic said of
+it: the <i>Pharsalia</i> partakes more of the nature of oratory than of
+poetry. It means that Lucan, in choosing history, chose something which
+he had to declaim about, something which, at best, he could
+imaginatively realize; but not something which he could imaginatively
+re-create. It is quite different with poems like the <i>Song of Roland</i>.
+They are composed in, or are drawn immediately out of, an heroic age; an
+age, that is to say, when the idea of history has not arisen, when
+anything that happens turns inevitably, and in a surprisingly short
+time, into legend. Thus, an unimportant, probably unpunished, attack by
+Basque mountaineers on the Emperor's rear-guard has become, in the <i>Song
+of Roland</i>, a great infamy of Saracenic treachery, which must be greatly
+avenged.
+</p>
+<p>
+Such, in a broad description, is the nature of epic poetry. To define it
+with any narrower nicety would probably be rash. We have not been
+discovering what an epic poem ought to be, but roughly examining what
+similarity of quality there is in all those poems which we feel,
+strictly attending to the emotional experience of reading them, can be
+classed together and, for convenience, termed epic. But it is not much
+good having a name for this species of poetry if it is given as well to
+poems of quite a different nature. It is not much good agreeing to call
+by the name of epic such poems as the <i>Iliad</i> and the <i>Odyssey</i>,
+<i>Beowulf</i> and the <i>Song of Roland</i>, <i>Paradise Lost</i> and <i>Gerusalemme
+Liberata</i>, if epic is also to be the title for <i>The Faery Queene</i> and
+<i>La Divina Commedia</i>, <i>The Idylls of the King</i> and <i>The Ring and the
+Book</i>. But I believe most of the importance in the meaning of the word
+epic, when it is reasonably used, will be found in what is written
+above. Apart from the specific form of epic, it shares much of its
+ultimate intention with the greatest kind of drama (though not with all
+drama). And just as drama, whatever grandeur of purpose it may attempt,
+must be a good play, so epic must be a good story. It will tell its tale
+both largely and intensely, and the diction will be carried on the
+volume of a powerful, flowing metre. To distinguish, however, between
+merely narrative poetry, and poetry which goes beyond being mere
+narrative into the being of epic, must often be left to feeling which
+can scarcely be precisely analysed. A curious instance of the
+difficulty in exactly defining epic (but not in exactly deciding what is
+epic) may be found in the work of William Morris. Morris left two long
+narrative poems, <i>The Life and Death of Jason</i>, and <i>The Story of Sigurd
+the Volsung</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+I do not think anyone need hesitate to put <i>Sigurd</i> among the epics; but
+I do not think anyone who will scrupulously compare the experience of
+reading <i>Jason</i> with the experience of reading <i>Sigurd</i>, can help
+agreeing that <i>Jason</i> should be kept out of the epics. There is nothing
+to choose between the subjects of the two poems. For an Englishman,
+Greek mythology means as much as the mythology of the North. And I
+should say that the bright, exact diction and the modest metre of
+<i>Jason</i> are more interesting and attractive than the diction, often
+monotonous and vague, and the metre, often clumsily vehement, of
+<i>Sigurd</i>. Yet for all that it is the style of <i>Sigurd</i> that puts it with
+the epics and apart from <i>Jason</i>; for style goes beyond metre and
+diction, beyond execution, into conception. The whole imagination of
+<i>Sigurd</i> is incomparably larger than that of <i>Jason</i>. In <i>Sigurd</i>, you
+feel that the fashioning grasp of imagination has not only seized on the
+show of things, and not only on the physical or moral unity of things,
+but has somehow brought into the midst of all this, and has kneaded into
+the texture of it all, something of the ultimate and metaphysical
+significance of life. You scarcely feel that in <i>Jason</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+Yes, epic poetry must be an affair of evident largeness. It was well
+said, that "the praise of an epic poem is to feign a person exceeding
+Nature." "Feign" here means to imagine; and imagine does not mean to
+invent. But, like most of the numerous epigrams that have been made
+about epic poetry, the remark does not describe the nature of epic, but
+rather one of the conspicuous signs that that nature is fulfilling
+itself. A poem which is, in some sort, a summation for its time of the
+values of life, will inevitably concern itself with at least one figure,
+and probably with several, in whom the whole virtue, and perhaps also
+the whole failure, of living seems superhumanly concentrated. A story
+weighted with the epic purpose could not proceed at all, unless it were
+expressed in persons big enough to support it. The subject, then, as the
+epic poet uses it, will obviously be an important one. Whether, apart
+from the way the poet uses it, the subject ought to be an important one,
+would not start a very profitable discussion. Homer has been praised for
+making, in the <i>Iliad</i>, a first-rate poem out of a second-rate subject.
+It is a neat saying; but it seems unlikely that anything really
+second-rate should turn into first-rate epic. I imagine Homer would have
+been considerably surprised, if anyone had told him that the vast train
+of tragic events caused by the gross and insupportable insult put by
+Agamemnon, the mean mind in authority, on Achilles, the typical
+hero&mdash;that this noble and profoundly human theme was a second-rate
+subject. At any rate, the subject must be of capital importance in its
+treatment. It must symbolize&mdash;not as a particular and separable
+assertion, but at large and generally&mdash;some great aspect of vital
+destiny, without losing the air of recording some accepted reality of
+human experience, and without failing to be a good story; and the
+pressure of high purpose will inform diction and metre, as far, at
+least, as the poet's verbal art will let it.
+</p>
+<p>
+The usual attempts at stricter definition of epic than anything this
+chapter contains, are either, in spite of what they try for, so vague
+that they would admit almost any long stretch of narrative poetry; or
+else they are based on the accidents or devices of epic art; and in that
+case they are apt to exclude work which is essentially epic because
+something inessential is lacking. It has, for instance, been seriously
+debated, whether an epic should not contain a catalogue of heroes. Other
+things, which epics have been required to contain, besides much that is
+not worth mentioning,[<a href="#note-5">5</a>] are a descent into hell and some supernatural
+machinery. Both of these are obviously devices for enlarging the scope
+of the action. The notion of a visit to the ghosts has fascinated many
+poets, and Dante elaborated this Homeric device into the main scheme of
+the greatest of non-epical poems, as Milton elaborated the other
+Homeric device into the main scheme of the greatest of literary epics.
+But a visit to the ghosts is, of course, like games or single combat or
+a set debate, merely an incident which may or may not be useful.
+Supernatural machinery, however, is worth some short discussion here,
+though it must be alluded to further in the sequel. The first and
+obvious thing to remark is, that an unquestionably epic effect can be
+given without any supernatural machinery at all. The poet of <i>Beowulf</i>
+has no need of it, for instance. A Christian redactor has worked over
+the poem, with more piety than skill; he can always be detected, and his
+clumsy little interjections have nothing to do with the general tenour
+of the poem. The human world ends off, as it were, precipitously; and
+beyond there is an endless, impracticable abyss in which dwells the
+secret governance of things, an unknowable and implacable
+fate&mdash;"Wyrd"&mdash;neither malign nor benevolent, but simply inscrutable. The
+peculiar cast of noble and desolate courage which this bleak conception
+gives to the poem is perhaps unique among the epics.
+</p>
+<p>
+But very few epic poets have ventured to do without supernatural
+machinery of some sort. And it is plain that it must greatly assist the
+epic purpose to surround the action with immortals who are not only
+interested spectators of the event, but are deeply implicated in it;
+nothing could more certainly liberate, or at least more appropriately
+decorate, the significant force of the subject. We may leave Milton out,
+for there can be no question about <i>Paradise Lost</i> here; the
+significance of the subject is not only liberated by, it entirely exists
+in, the supernatural machinery. But with the other epic poets, we should
+certainly expect them to ask us for our belief in their immortals. That,
+however, is just what they seem curiously careless of doing. The
+immortals are there, they are the occasion of splendid poetry; they do
+what they are intended to do&mdash;they declare, namely, by their speech and
+their action, the importance to the world of what is going on in the
+poem. Only&mdash;there is no obligation to believe in them; and will not that
+mean, no obligation to believe in their concern for the subject, and all
+that that implies? Homer begins this paradox. Think of that lovely and
+exquisitely mischievous passage in the <i>Iliad</i> called <i>The Cheating of
+Zeus</i>. The salvationist school of commentators calls this an
+interpolation; but the spirit of it is implicit throughout the whole of
+Homer's dealing with the gods; whenever, at least, he deals with them at
+length, and not merely incidentally. Not to accept that spirit is not to
+accept Homer. The manner of describing the Olympian family at the end of
+the first book is quite continuous throughout, and simply reaches its
+climax in the fourteenth book. Nobody ever believed in Homer's gods, as
+he must believe in Hektor and Achilles. (Puritans like Xenophanes were
+annoyed not with the gods for being as Homer described them, but with
+Homer for describing them as he did.) Virgil is more decorous; but can
+we imagine Virgil praying, or anybody praying, to the gods of the
+<i>Aeneid</i>? The supernatural machinery of Camoens and Tasso is frankly
+absurd; they are not only careless of credibility, but of sanity. Lucan
+tried to do without gods; but his witchcraft engages belief even more
+faintly than the mingled Paganism and Christianity of Camoens, and
+merely shows how strongly the most rationalistic of epic poets felt the
+value of some imaginary relaxation in the limits of human existence. Is
+it, then, only as such a relaxation that supernatural machinery is
+valuable? Or only as a superlative kind of ornament? It is surely more
+than that. In spite of the fact that we are not seriously asked to
+believe in it, it does beautifully and strikingly crystallize the poet's
+determination to show us things that go past the reach of common
+knowledge. But by putting it, whether instinctively or deliberately, on
+a lower plane of credibility than the main action, the poet obeys his
+deepest and gravest necessity: the necessity of keeping his poem
+emphatically an affair of recognizable <i>human</i> events. It is of man, and
+man's purpose in the world, that the epic poet has to sing; not of the
+purpose of gods. The gods must only illustrate man's destiny; and they
+must be kept within the bounds of beautiful illustration. But it
+requires a finer genius than most epic poets have possessed, to keep
+supernatural machinery just sufficiently fanciful without missing its
+function. Perhaps only Homer and Virgil have done that perfectly.
+Milton's revolutionary development marks a crisis in the general process
+of epic so important, that it can only be discussed when that process is
+considered, in the following chapter, as a whole.
+</p>
+<center>
+FOOTNOTES:
+</center>
+<p>
+<a name="note-5"><!-- Note Anchor 5 --></a>[Footnote 5: Such as similes and episodes. It is as if a man were to
+say, the essential thing about a bridge is that it should be painted.]
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<a name="RULE4_4"><!-- RULE4 4 --></a>
+<h2>
+	IV.
+</h2>
+
+<center>
+THE EPIC SERIES
+</center>
+<p>
+By the general process of epic poetry, I mean the way this form of art
+has constantly responded to the profound needs of the society in which
+it was made. But the development of human society does not go straight
+forward; and the epic process will therefore be a recurring process, the
+series a recurring series&mdash;though not in exact repetition. Thus, the
+Homeric poems, the <i>Argonautica</i>, the <i>Aeneid</i>, the <i>Pharsalia</i>, and the
+later Latin epics, form one series: the <i>Aeneid</i> would be the climax of
+the series, which thence declines, were it not that the whole originates
+with the incomparable genius of Homer&mdash;a fact which makes it seem to
+decline from start to finish. Then the process begins again, and again
+fulfils itself, in the series which goes from <i>Beowulf</i>, the <i>Song of
+Roland</i>, and the <i>Nibelungenlied</i>, through Camoens and Tasso up to
+Milton. And in this case Milton is plainly the climax. There is nothing
+like <i>Paradise Lost</i> in the preceding poems, and epic poetry has done
+nothing since but decline from that towering glory.
+</p>
+<p>
+But it will be convenient not to make too much of chronology, in a
+general account of epic development. It has already appeared that the
+duties of all "authentic" epic are broadly the same, and the poems of
+this kind, though two thousand years may separate their occurrence, may
+be properly brought together as varieties of one sub-species. "Literary"
+epic differs much more in the specific purpose of its art, as civilized
+societies differ much more than heroic, and also as the looser <i>milieu</i>
+of a civilization allows a less strictly traditional exercise of
+personal genius than an heroic age. Still, it does not require any
+manipulation to combine the "literary" epics from both series into a
+single process. Indeed, if we take Homer, Virgil and Milton as the
+outstanding events in the whole progress of epic poetry, and group the
+less important poems appropriately round these three names, we shall not
+be far from the <i>ideal truth</i> of epic development. We might say, then,
+that Homer begins the whole business of epic, imperishably fixes its
+type and, in a way that can never be questioned, declares its artistic
+purpose; Virgil perfects the type; and Milton perfects the purpose.
+Three such poets are not, heaven knows, summed up in a phrase; I mean
+merely to indicate how they are related one to another in the general
+scheme of epic poetry. For discriminating their merits, deciding their
+comparative eminence, I have no inclination; and fortunately it does not
+come within the requirements of this essay. Indeed, I think the reader
+will easily excuse me, if I touch very slightly on the poetic manner, in
+the common and narrow sense, of the poets whom I shall have to mention;
+since these qualities have been so often and sometimes so admirably
+dealt with. It is at the broader aspects of artistic purpose that I wish
+to look.
+</p>
+<p>
+"From Homer," said Goethe, "I learn every day more clearly, that in our
+life here above ground we have, properly speaking, to enact Hell." It is
+rather a startling sentence at first. That poetry which, for us, in
+Thoreau's excellent words, "lies in the east of literature," scarcely
+suggests, in the usual opinion of it, Hell. We are tempted to think of
+Homer as the most fortunate of poets. It seems as if he had but to open
+his mouth and speak, to create divine poetry; and it does not lessen our
+sense of his good fortune when, on looking a little closer, we see that
+this is really the result of an unerring and unfailing art, an
+extraordinarily skilful technique. He had it entirely at his command;
+and he exercised it in a language in which, though it may be singularly
+artificial and conventional, we can still feel the wonder of its
+sensuous beauty and the splendour of its expressive power. It is a
+language that seems alive with eagerness to respond to imagination. Open
+Homer anywhere, and the casual grandeur of his untranslatable language
+appears; such lines as:
+</p>
+<pre>
+  amphi de naees
+smerdaleon konabaesan ausanton hup' Achaion.[<a href="#note-6">6</a>]
+</pre>
+<p>
+That, you might say, is Homer at his ease; when he exerts himself you
+get a miracle like:
+</p>
+<pre>
+  su den strophalingi koniaes
+keiso megas megalosti, lelasmenos hipposunaon.[<a href="#note-7">7</a>]
+</pre>
+<p>
+It seems the art of one who walked through the world of things endowed
+with the senses of a god, and able, with that perfection of effort that
+looks as if it were effortless, to fashion his experience into
+incorruptible song; whether it be the dance of flies round a byre at
+milking-time, or a forest-fire on the mountains at night. The shape and
+clamour of waves breaking on the beach in a storm is as irresistibly
+recorded by Homer as the gleaming flowers which earth put forth to be
+the bed of Zeus and Hera in Gargaros, when a golden cloud was their
+coverlet, and Sleep sat on a pine tree near by in the likeness of a
+murmuring night-jar. It is an art so balanced, that when it tells us,
+with no special emphasis, how the Trojans came on with a din like the
+clangour of a flock of cranes, but the Achaians came on in silence, the
+temper of the two hosts is discriminated for the whole poem; or, in the
+supreme instance, when it tells us how the old men looked at Helen and
+said, "No wonder the young men fight for her!" then Helen's beauty must
+be accepted by the faith of all the world. The particulars of such
+poetry could be enumerated for pages; and this is the poetry which is
+filled, more than any other literature, in the <i>Iliad</i> with the nobility
+of men and women, in the <i>Odyssey</i> with the light of natural magic. And
+think of those gods of Homer's; he is the one poet who has been able to
+make the dark terrors of religion beautiful, harmless and quietly
+entertaining. It is easy to read this poetry and simply <i>enjoy</i> it; it
+is easy to say, the man whose spirit held this poetry must have been
+divinely happy. But this is the poetry whence Goethe learnt that the
+function of man is "to enact Hell."
+</p>
+<p>
+Goethe is profoundly right; though possibly he puts it in a way to which
+Homer himself might have demurred. For the phrase inevitably has its
+point in the word "Hell"; Homer, we may suppose, would have preferred
+the point to come in the word "enact." In any case, the details of
+Christian eschatology must not engage us much in interpreting Goethe's
+epigram. There is truth in it, not simply because the two poems take
+place in a theatre of calamity; not simply, for instance, because of the
+beloved Hektor's terrible agony of death, and the woes of Andromache and
+Priam. Such things are the partial, incidental expressions of the whole
+artistic purpose. Still less is it because of a strain of latent
+savagery in, at any rate, the <i>Iliad</i>; as when the sage and reverend
+Nestor urges that not one of the Greeks should go home until he has lain
+with the wife of a slaughtered Trojan, or as in the tremendous words of
+the oath: "Whoever first offend against this oath, may their brains be
+poured out on the ground like this wine, their own and their children's,
+and may their wives be made subject to strangers." All that is one of
+the accidental qualities of Homer. But the force of the word "enact" in
+Goethe's epigram will certainly come home to us when we think of those
+famous speeches in which courage is unforgettably declared&mdash;such
+speeches as that of Sarpedon to Glaukos, or of Glaukos to Diomedes, or
+of Hektor at his parting with Andromache. What these speeches mean,
+however, in the whole artistic purpose of Homer, will assuredly be
+missed if they are <i>detached</i> for consideration; especially we shall
+miss the deep significance of the fact that in all of these speeches the
+substantial thought falls, as it were, into two clauses. Courage is in
+the one clause, a deliberate facing of death; but something equally
+important is in the other. Is it honour? The Homeric hero makes a great
+deal of honour; but it is honour paid to himself, living; what he wants
+above everything is to be admired&mdash;"always to be the best"; that is what
+true heroism is. But he is to go where he knows death will strike at
+him; and he does not make much of honour after death; for him, the
+meanest man living is better than a dead hero. Death ends everything, as
+far as he is concerned, honour and all; his courage looks for no reward
+hereafter. No; but <i>since</i> ten thousand fates of death are always
+instant round us; <i>since</i> the generations of men are of no more account
+than leaves of a tree; <i>since</i> Troy and all its people will soon be
+destroyed&mdash;he will stand in death's way. Sarpedon emphasizes this with
+its converse: There would be no need of daring and fighting, he says,
+of "man-ennobling battle," if we could be for ever ageless and
+deathless. That is the heroic age; any other would say, If only we could
+not be killed, how pleasant to run what might have been risks! For the
+hero, that would simply not be worth while. Does he find them pleasant,
+then, just because they are risky? Not quite; that, again, is to detach
+part of the meaning from the whole. If anywhere, we shall, perhaps, find
+the whole meaning of Homer most clearly indicated in such words as those
+given (without any enforcement) to Achilles and Thetis near the
+beginning of the <i>Iliad</i>, as if to sound the pitch of Homer's poetry:
+</p>
+<pre>
+m&ecirc;ter, hepi m hetekes ge minynthadion per heonta,
+tim&ecirc;n per moi hophellen Olympios engyalixai
+Zeus hypsibremet&ecirc;s.[<a href="#note-8">8</a>]
+</pre>
+<pre>
+tim&ecirc;son moi yion hos h&ocirc;kymor&ocirc;tatos hallon
+heplet'.[<a href="#note-9">9</a>]
+</pre>
+<p>
+Minunthadion&mdash;h&ocirc;kymor&ocirc;tatos: those are the imporportant words;
+key-words, they might be called. If we really understand these lines, if
+we see in them what it is that Agamemnon's insult has deprived Achilles
+of&mdash;the sign and acknowledgment of his fellows' admiration while he is
+still living among them, the one thing which makes a hero's life worth
+living, which enables him to enact his Hell&mdash;we shall scarcely complain
+that the <i>Iliad</i> is composed on a second-rate subject. The significance
+of the poem is not in the incidents surrounding the "Achilleis"; the
+whole significance is centred in the Wrath of Achilles, and thence made
+to impregnate every part.
+</p>
+<p>
+Life is short; we must make the best of it. How trite that sounds! But
+it is not trite at all really. It seems difficult, sometimes, to believe
+that there was a time when sentiments now become habitual, sentiments
+that imply not only the original imperative of conduct, but the original
+metaphysic of living, were by no means altogether habitual. It is
+difficult to imagine backwards into the time when self-consciousness was
+still so fresh from its emergence out of the mere tribal consciousness
+of savagery, that it must not only accept the fact, but first intensely
+<i>realize</i>, that man is h&ocirc;kymor&ocirc;tatos&mdash;a thing of swiftest doom. And it
+was for men who were able, and forced, to do that, that the <i>Iliad</i> and
+the <i>Odyssey</i> and the other early epics were composed. But life is not
+only short; it is, in itself, <i>valueless</i>. "As the generation of leaves,
+so is the generation of men." The life of man matters to nobody but
+himself. It happens incidentally in universal destiny; but beyond just
+happening it has no function. No function, of course, except for man
+himself. If man is to find any value in life it is he himself that must
+create the value. For the sense of the ultimate uselessness of life, of
+the blankness of imperturbable darkness that surrounds it, Goethe's word
+"Hell" is not too shocking. But no one has properly lived who has not
+felt this Hell; and we may easily believe that in an heroic age, the
+intensity of this feeling was the secret of the intensity of living. For
+where will the primitive instinct of man, where will the hero, find the
+chance of creating a value for life? In danger, and in the courage that
+welcomes danger. That not only evaluates life; it derives the value from
+the very fact that forces man to create value&mdash;the fact of his swift and
+instant doom&mdash;h&ocirc;kymor&ocirc;tatos once more; it makes this dreadful fact
+<i>enjoyable</i>. And so, with courage as the value of life, and man thence
+delightedly accepting whatever can be made of his passage, the doom of
+life is not simply suffered; man enacts his own life; he has mastered
+it.
+</p>
+<p>
+We need not say that this is the lesson of Homer. And all this, barely
+stated, is a very different matter from what it is when it is poetically
+symbolized in the vast and shapely substance of the <i>Iliad</i> and the
+<i>Odyssey</i>. It is quite possible, of course, to appreciate, pleasantly
+and externally, the <i>Iliad</i> with its pressure of thronging life and its
+daring unity, and the <i>Odyssey</i> with its serener life and its superb
+construction, though much more sectional unity. But we do not appreciate
+what Homer did for his time, and is still doing for all the world, we do
+not appreciate the spirit of his music, unless we see the warfare and
+the adventure as symbols of the primary courage of life; and there is
+more in those words than seems when they are baldly written. And it is
+not his morals, but Homer's art that does that for us. And what Homer's
+art does supremely, the other early epics do in their way too. Their way
+is not to be compared with Homer's way. They are very much nearer than
+he is to the mere epic material&mdash;to the moderate accomplishment of the
+primitive ballad. Apart from their greatness, and often successful
+greatness, of intention, perhaps the only one that has an answerable
+greatness in the detail of its technique is <i>Beowulf</i>. That is not on
+account of its "kennings"&mdash;the strange device by which early popular
+poetry (Hesiod is another instance) tries to liberate and master the
+magic of words. A good deal has been made of these "kennings"; but it
+does not take us far towards great poetry, to have the sea called
+"whale-road" or "swan-road" or "gannet's-bath"; though we are getting
+nearer to it when the sun is called "candle of the firmament" or
+"heaven's gem." On the whole, the poem is composed in an elaborate,
+ambitious diction which is not properly governed. Alliteration proves a
+somewhat dangerous principle; it seems mainly responsible for the way
+the poet makes his sentences by piling up clauses, like shooting a load
+of stones out of a cart. You cannot always make out exactly what he
+means; and it is doubtful whether he always had a clearly-thought
+meaning. Most of the subsidiary matter is foisted in with monstrous
+clumsiness. Yet <i>Beowulf</i> has what we do not find, out of Homer, in the
+other early epics. It has occasionally an unforgettable grandeur of
+phrasing. And it has other and perhaps deeper poetic qualities. When the
+warriors are waiting in the haunted hall for the coming of the
+marsh-fiend Grendel, they fall into untroubled sleep; and the poet adds,
+with Homeric restraint: "Not one of them thought that he should thence
+be ever seeking his loved home again, his people or free city, where he
+was nurtured." The opening is magnificent, one of the noblest things
+that have been done in language. There is some wonderful grim landscape
+in the poem; towards the middle there is a great speech on deterioration
+through prosperity, a piece of sustained intensity that reads like an
+Aeschylean chorus; and there is some admirable fighting, especially the
+fight with Grendel in the hall, and with Grendel's mother under the
+waters, while Beowulf's companions anxiously watch the troubled surface
+of the mere. The fact that the action of the poem is chiefly made of
+single combat with supernatural creatures and that there is not tapestry
+figured with radiant gods drawn between the life of men and the ultimate
+darkness, gives a peculiar and notable character to the way Beowulf
+symbolizes the primary courage of life. One would like to think, with
+some enthusiasts, that this great poem, composed in a language totally
+unintelligible to the huge majority of Englishmen&mdash;further from English
+than Latin is from Italian&mdash;and perhaps not even composed in England,
+certainly not concerned either with England or Englishmen, might
+nevertheless be called an English epic.
+</p>
+<p>
+But of course the early epics do not, any of them, merely repeat the
+significance of Homer in another form. They might do that, if poetry had
+to inculcate a moral, as some have supposed. But however nicely we may
+analyse it, we shall never find in poetry a significance which is really
+detachable, and expressible in another way. The significance <i>is</i> the
+poetry. What <i>Beowulf</i> or the <i>Iliad</i> or the <i>Odyssey</i> means is simply
+what it is in its whole nature; we can but roughly indicate it. And as
+poetry is never the same, so its significance is never quite the same.
+Courage as the first necessary value of life is most naively and simply
+expressed, perhaps, in the <i>Poem of the Cid</i>; but even here the
+expression is, as in all art, unique, and chiefly because it is
+contrived through solidly imagined characters. There is splendid
+characterization, too, in the <i>Song of Roland</i>, together with a fine
+sense of poetic form; not fine enough, however, to avoid a prodigious
+deal of conventional gag. The battling is lavish, but always exciting;
+and in, at least, that section which describes how the dying Oliver,
+blinded by weariness and wounds, mistakes Roland for a pagan and feebly
+smites him with his sword, there is real and piercing pathos. But for
+all his sense of character, the poet has very little discretion in his
+admiration of his heroes. Christianity, in these two poems, has less
+effect than one might think. The conspicuous value of life is still the
+original value, courage; but elaboration and refinement of this begin
+to appear, especially in the <i>Song of Roland</i>, as passionately conscious
+patriotism and loyalty. The chief contribution of the <i>Nibelungenlied</i>
+to the main process of epic poetry is <i>plot</i> in narrative; a
+contribution, that is, to the manner rather than to the content of epic
+symbolism. There is something that can be called plot in Homer; but with
+him, as in all other early epics, it is of no great account compared
+with the straightforward linking of incidents into a direct chain of
+narrative. The story of the <i>Nibelungenlied</i>, however, is not a chain
+but a web. Events and the influence of characters are woven closely and
+intricately together into one tragic pattern; and this requires not only
+characterization, but also the adding to the characters of persistent
+and dominant motives.
+</p>
+<p>
+Epic poetry exhibits life in some great symbolic attitude. It cannot
+strictly be said to symbolize life itself, but always some manner of
+life. But life as courage&mdash;the turning of the dark, hard condition of
+life into something which can be exulted in&mdash;this, which is the deep
+significance of the art of the first epics, is the absolutely necessary
+foundation for any subsequent valuation of life; Man can achieve nothing
+until he has first achieved courage. And this, much more than any
+inheritance of manner, is what makes all the writers of deliberate or
+"literary" epic imply the existence of Homer. If Homer had not done his
+work, they could not have done theirs. But "literary" epics are as
+necessary as Homer. We cannot go on with courage as the solitary
+valuation of life. We must have the foundation, but we must also have
+the superstructure. Speaking comparatively, it may be said that the
+function of Homeric epic has been to create imperishable symbolism for
+the actual courageous consciousness of life, but the duty of "literary"
+epic has been to develop this function, answerably to the development of
+life itself, into symbolism of some conscious <i>idea</i> of life&mdash;something
+at once more formalized and more subtilized than the primary virtue of
+courage. The Greeks, however, were too much overshadowed by the
+greatness of Homer to do much towards this. The <i>Argonautica</i>, the
+half-hearted epic of Apollonius Rhodius, is the only attempt that need
+concern us. It is not a poem that can be read straight through; it is
+only enjoyable in moments&mdash;moments of charming, minute observation, like
+the description of a sunbeam thrown quivering on the wall from a basin
+of water "which has just been poured out," lines not only charming in
+themselves, but finely used as a simile for Medea's agitated heart; or
+moments of romantic fantasy, as when the Argonauts see the eagle flying
+towards Prometheus, and then hear the Titan's agonized cry. But it is
+not in such passages that what Apollonius did for epic abides. A great
+deal of his third book is a real contribution to the main process, to
+epic content as well as to epic manner. To the manner of epic he added
+analytic psychology. No one will ever imagine character more deeply or
+more firmly than Homer did in, say, Achilles; but Apollonius was the man
+who showed how epic as well as drama may use the nice minutiae of
+psychological imagination. Through Virgil, this contribution to epic
+manner has pervaded subsequent literature. Apollonius, too, in his
+fumbling way, as though he did not quite know what he was doing, has yet
+done something very important for the development of epic significance.
+Love has been nothing but a subordinate incident, almost one might say
+an ornament, in the early epics; in Apollonius, though working through a
+deal of gross and lumbering mythological machinery, love becomes for the
+first time one of the primary values of life. The love of Jason and
+Medea is the vital symbolism of the <i>Argonautica</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+But it is Virgil who really begins the development of epic art. He took
+over from Apollonius love as part of the epic symbolism of life, and
+delicate psychology as part of the epic method. And, like Apollonius, he
+used these novelties chiefly in the person of a heroine. But in Virgil
+they belong to an incomparably greater art; and it is through Virgil
+that they have become necessities of the epic tradition. More than this,
+however, was required of him. The epic poet collaborates with the spirit
+of his time in the composition of his work. That is, if he is
+successful; the time may refuse to work with him, but he may not refuse
+to work with his time. Virgil not only implies, he often clearly states,
+the original epic values of life, the Homeric values; as in the famous:
+</p>
+
+<PRE>
+Stat sua cuique dies; breve et inreparabile tempus
+Omnibus est vitae: sed famam extendere factis,
+Hoc virtutis opus.[<a href="#note-10">10</a>]
+</PRE>
+
+<p>
+But to write a poem chiefly to symbolize this simple, heroic metaphysic
+would scarcely have done for Virgil; it would certainly not have done
+for his time. It was eminently a time of social organization, one might
+perhaps say of social consciousness. After Sylla and Marius and Caesar,
+life as an affair of sheer individualism would not very strongly appeal
+to a thoughtful Roman. Accordingly, as has so often been remarked, the
+<i>Aeneid</i> celebrates the Roman Empire. A political idea does not seem a
+very likely subject for a kind of poetry which must declare greatly the
+fundamentals of living; not even when it is a political idea unequalled
+in the world, the idea of the Roman Empire. Had Virgil been a <i>good
+Roman</i>, the <i>Aeneid</i> might have been what no doubt Augustus, and Rome
+generally, desired, a political epic. But Virgil was not a good Roman;
+there was something in him that was not Roman at all. It was this
+strange incalculable element in him that seems for ever making him
+accomplish something he had not thought of; it was surely this that made
+him, unintentionally it may be, use the idea of the Roman Empire as a
+vehicle for a much profounder valuation of life. We must remember here
+the Virgil of the Fourth Eclogue&mdash;that extraordinary, impassioned poem
+in which he dreams of man attaining to some perfection of living. It is
+still this Virgil, though saddened and resigned, who writes the
+<i>Aeneid</i>. Man creating his own destiny, man, however wearied with the
+long task of resistance, achieving some conscious community of
+aspiration, and dreaming of the perfection of himself: the poet whose
+lovely and noble art makes us a great symbol of <i>that</i>, is assuredly
+carrying on the work of Homer. This was the development in epic
+intention required to make epic poetry answer to the widening needs of
+civilization.
+</p>
+<p>
+But even more important, in the whole process of epic, than what
+Virgil's art does, is the way it does it. And this in spite of the fact
+which everyone has noticed, that Virgil does not compare with Homer as a
+poet of seafaring and warfaring. He is not, indeed, very interested in
+either; and it is unfortunate that, in managing the story of Aeneas (in
+itself an excellent medium for his symbolic purpose) he felt himself
+compelled to try for some likeness to the <i>Odyssey</i> and the <i>Iliad</i>&mdash;to
+do by art married to study what the poet of the <i>Odyssey</i> and the
+<i>Iliad</i> had done by art married to intuitive experience. But his failure
+in this does not matter much in comparison with his technical success
+otherwise. Virgil showed how poetry may be made deliberately adequate to
+the epic purpose. That does not mean that Virgil is more artistic than
+Homer. Homer's redundance, wholesale repetition of lines, and stock
+epithets cannot be altogether dismissed as "faults"; they are
+characteristics of a wonderfully accomplished and efficient technique.
+But epic poetry cannot be written as Homer composed it; whereas it must
+be written something as Virgil wrote it; yes, if epic poetry is to be
+<i>written</i>, Virgil must show how that is to be done. The superb Virgilian
+economy is the thing for an epic poet now; the concision, the
+scrupulousness, the loading of every word with something appreciable of
+the whole significance. After the <i>Aeneid</i>, the epic style must be of
+this fashion:
+</p>
+
+<PRE>
+Ibant ovscuri sola sub nocte per umbram
+Perque domos Ditis vacuas et inania regna:
+Quale per incertam lunam sub luce maligna
+Est iter in silvis, ubi caelum condidit umbra
+Jupiter, et rebus nox abstulit atra colorem.[<a href="#note-11">11</a>]
+</PRE>
+
+<p>
+Lucan is much more of a Roman than Virgil; and the <i>Pharsalia</i>, so far
+as it is not an historical epic, is a political one; the idea of
+political liberty is at the bottom of it. That is not an unworthy theme;
+and Lucan evidently felt the necessity for development in epic. But he
+made the mistake, characteristically Roman, of thinking history more
+real than legend; and, trying to lead epic in this direction,
+supernatural machinery would inevitably go too. That, perhaps, was
+fortunate, for it enabled Lucan safely to introduce one of his great and
+memorable lines:
+</p>
+
+<PRE>
+Jupiter est quodcunque vides, quodcunque moveris;[<a href="#note-12">12</a>]
+</PRE>
+
+<p>
+which would certainly explode any supernatural machinery that could be
+invented. The <i>Pharsalia</i> could not be anything more than an interesting
+but unsuccessful attempt; it was not on these lines that epic poetry was
+to develop. Lucan died at an age when most poets have done nothing very
+remarkable; that he already had achieved a poem like the <i>Pharsalia</i>,
+would make us think he might have gone to incredible heights, were it
+not that the mistake of the <i>Pharsalia</i> seems to belong incurably to his
+temperament.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lucan's determined stoicism may, philosophically, be more consistent
+than the dubious stoicism of Virgil. But Virgil knew that, in epic,
+supernatural imagination is better than consistency. It was an important
+step when he made Jupiter, though a personal god, a power to which no
+limits are assigned; when he also made the other divinities but shadows,
+or, at most, functions, of Jupiter. This answers to his conviction that
+spirit universally and singly pervades matter; but, what is more, it
+answers to the needs of epic development. When we come to Tasso and
+Camoens, we seem to have gone backward in this respect; we seem to come
+upon poetry in which supernatural machinery is in a state of chronic
+insubordination. But that, too, was perhaps necessary. In comparison
+with the <i>Aeneid, Gerusalemme Liberata</i> and <i>Os Lusiadas</i> lack
+intellectual control and spiritual depth; but in comparison with the
+Roman, the two modern poems thrill with a new passion of life, a new
+wine of life, heady, as it seems, with new significance&mdash;a significance
+as yet only felt, not understood. Both Tasso and Camoens clearly join on
+to the main epic tradition: Tasso derives chiefly from the <i>Aeneid</i> and
+the <i>Iliad</i>, Camoens from the <i>Aeneid</i> and the <i>Odyssey</i>. Tasso is
+perhaps more Virgilian than Camoens; the plastic power of his
+imagination is more assured. But the advantage Camoens has over Tasso
+seems to repeat the advantage Homer has over Virgil; the ostensible
+subject of the <i>Lusiads</i> glows with the truth of experience. But the
+real subject is behind these splendid voyagings, just as the real
+subject of Tasso is behind the battles of Christian and Saracen; and in
+both poets the inmost theme is broadly the same. It is the consciousness
+of modern Europe. <i>Jerusalem Delivered</i> and the <i>Lusiads</i> are drenched
+with the spirit of the Renaissance; and that is chiefly responsible for
+their lovely poetry. But they reach out towards the new Europe that was
+then just beginning. Europe making common cause against the peoples that
+are not Europe; Europe carrying her domination round the world&mdash;is that
+what Tasso and Camoens ultimately mean? It would be too hard and too
+narrow a matter by itself to make these poems what they are. No; it is
+not the action of Europe, but the spirit of European consciousness, that
+gave Tasso and Camoens their deepest inspiration. But what European
+consciousness really is, these poets rather vaguely suggest than master
+into clear and irresistible expression, into the supreme symbolism of
+perfectly adequate art. They still took European consciousness as an
+affair of geography and race rather than simply as a triumphant stage in
+the general progress of man's knowledge of himself. Their time imposed a
+duty on them; that they clearly understood. But they did not clearly
+understand what the duty was; partly, no doubt, because they were both
+strongly influenced by mediaeval religion. And so it is atmosphere, in
+Tasso and Camoens, that counts much more than substance; both poets seem
+perpetually thrilled by something they cannot express&mdash;the <i>non so che</i>
+of Tasso. And what chiefly gives this sense of quivering, uncertain
+significance to their poetry is the increase of freedom and decrease of
+control in the supernatural. Supernaturalism was emphasized, because
+they instinctively felt that this was the means epic poetry must use to
+accomplish its new duties; it was disorderly, because they did not quite
+know what use these duties required. Tasso and Camoens, for all the
+splendour and loveliness of their work, leave epic poetry, as it were,
+consciously dissatisfied&mdash;knowing that its future must achieve some
+significance larger and deeper than anything it had yet done, and
+knowing that this must be done somehow through imagined supernaturalism.
+It waited nearly a hundred years for the poet who understood exactly
+what was to be done and exactly how to do it.
+</p>
+<p>
+In <i>Paradise Lost</i>, the development of epic poetry culminates, as far as
+it has yet gone. The essential inspiration of the poem implies a
+particular sense of human existence which has not yet definitely
+appeared in the epic series, but which the process of life in Europe
+made it absolutely necessary that epic poetry should symbolize. In
+Milton, the poet arose who was supremely adequate to the greatest task
+laid on epic poetry since its beginning with Homer; Milton's task was
+perhaps even more exacting than that original one. "His work is not the
+greatest of heroic poems, only because it is not the first." The epigram
+might just as reasonably have been the other way round. But nothing
+would be more unprofitable than a discussion in which Homer and Milton
+compete for supremacy of genius. Our business here is quite otherwise.
+</p>
+<p>
+With the partial exception of Tasso and Camoens, all epic poetry before
+Milton is some symbolism of man's sense of his own will. It is simply
+this in Homer; and the succeeding poets developed this intention but
+remained well within it. Not even Virgil, with his metaphysic of
+individual merged into social will&mdash;not even Virgil went outside it. In
+fact, it is a sort of <i>monism</i> of consciousness that inspires all
+pre-Miltonic epic. But in Milton, it has become a <i>dualism</i>. Before him,
+the primary impulse of epic is an impassioned sense of man's nature
+<i>being contained</i>&mdash;by his destiny: <i>his</i> only because he is in it and
+belongs to it, as we say "<i>my</i> country." With Milton, this has
+necessarily become not only a sense of man's rigorously contained
+nature, but equally a sense of that which contains man&mdash;in fact,
+simultaneously a sense of individual will and of universal necessity.
+The single sense of these two irreconcilables is what Milton's poetry
+has to symbolize. Could they be reconciled, the two elements in man's
+modern consciousness of existence would form a monism. But this
+consciousness is a dualism; its elements are absolutely opposed.
+<i>Paradise Lost</i> is inspired by intense consciousness of the eternal
+contradiction between the general, unlimited, irresistible will of
+universal destiny, and defined individual will existing within this, and
+inexplicably capable of acting on it, even against it. Or, if that seems
+too much of an antinomy to some philosophies (and it is perhaps possible
+to make it look more apparent than real), the dualism can be unavoidably
+declared by putting it entirely in terms of consciousness: destiny
+creating within itself an existence which stands against and apart from
+destiny by being <i>conscious</i> of it. In Milton's poetry the spirit of man
+is equally conscious of its own limited reality and of the unlimited
+reality of that which contains him and drives him with its motion&mdash;of
+his own will striving in the midst of destiny: destiny irresistible, yet
+his will unmastered.
+</p>
+<p>
+This is not to examine the development of epic poetry by looking at that
+which is not <i>poetry</i>. In this kind of art, more perhaps than in any
+other, we must ignore the wilful theories of those who would set
+boundaries to the meaning of the word poetry. In such a poem as
+Milton's, whatever is in it is its poetry; the poetry of <i>Paradise Lost</i>
+is just&mdash;<i>Paradise Lost</i>! Its pomp of divine syllables and glorious
+images is no more the poetry of Milton than the idea of man which he
+expressed. But the general manner of an art is for ever similar; it is
+its inspiration that is for ever changing. We need never expect words
+and metre to do more than they do here:
+</p>
+<pre>
+  they, fondly thinking to allay
+Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit
+Chewed bitter ashes, which the offended taste
+With spattering noise rejected: oft they assayed,
+Hunger and thirst constraining; drugged as oft,
+With hatefullest disrelish writhed their jaws,
+With soot and cinders filled;
+</pre>
+<p>
+or more than they do here:
+</p>
+<pre>
+  What though the field be lost?
+All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
+And study of revenge, immortal hate,
+And courage never to submit or yield,
+And what is else not to be overcome.
+</pre>
+<p>
+But what Homer's words, and perhaps what Virgil's words, set out to do,
+they do just as marvellously. There is no sure way of comparison here.
+How words do their work in poetry, and how we appreciate the way they do
+it&mdash;this seems to involve the obscurest processes of the mind: analysis
+can but fumble at it. But we can compare inspiration&mdash;the nature of the
+inmost urgent motive of poetry. And it is not irrelevant to add (it
+seems to me mere fact), that Milton had the greatest motive that has
+ever ruled a poet.
+</p>
+<p>
+For the vehicle of this motive, a fable of purely human action would
+obviously not suffice. What Milton has to express is, of course,
+altogether human; destiny is an entirely human conception. But he has to
+express not simply the sense of human existence occurring in destiny;
+that brings in destiny only mediately, through that which is destined.
+He has to express the sense of destiny immediately, at the same time as
+he expresses its opponent, the destined will of man. Destiny will appear
+in poetry as an omnipotent God; Virgil had already prepared poetry for
+that. But the action at large must clearly consist now, and for the
+first time, overwhelmingly of supernatural imagination. Milton has been
+foolishly blamed for making his supernaturalism too human. But nothing
+can come into poetry that is not shaped and recognizable; how else but
+in anthropomorphism could destiny, or (its poetic equivalent) deity,
+exist in <i>Paradise Lost</i>?
+</p>
+<p>
+We may see what a change has come over epic poetry, if we compare this
+supernatural imagination of Milton's with the supernatural machinery of
+any previous epic poet. Virgil is the most scrupulous in this respect;
+and towards the inevitable change, which Milton completed and perfected
+from Camoens and Tasso, Virgil took a great step in making Jupiter
+professedly almighty. But compare Virgil's "Tantaene animis celestibus
+irae?" with Milton's "Evil, be thou my good!" It is the difference
+between an accidental device and essential substance. That, in order to
+symbolize in epic form&mdash;that is to say, in <i>narrative</i> form&mdash;the
+dualistic sense of destiny and the destined, and both
+immediately&mdash;Milton had to dissolve his human action completely in a
+supernatural action, is the sign not merely of a development, but of a
+re-creation, of epic art.
+</p>
+<p>
+It has been said that Satan is the hero of <i>Paradise Lost</i>. The offence
+which the remark has caused is due, no doubt, to injudicious use of the
+word "hero." It is surely the simple fact that if <i>Paradise Lost</i> exists
+for any one figure, that is Satan; just as the <i>Iliad</i> exists for
+Achilles, and the <i>Odyssey</i> for Odysseus. It is in the figure of Satan
+that the imperishable significance of <i>Paradise Lost</i> is centred; his
+vast unyielding agony symbolizes the profound antinomy of modern
+consciousness. And if this is what he is in significance it is worth
+noting what he is in technique. He is the blending of the poem's human
+plane with its supernatural plane. The epic hero has always represented
+humanity by being superhuman; in Satan he has grown into the
+supernatural. He does not thereby cease to symbolize human existence;
+but he is thereby able to symbolize simultaneously the sense of its
+irreconcilable condition, of the universal destiny that contains it. Out
+of Satan's colossal figure, the single urgency of inspiration, which
+this dualistic consciousness of existence makes, radiates through all
+the regions of Milton's vast and rigorous imagination. "Milton," says
+Landor, "even Milton rankt with living men!"
+</p>
+<center>
+FOOTNOTES:
+</center>
+<p>
+<a name="note-6"><!-- Note Anchor 6 --></a>[Footnote 6: 'And all round the ships echoed terribly to the shouting
+Achaians.']
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="note-7"><!-- Note Anchor 7 --></a>[Footnote 7:
+'When in a dusty whirlwind thou didst lie,
+  Thy valour lost, forgot thy chivalry.'&mdash;OGILBY.
+(The version leaves out megas megalosti.)
+]
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="note-8"><!-- Note Anchor 8 --></a>[Footnote 8: 'Mother, since thou didst bear me to be so short-lived,
+Olympian Zeus that thunders from on high should especially have bestowed
+honour on me.']
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="note-9"><!-- Note Anchor 9 --></a>[Footnote 9: 'Honour my son for me, for the swiftest doom of all is
+his.']
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="note-10"><!-- Note Anchor 10 --></a>[Footnote 10: "For everyone his own day is appointed; for all men the
+period of life is short and not to be recalled: but to spread glory by
+deeds, that is what valour can do."]
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="note-11"><!-- Note Anchor 11 --></a>[Footnote 11:
+"They wer' amid the shadows by night in loneliness obscure
+Walking forth i' the void and vasty dominyon of Ades;
+As by an uncertain moonray secretly illumin'd
+One goeth in the forest, when heav'n is gloomily clouded,
+And black night hath robb'd the colours and beauty from all things."&mdash;ROBERT BRIDGES.
+]
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="note-12"><!-- Note Anchor 12 --></a>[Footnote 12: "All that is known, all that is felt, is God."]
+</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="RULE4_5"><!-- RULE4 5 --></a>
+<h2>
+	V.
+</h2>
+<center>
+AFTER MILTON
+</center>
+<p>
+And after Milton, what is to happen? First, briefly, for a few instances
+of what has happened. We may leave out experiments in religious
+sentiment like Klopstock's <i>Messiah</i>. We must leave out also poems which
+have something of the look of epic at first glance, but have nothing of
+the scope of epic intention; such as Scott's longer poems. These might
+resemble the "lays" out of which some people imagine "authentic" epic to
+have been made. But the lays are not the epic. Scott's poems have not
+the depth nor the definiteness of symbolic intention&mdash;what is sometimes
+called the epic unity&mdash;and this is what we can always discover in any
+poetry which gives us the peculiar experience we must associate with the
+word epic, if it is to have any precision of meaning. What applies to
+Scott, will apply still more to Byron's poems; Byron is one of the
+greatest of modern poets, but that does not make him an epic poet. We
+must keep our minds on epic intention. Shelley's <i>Revolt of Islam</i> has
+something of it, but too vaguely and too fantastically; the generality
+of human experience had little to do with this glittering poem. Keats's
+<i>Hyperion</i> is wonderful; but it does not go far enough to let us form
+any judgment of it appropriate to the present purpose.[<a href="#note-13">13</a>] Our search
+will not take us far before we notice something very remarkable; poems
+which look superficially like epic turn out to have scarce anything of
+real epic intention; whereas epic intention is apt to appear in poems
+that do not look like epic at all. In fact, it seems as if epic manner
+and epic content were trying for a divorce. If this be so, the
+traditional epic manner will scarcely survive the separation. Epic
+content, however, may very well be looking out for a match with a new
+manner; though so far it does not seem to have found an altogether
+satisfactory partner.
+</p>
+<p>
+But there are one or two poems in which the old union seems still happy.
+Most noteworthy is Goethe's <i>Hermann und Dorothea</i>. You may say that it
+does not much matter whether such poetry should be called epic or, as
+some hold, idyllic. But it is interesting to note, first, that the poem
+is deliberately written with epic style and epic intention; and, second,
+that, though singularly beautiful, it makes no attempt to add anything
+to epic development. It is interesting, too, to see epic poetry trying
+to get away from its heroes, and trying to use material the poetic
+importance of which seems to depend solely on the treatment, not on
+itself. This was a natural and, for some things, a laudable reaction.
+But it inevitably meant that epic must renounce the triumphs which
+Milton had won for it. William Morris saw no reason for abandoning
+either the heroes or anything else of the epic tradition. The chief
+personages of <i>Sigurd the Volsung</i> are admittedly more than human, the
+events frankly marvellous. The poem is an impressive one, and in one way
+or another fulfils all the main qualifications of epic. But perhaps no
+great poem ever had so many faults. These have nothing to do with its
+management of supernaturalism; those who object to this simply show
+ignorance of the fundamental necessities of epic poetry. The first book
+is magnificent; everything that epic narrative should be; but after this
+the poem grows long-winded, and that is the last thing epic poetry
+should be. It is written with a running pen; so long as the verse keeps
+going on, Morris seems satisfied, though it is very often going on
+about unimportant things, and in an uninteresting manner. After the
+first book, indeed, as far as Morris's epic manner is concerned, Virgil
+and Milton might never have lived. It attempts to be the grand manner by
+means of vagueness. In an altogether extraordinary way, the poem slurs
+over the crucial incidents (as in the inept lines describing the death
+of Fafnir, and those, equally hollow, describing the death of
+Guttorm&mdash;two noble opportunities simply not perceived) and tirelessly
+expatiates on the mere surroundings of the story. Yet there is no
+attempt to make anything there credible: Morris seems to have mixed up
+the effects of epic with the effects of a fairy-tale. The poem lacks
+intellect; it has no clear-cut thought. And it lacks sensuous images; it
+is full of the sentiment, not of the sense of things, which is the wrong
+way round. Hence the protracted conversations are as a rule amazingly
+windy and pointless, as the protracted descriptions are amazingly
+useless and tedious. And the superhuman virtues of the characters are
+not shown in the poem so much as energetically asserted. It says much
+for the genius of Morris that <i>Sigurd the Volsung</i>, with all these
+faults, is not to be condemned; that, on the contrary, to read it is
+rather a great than a tiresome experience; and not only because the
+faults are relieved, here and there, by exquisite beauties and
+dignities, indeed by incomparable lines, but because the poem as a whole
+does, as it goes on, accumulate an immense pressure of significance. All
+the great epics of the world have, however, perfectly clearly a
+significance in close relation with the spirit of their time; the
+intense desire to symbolize the consciousness of man as far as it has
+attained, is what vitally inspires an epic poet, and the ardour of this
+infects his whole style. Morris, in this sense, was not vitally
+inspired. <i>Sigurd the Volsung</i> is a kind of set exercise in epic poetry.
+It is great, but it is not <i>needed</i>. It is, in fact, an attempt to write
+epic poetry as it might have been written, and to make epic poetry mean
+what it might have meant, in the days when the tale of Sigurd and the
+Niblungs was newly come among men's minds. Mr. Doughty, in his
+surprising poem <i>The Dawn in Britain</i>, also seems trying to compose an
+epic exercise, rather than to be obeying a vital necessity of
+inspiration. For all that, it is a great poem, full of irresistible
+vision and memorable diction. But it is written in a revolutionary
+syntax, which, like most revolutions of this kind, achieves nothing
+beyond the fact of being revolutionary; and Mr. Doughty often uses the
+unexpected effects of his queer syntax instead of the unexpected effects
+of poetry, which makes the poem even longer psychologically than it is
+physically. Lander's <i>Gebir</i> has much that can truly be called epic in
+it; and it has learned the lessons in manner which Virgil and Milton so
+nobly taught. It has perhaps learned them too well; never were
+concision, and the loading of each word with heavy duties, so thoroughly
+practised. The action is so compressed that it is difficult to make out
+exactly what is going on; we no sooner realize that an incident has
+begun than we find ourselves in the midst of another. Apart from these
+idiosyncrasies, the poetry of <i>Gebir</i> is a curious mixture of splendour
+and commonplace. If fiction could ever be wholly, and not only
+partially, epic, it would be in <i>Gebir</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+In all these poems, we see an epic intention still combined with a
+recognizably epic manner. But what is quite evident is, that in all of
+them there is no attempt to carry on the development of epic, to take up
+its symbolic power where Milton left it. On the contrary, this seems to
+be deliberately avoided. For any tentative advance on Miltonic
+significance, even for any real acceptance of it, we must go to poetry
+which tries to put epic intention into a new form. Some obvious
+peculiarities of epic style are sufficiently definite to be detachable.
+Since Theocritus, a perverse kind of pleasure has often been obtained by
+putting some of the peculiarities of epic&mdash;peculiarities really required
+by a very long poem&mdash;into the compass of a very short poem. An epic
+idyll cannot, of course, contain any considerable epic intention; it is
+wrought out of the mere shell of epic, and avoids any semblance of epic
+scope. But by devising somehow a connected sequence of idylls, something
+of epic scope can be acquired again. As Hugo says, in his preface to <i>La
+Legende des Si&egrave;cles</i>: "Comme dans une mosa&iuml;que, chaque pierre a sa
+couleur et sa forme propre; l'ensemble donne une figure. La figure de ce
+livre," he goes on, "c'est l'homme." To get an epic design or <i>figure</i>
+through a sequence of small idylls need not be the result of mere
+technical curiosity. It may be a valuable method for the future of epic.
+Tennyson attempted this method in <i>Idylls of the King</i>; not, as is now
+usually admitted, with any great success. The sequence is admirable for
+sheer craftsmanship, for astonishing craftsmanship; but it did not
+manage to effect anything like a conspicuous symbolism. You have but to
+think of <i>Paradise Lost</i> to see what <i>Idylls of the King</i> lacks. Victor
+Hugo, however, did better in <i>La Legende des Si&egrave;cles</i>. "La figure, c'est
+l'homme"; there, at any rate, is the intention of epic symbolism. And,
+however pretentious the poem may be, it undoubtedly does make a
+passionate effort to develop the significance which Milton had achieved;
+chiefly to enlarge the scope of this significance.[<a href="#note-14">14</a>] Browning's <i>The
+Ring and the Book</i> also uses this notion of an idyllic sequence; but
+without any semblance of epic purpose, purely for the exhibition of
+human character.
+</p>
+<p>
+It has already been remarked that the ultimate significance of great
+drama is the same as that of epic. Since the vital epic purpose&mdash;the
+kind of epic purpose which answers to the spirit of the time&mdash;is
+evidently looking for some new form to inhabit, it is not surprising,
+then, that it should have occasionally tried on dramatic form. And,
+unquestionably, for great poetic symbolism of the depths of modern
+consciousness, for such symbolism as Milton's, we must go to two such
+invasions of epic purpose into dramatic manner&mdash;to Goethe's <i>Faust</i> and
+Hardy's <i>The Dynasts</i>. But dramatic significance and epic significance
+have been admitted to be broadly the same; to take but one instance,
+Aeschylus's Prometheus is closely related to Milton's Satan (though I
+think Prometheus really represents a monism of consciousness&mdash;that which
+is destined&mdash;as Satan represents a dualism&mdash;at once the destined and the
+destiny). How then can we speak of epic purpose invading drama? Surely
+in this way. Drama seeks to present its significance with narrowed
+intensity, but epic in a large dilatation: the one contracts, the other
+expatiates. When, therefore, we find drama setting out its significance
+in such a way as to become epically dilated, we may say that dramatic
+has grown into epic purpose. Or, even more positively, we may say that
+epic has taken over drama and adapted it to its peculiar needs. In any
+case, with one exception to be mentioned presently, it is only in
+<i>Faust</i> and <i>The Dynasts</i> that we find any great development of Miltonic
+significance. These are the poems that give us immense and shapely
+symbols of the spirit of man, conscious not only of the sense of his
+own destined being, but also of some sense of that which destines. In
+fact, these two are the poems that develop and elaborate, in their own
+way, the Miltonic significance, as all the epics in between Homer and
+Milton develop and elaborate Homeric significance. And yet, in spite of
+<i>Faust</i> and <i>The Dynasts</i>, it may be doubted whether the union of epic
+and drama is likely to be permanent. The peculiar effects which epic
+intention, in whatever manner, must aim at, seem to be as much hindered
+as helped by dramatic form; and possibly it is because the detail is
+necessarily too much enforced for the broad perfection of epic effect.
+</p>
+<p>
+The real truth seems to be, that there is an inevitable and profound
+difficulty in carrying on the Miltonic significance in anything like a
+story. Regular epic having reached its climax in <i>Paradise Lost</i>, the
+epic purpose must find some other way of going on. Hugo saw this, when
+he strung his huge epic sequence together not on a connected story but
+on a single idea: "la figure, c'est l'homme." If we are to have, as we
+must have, direct symbolism of the way man is conscious of his being
+nowadays, which means direct symbolism both of man's spirit and of the
+(philosophical) opponent of this, the universal fate of things&mdash;if we
+are to have all this, it is hard to see how any story can be adequate to
+such symbolic requirements, unless it is a story which moves in some
+large region of imagined supernaturalism. And it seems questionable
+whether we have enough <i>formal</i> "belief" nowadays to allow of such a
+story appearing as solid and as vividly credible as epic poetry needs.
+It is a decided disadvantage, from the purely epic point of view, that
+those admirable "Intelligences" in Hardy's <i>The Dynasts</i> are so
+obviously abstract ideas disguised. The supernaturalism of epic, however
+incredible it may be in the poem, must be worked up out of the material
+of some generally accepted belief. I think it would be agreed, that what
+was possible for Milton would scarcely be possible to-day; and even more
+impossible would be the na&iuml;vet&eacute; of Homer and the quite different but
+equally impracticable na&iuml;vet&eacute; of Tasso and Camoens. The conclusion seems
+to be, that the epic purpose will have to abandon the necessity of
+telling a story.
+</p>
+<p>
+Hugo's way may prove to be the right one. But there may be another; and
+what has happened in the past may suggest what may happen in the future.
+Epic poetry in the regular epic form has before now seemed unlikely. It
+seemed unlikely after the Alexandrians had made such poor attempts at
+standing upright under the immensity of Homer; it seemed so, until,
+after several efforts, Latin poetry became triumphantly epic in Virgil.
+And again, when the mystical prestige of Virgil was domineering
+everything, regular epic seemed unlikely; until, after the doubtful
+attempts of Boiardo and Ariosto, Tasso arrived. But in each case, while
+the occurrence of regular epic was seeming so improbable, it
+nevertheless happened that poetry was written which was certainly
+nothing like epic in form, but which was strongly charged with a
+profound pressure of purpose closely akin to epic purpose; and <i>De Rerum
+Natura</i> and <i>La Divina Commedia</i> are very suggestive to speculation now.
+Of course, the fact that, in both these cases, regular epic did
+eventually occur, must warn us that in artistic development anything may
+happen; but it does seem as if there were a deeper improbability for
+the occurrence of regular epic now than in the times just before Virgil
+and Tasso&mdash;of regular epic, that is, inspired by some vital import, not
+simply, like <i>Sigurd the Volsung</i>, by archaeological import. Lucretius is
+a good deal more suggestive than Dante; for Dante's form is too exactly
+suited to his own peculiar genius and his own peculiar time to be
+adaptable. But the method of Lucretius is eminently adaptable. That
+amazing image of the sublime mind of Lucretius is exactly the kind of
+lofty symbolism that the continuation of epic purpose now seems to
+require&mdash;a subjective symbolism. I believe Wordsworth felt this, when he
+planned his great symbolic poem, and partly executed it in <i>The Prelude</i>
+and <i>The Excursion</i>: for there, more profoundly than anywhere out of
+Milton himself, Milton's spiritual legacy is employed. It may be, then,
+that Lucretius and Wordsworth will preside over the change from
+objective to subjective symbolism which Milton has, perhaps, made
+necessary for the continued development of the epic purpose: after
+Milton, it seems likely that there is nothing more to be done with
+objective epic. But Hugo's method, of a connected sequence of separate
+poems, instead of one continuous poem, may come in here. The
+determination to keep up a continuous form brought both Lucretius and
+Wordsworth at times perilously near to the odious state of didactic
+poetry; it was at least responsible for some tedium. Epic poetry will
+certainly never be didactic. What we may imagine&mdash;who knows how vainly
+imagine?&mdash;is, then, a sequence of odes expressing, in the image of some
+fortunate and lofty mind, as much of the spiritual significance which
+the epic purpose must continue from Milton, as is possible, in the style
+of Lucretius and Wordsworth, for subjective symbolism. A pregnant
+experiment towards something like this has already been seen&mdash;in George
+Meredith's magnificent set of <i>Odes in Contribution to the Song of the
+French History</i>. The subject is ostensibly concrete; but France in her
+agonies and triumphs has been personified into a superb symbol of
+Meredith's own reading of human fate. The series builds up a decidedly
+epic significance, and its manner is extraordinarily suggestive of a new
+epic method. Nevertheless, something more Lucretian in central
+imagination, something less bound to concrete and particular event,
+seems required for the complete development of epic purpose.
+</p>
+<center>
+FOOTNOTES:
+</center>
+<p>
+<a name="note-13"><!-- Note Anchor 13 --></a>[Footnote 13: In the greatest poetry, all the elements of human nature
+are burning in a single flame. The artifice of criticism is to detect
+what peculiar radiance each element contributes to the whole light; but
+this no more affects the singleness of the compounded energy in poetry
+than the spectroscopic examination of fire affects the single nature of
+actual flame. For the purposes of this book, it has been necessary to
+look chiefly at the contribution of intellect to epic poetry; for it is
+in that contribution that the development of poetry, so far as there is
+any development at all, really consists. This being so, it might be
+thought that Keats could hardly have done anything for the real progress
+of epic. But Keats's apparent (it is only apparent) rejection of
+intellect in his poetry was the result of youthful theory; his letters
+show that, in fact, intellect was a thing unusually vigorous in his
+nature. If the Keats of the letters be added to the Keats of the poems,
+a personality appears that seems more likely than any of his
+contemporaries, or than anyone who has come after him, for the work of
+carrying Miltonic epic forward without forsaking Miltonic form.]
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="note-14"><!-- Note Anchor 14 --></a>[Footnote 14: For all I know, Hugo may never have read Milton; judging
+by some silly remarks of his, I should hope not. But Hugo could feel the
+things in the spirit of man that Milton felt; not only because they were
+still there, but because the secret influence of Milton has intensified
+the consciousness of them in thousands who think they know nothing of
+<i>Paradise Lost</i>. Modern literary history will not be properly understood
+until it is realized that Milton is one of the dominating minds of
+Europe, whether Europe know it or not. There are scarcely half a dozen
+figures that can be compared with Milton for irresistible
+influence&mdash;quite apart from his unapproachable supremacy in the
+technique of poetry. When Addison remarked that <i>Paradise Lost</i> is
+universally and perpetually interesting, he said what is not to be
+questioned; though he did not perceive the real reason for his
+assertion. Darwin no more injured the significance of <i>Paradise Lost</i>
+than air-planes have injured Homer.]
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10716 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Epic, by Lascelles Abercrombie
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Epic
+       An Essay
+
+Author: Lascelles Abercrombie
+
+Release Date: January 14, 2004 [EBook #10716]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EPIC ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Garrett Alley and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+The Epic: an Essay
+
+By Lascelles Abercrombie
+
+
+
+1914.
+
+
+
+By the same Author:
+
+
+Towards a Theory of Art
+Speculative Dialogues
+Four Short Plays
+Thomas Hardy: A Critical Study
+Principles of English Prosody
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+_As this essay is disposed to consider epic poetry as a species of
+literature, and not as a department of sociology or archaeology or
+ethnology, the reader will not find it anything material to the
+discussion which may be typified in those very interesting works,
+Gilbert Murray's "The Rise of the Greek Epic" and Andrew Lang's "The
+World of Homer." The distinction between a literary and a scientific
+attitude to Homer (and all other "authentic" epic) is, I think, finally
+summed up in Mr. Mackail's "Lectures on Greek Poetry"; the following
+pages, at any rate, assume that this is so. Theories about epic origins
+were therefore indifferent to my purpose. Besides, I do not see the need
+for any theories; I think it need only be said, of any epic poem
+whatever, that it was composed by a man and transmitted by men. But this
+is not to say that investigation of the "authentic" epic poet's_ milieu
+_may not be extremely profitable; and for settling the preliminaries of
+this essay, I owe a great deal to Mr. Chadwick's profoundly
+interesting study, "The Heroic Age"; though I daresay Mr. Chadwick would
+repudiate some of my conclusions. I must also acknowledge suggestions
+taken from Mr. Macneile Dixon's learned and vigorous "English Epic and
+Heroic Poetry"; and especially the assistance of Mr. John Clark's
+"History of Epic Poetry." Mr. Clark's book is so thorough and so
+adequate that my own would certainly have been superfluous, were it not
+that I have taken a particular point of view which his method seems to
+rule out--a point of view which seemed well worth taking. This is my
+excuse, too, for considering only the most conspicuous instances of epic
+poetry. They have been discussed often enough; but not often, so far as
+I know, primarily as stages of one continuous artistic development_.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+
+BEGINNINGS
+
+The invention of epic poetry corresponds with a definite and, in the
+history of the world, often recurring state of society. That is to say,
+epic poetry has been invented many times and independently; but, as the
+needs which prompted the invention have been broadly similar, so the
+invention itself has been. Most nations have passed through the same
+sort of chemistry. Before their hot racial elements have been thoroughly
+compounded, and thence have cooled into the stable convenience of
+routine which is the material shape of civilization--before this has
+firmly occurred, there has usually been what is called an "Heroic Age."
+It is apt to be the hottest and most glowing stage of the process. So
+much is commonplace. Exactly what causes the racial elements of a
+nation, with all their varying properties, to flash suddenly (as it
+seems) into the splendid incandescence of an Heroic Age, and thence to
+shift again into a comparatively rigid and perhaps comparatively
+lustreless civilization--this difficult matter has been very nicely
+investigated of late, and to interesting, though not decided, result.
+But I may not concern myself with this; nor even with the detailed
+characteristics, alleged or ascertained, of the Heroic Age of nations.
+It is enough for the purpose of this book that the name "Heroic Age" is
+a good one for this stage of the business; it is obviously, and on the
+whole rightly, descriptive. For the stage displays the first vigorous
+expression, as the natural thing and without conspicuous restraint, of
+private individuality. In savagery, thought, sentiment, religion and
+social organization may be exceedingly complicated, full of the most
+subtle and strange relationships; but they exist as complete and
+determined _wholes_, each part absolutely bound up with the rest.
+Analysis has never come near them. The savage is blinded to the glaring
+incongruities of his tribal ideas not so much by habit or reverence; it
+is simply that the mere possibility of such a thing as analysis has
+never occurred to him. He thinks, he feels, he lives, all in a whole.
+Each person is the tribe in little. This may make everyone an
+astoundingly complex character; but it makes strong individuality
+impossible in savagery, since everyone accepts the same elaborate
+unanalysed whole of tribal existence. That existence, indeed, would find
+in the assertion of private individuality a serious danger; and tribal
+organization guards against this so efficiently that it is doubtless
+impossible, so long as there is no interruption from outside. In some
+obscure manner, however, savage existence has been constantly
+interrupted; and it seems as if the long-repressed forces of
+individuality then burst out into exaggerated vehemence; for the result
+(if it is not slavery) is, that a people passes from its savage to its
+heroic age, on its way to some permanence of civilization. It must
+always have taken a good deal to break up the rigidity of savage
+society. It might be the shock of enforced mixture with a totally alien
+race, the two kinds of blood, full of independent vigour, compelled to
+flow together;[1] or it might be the migration, due to economic stress,
+from one tract of country to which the tribal existence was perfectly
+adapted to another for which it was quite unsuited, with the added
+necessity of conquering the peoples found in possession. Whatever the
+cause may have been, the result is obvious: a sudden liberation, a
+delighted expansion, of numerous private individualities.
+
+But the various appearances of the Heroic Age cannot, perhaps, be
+completely generalized. What has just been written will probably do for
+the Heroic Age which produced Homer, and for that which produced the
+_Nibelungenlied, Beowulf_, and the Northern Sagas. It may, therefore
+stand as the typical case; since Homer and these Northern poems are what
+most people have in their minds when they speak of "authentic" epic. But
+decidedly Heroic Ages have occurred much later than the latest of these
+cases; and they arose out of a state of society which cannot roundly be
+called savagery. Europe, for instance, had its unmistakable Heroic Age
+when it was fighting with the Moslem, whether that warfare was a cause
+or merely an accompaniment. And the period which preceded it, the period
+after the failure of Roman civilization, was sufficiently "dark" and
+devoid of individuality, to make the sudden plenty of potent and
+splendid individuals seem a phenomenon of the same sort as that which
+has been roughly described; it can scarcely be doubted that the age
+which is exhibited in the _Poem of the Cid_, the _Song of Roland_, and
+the lays of the Crusaders (_la Chanson d'Antioche_, for instance), was
+similar in all essentials to the age we find in Homer and the
+_Nibelungenlied_. Servia, too, has its ballad-cycles of Christian and
+Mahometan warfare, which suppose an age obviously heroic. But it hardly
+falls in with our scheme; Servia, at this time, might have been expected
+to have gone well past its Heroic Age. Either, then, it was somehow
+unusually prolonged, or else the clash of the Ottoman war revived it.
+The case of Servia is interesting in another way. The songs about the
+battle of Kossovo describe Servian defeat--defeat so overwhelming that
+poetry cannot possibly translate it, and does not attempt it, into
+anything that looks like victory. Even the splendid courage of its hero
+Milos, who counters an imputation of treachery by riding in full
+daylight into the Ottoman camp and murdering the Sultan, even this
+courage is rather near to desperation. The Marko cycle--Marko whose
+betrayal of his country seems wiped out by his immense prowess--has in a
+less degree this utter defeat of Servia as its background. But Servian
+history before all this has many glories, which, one would think, would
+serve the turn of heroic song better than appalling defeat and, indeed,
+enslavement. Why is the latter celebrated and not the former? The reason
+can only be this: heroic poetry depends on an heroic age, and an age is
+heroic because of what it is, not because of what it does. Servia's
+defeat by the armies of Amurath came at a time when its people was too
+strongly possessed by the heroic spirit to avoid uttering itself in
+poetry. And from this it appears, too, that when the heroic age sings,
+it primarily sings of itself, even when that means singing of its own
+humiliation.--One other exceptional kind of heroic age must just be
+mentioned, in this professedly inadequate summary. It is the kind which
+occurs quite locally and on a petty scale, with causes obscurer than
+ever. The Border Ballads, for instance, and the Robin Hood Ballads,
+clearly suppose a state of society which is nothing but a very
+circumscribed and not very important heroic age. Here the households of
+gentry take the place of courts, and the poetry in vogue there is
+perhaps instantly taken up by the taverns; or perhaps this is a case in
+which the heroes are so little removed from common folk that celebration
+of individual prowess begins among the latter, not, as seems usually to
+have happened, among the social equals of the heroes. But doubtless
+there are infinite grades in the structure of the Heroic Age.
+
+The note of the Heroic Age, then, is vehement private individuality
+freely and greatly asserting itself. The assertion is not always what we
+should call noble; but it is always forceful and unmistakable. There
+would be, no doubt, some social and religious scheme to contain the
+individual's self-assertion; but the latter, not the former, is the
+thing that counts. It is not an age that lasts for very long as a rule;
+and before there comes the state in which strong social organization and
+strong private individuality are compatible--mutually helpful instead of
+destroying one another, as they do, in opposite ways, in savagery and in
+the Heroic Age--before the state called civilization can arrive, there
+has commonly been a long passage of dark obscurity, which throws up into
+exaggerated brightness the radiance of the Heroic Age. The balance of
+private good and general welfare is at the bottom of civilized morals;
+but the morals of the Heroic Age are founded on individuality, and on
+nothing else. In Homer, for instance, it can be seen pretty clearly that
+a "good" man is simply a man of imposing, active individuality[2]; a
+"bad" man is an inefficient, undistinguished man--probably, too, like
+Thersites, ugly. It is, in fact, an absolutely aristocratic age--an age
+in which he who rules is thereby proven the "best." And from its nature
+it must be an age very heartily engaged in something; usually fighting
+whoever is near enough to be fought with, though in _Beowulf_ it seems
+to be doing something more profitable to the civilization which is to
+follow it--taming the fierceness of surrounding circumstance and man's
+primitive kind. But in any case it has a good deal of leisure; and the
+best way to prevent this from dragging heavily is (after feasting) to
+glory in the things it has done; or perhaps in the things it would like
+to have done. Hence heroic poetry. But exactly what heroic poetry was
+in its origin, probably we shall never know. It would scarcely be
+history, and it would scarcely be very ornate poetry. The first thing
+required would be to translate the prowess of champions into good and
+moving narrative; and this would be metrified, because so it becomes
+both more exciting and more easily remembered. Each succeeding bard
+would improve, according to his own notions, the material he received
+from his teachers; the prowess of the great heroes would become more and
+more astonishing, more and more calculated to keep awake the feasted
+nobles who listened to the song. In an age when writing, if it exists at
+all, is a rare and secret art, the mists of antiquity descend after a
+very few generations. There is little chance of the songs of the bards
+being checked by recorded actuality; for if anyone could write at all,
+it would be the bards themselves, who would use the mystery or purposes
+of their own trade. In quite a short time, oral tradition, in keeping of
+the bards, whose business is to purvey wonders, makes the champions
+perform easily, deeds which "the men of the present time" can only gape
+at; and every bard takes over the stock of tradition, not from original
+sources, but from the mingled fantasy and memory of the bard who came
+just before him. So that when this tradition survives at all, it
+survives in a form very different from what it was in the beginning. But
+apparently we can mark out several stages in the fortunes of the
+tradition. It is first of all court poetry, or perhaps baronial poetry;
+and it may survive as that. From this stage it may pass into possession
+of the common people, or at least into the possession of bards whose
+clients are peasants and not nobles; from being court poetry it becomes
+the poetry of cottages and taverns. It may survive as this. Finally, it
+may be taken up again by the courts, and become poetry of much greater
+sophistication and nicety than it was in either of the preceding stages.
+But each stage leaves its sign on the tradition.
+
+All this gives us what is conveniently called "epic material"; the
+material out of which epic poetry might be made. But it does not give us
+epic poetry. The world knows of a vast stock of epic material scattered
+up and down the nations; sometimes its artistic value is as
+extraordinary as its archaeological interest, but not always. Instances
+are our own Border Ballads and Robin Hood Ballads; the Servian cycles of
+the Battle of Kossovo and the prowess of Marko; the modern Greek songs
+of the revolt against Turkey (the conditions of which seem to have been
+similar to those which surrounded the growth of our riding ballads); the
+fragments of Finnish legend which were pieced together into the
+_Kalevala_; the Ossianic poetry; and perhaps some of the minor sagas
+should be put in here. Then there are the glorious Welsh stories of
+Arthur, Tristram, and the rest, and the not less glorious Irish stories
+of Deirdre and Cuchulain; both of these noble masses of legend seem to
+have only just missed the final shaping which turns epic material into
+epic poetry. For epic material, it must be repeated, is not the same
+thing as epic poetry. Epic material is fragmentary, scattered, loosely
+related, sometimes contradictory, each piece of comparatively small
+size, with no intention beyond hearty narrative. It is a heap of
+excellent stones, admirably quarried out of a great rock-face of
+stubborn experience. But for this to be worked into some great
+structure of epic poetry, the Heroic Age must be capable of producing
+individuality of much profounder nature than any of its fighting
+champions. Or rather, we should simply say that the production of epic
+poetry depends on the occurrence (always an accidental occurrence) of
+creative genius. It is quite likely that what Homer had to work on was
+nothing superior to the Arthurian legends. But Homer occurred; and the
+tales of Troy and Odysseus became incomparable poetry.
+
+An epic is not made by piecing together a set of heroic lays, adjusting
+their discrepancies and making them into a continuous narrative. An epic
+is not even a re-creation of old things; it is altogether a new
+creation, a new creation in terms of old things. And what else is any
+other poetry? The epic poet has behind him a tradition of matter and a
+tradition of style; and that is what every other poet has behind him
+too; only, for the epic poet, tradition is rather narrower, rather more
+strictly compelling. This must not be lost sight of. It is what the
+poet does with the tradition he falls in which is, artistically, the
+important thing. He takes a mass of confused splendours, and he makes
+them into something which they certainly were not before; something
+which, as we can clearly see by comparing epic poetry with mere epic
+material, the latter scarce hinted at. He makes this heap of matter into
+a grand design; he forces it to obey a single presiding unity of
+artistic purpose. Obviously, something much more potent is required for
+this than a fine skill in narrative and poetic ornament. Unity is not
+merely an external affair. There is only one thing which can master the
+perplexed stuff of epic material into unity; and that is, an ability to
+see in particular human experience some significant symbolism of man's
+general destiny.
+
+It is natural that, after the epic poet has arrived, the crude epic
+material in which he worked should scarcely be heard of. It could only
+be handed on by the minstrels themselves; and their audiences would not
+be likely to listen comfortably to the old piecemeal songs after they
+had heard the familiar events fall into the magnificent ordered pomp of
+the genuine epic poet. The tradition, indeed, would start afresh with
+him; but how the novel tradition fared as it grew old with his
+successors, is difficult guesswork. We can tell, however, sometimes, in
+what stage of the epic material's development the great unifying epic
+poet occurred. Three roughly defined stages have been mentioned. Homer
+perhaps came when the epic material was still in its first stage of
+being court-poetry. Almost certainly this is when the poets of the
+Crusading lays, of the _Song of Roland_, and the _Poem of the Cid_, set
+to work. Hesiod is a clear instance of the poet who masters epic
+material after it has passed into popular possession; and the
+_Nibelungenlied_ is thought to be made out of matter that has passed
+from the people back again to the courts.
+
+Epic poetry, then, as distinct from mere epic material, is the concern
+of this book. The intention is, to determine wherein epic poetry is a
+definite species of literature, what it characteristically does for
+conscious human life, and to find out whether this species and this
+function have shown, and are likely to show, any development. It must be
+admitted, that the great unifying poet who worked on the epic material
+before him, did not always produce something which must come within the
+scope of this intention. Hesiod has just been given as an instance of
+such a poet; but his work is scarcely an epic.[3] The great sagas, too,
+I must omit. They are epic enough in primary intention, but they are not
+poetry; and I am among those who believe that there is a difference
+between poetry and prose. If epic poetry is a definite species, the
+sagas do not fall within it. But this will leave me more of the
+"authentic" epic poetry than I can possibly deal with; and I shall have
+to confine myself to its greatest examples. Before, however, proceeding
+to consider epic poetry as a whole, as a constantly recurring form of
+art, continually responding to the new needs of man's developing
+consciousness, I must go, rapidly and generally, over the "literary
+epic"; and especially I must question whether it is really justifiable
+or profitable to divide epic poetry into the two contrasted departments
+of "authentic" and "literary."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: hos d' ote cheimarroi potamoi kat opesthi rheontes es
+misgagkeian xumballeton obrimon udor krounon ek melalon koilaes entosthe
+charadraes. _Iliad_, IV, 452.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Etymologically, the "good" man is the "admirable" man. In
+this sense, Homer's gods are certainly "good"; every epithet he gives
+them--Joyous-Thunderer, Far-Darter, Cloud-Gatherer and the
+rest--proclaims their unapproachable "goodness." If it had been said to
+Homer, that his gods cannot be "good" because their behaviour is
+consistently cynical, cruel, unscrupulous and scandalous, he would
+simply think he had not heard aright: Zeus is an habitual liar, of
+course, but what has that got to do with his "goodness"?--Only those who
+would have Homer a kind of Salvationist need regret this. Just because
+he could only make his gods "good" in this primitive style, he was able
+to treat their discordant family in that vein of exquisite comedy which
+is one of the most precious things in the world.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Scarcely what _we_ call epic. "Epos" might include Hesiod
+as well as epic material; "epopee" is the business that Homer started.]
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+LITERARY EPIC
+
+Epic poetry, then, was invented to supply the artistic demands of
+society in a certain definite and recognizable state. Or rather, it was
+the epic material which supplied that; the first epic poets gave their
+age, as genius always does, something which the age had never thought of
+asking for; which, nevertheless, when it was given, the age took good
+hold of, and found that, after all, this, too, it had wanted without
+knowing it. But as society went on towards civilization, the need for
+epic grew less and less; and its preservation, if not accidental, was an
+act of conscious aesthetic admiration rather than of unconscious
+necessity. It was preserved somehow, however; and after other kinds of
+literature had arisen as inevitably and naturally as epic, and had
+become, in their turn, things of less instant necessity than they were,
+it was found that, in the manner and purpose of epic poetry, something
+was given which was not given elsewhere; something of extraordinary
+value. Epic poetry would therefore be undertaken again; but now, of
+course, deliberately. With several different kinds of poetry to choose
+from, a man would decide that he would like best to be an epic poet, and
+he would set out, in conscious determination, on an epic poem. The
+result, good or bad, of such a determination is called "literary" epic.
+The poems of Apollonius Rhodius, Virgil, Lucan, Camoens, Tasso and
+Milton are "literary" epics. But such poetry as the _Odyssey_, the
+_Iliad,_ _Beowulf_, the _Song of Roland_, and the _Nibelungenlied_,
+poetry which seems an immediate response to some general and instant
+need in its surrounding community--such poetry is "authentic" epic.
+
+A great deal has been made of this distinction; it has almost been taken
+to divide epic poetry into two species. And, as the names commonly given
+to the two supposed species suggest, there is some notion that
+"literary" epic must be in a way inferior to "authentic" epic. The
+superstition of antiquity has something to do with this; but the
+presence of Homer among the "authentic" epics has probably still more to
+do with it. For Homer is the poet who is usually chosen to stand for
+"authentic" epic; and, by a facile association of ideas, the conspicuous
+characteristics of Homer seem to be the marks of "authentic" epic as a
+species. It is, of course, quite true, that, for sustained grandeur and
+splendour, no poet can be put beside Homer except Dante and Milton; but
+it is also quite clear that in Homer, as in Dante, and Milton, such
+conspicuous characteristics are simply the marks of peculiar poetic
+genius. If we leave Homer out, and consider poetic greatness only (the
+only important thing to consider), there is no "authentic" epic which
+can stand against _Paradise Lost_ or the _Aeneid_. Then there is the
+curious modern feeling--which is sometimes but dressed up by erroneous
+aesthetic theory (the worship of a quite national "lyricism," for
+instance) but which is really nothing but a sign of covert
+barbarism--that lengthy poetic composition is somehow undesirable; and
+Homer is thought to have had a better excuse for composing a long poem
+than Milton.
+
+But doubtless the real reason for the hard division of epic poetry into
+two classes, and for the presumed inferiority of "literary" to
+"authentic," lies in the application of that curiosity among false
+ideas, the belief in a "folk-spirit." This notion that such a thing as a
+"folk-spirit" can create art, and that the art which it does create must
+be somehow better than other art, is, I suppose, the offspring of
+democratic ideas in politics. The chief objection to it is that there
+never has been and never can be anything in actuality corresponding to
+the "folk-spirit" which this notion supposes. Poetry is the work of
+poets, not of peoples or communities; artistic creation can never be
+anything but the production of an individual mind. We may, if we like,
+think that poetry would be more "natural" if it were composed by the
+folk as the folk, and not by persons peculiarly endowed; and to think so
+is doubtless agreeable to the notion that the folk is more important
+than the individual. But there is nothing gained by thinking in this
+way, except a very illusory kind of pleasure; since it is impossible
+that the folk should ever be a poet. This indisputable axiom has been
+ignored more in theories about ballads--about epic material--than in
+theories about the epics themselves. But the belief in a real
+folk-origin for ballads, untenable though it be in a little examination,
+has had a decided effect on the common opinion of the authentic epics.
+In the first place, a poem constructed out of ballads composed, somehow
+or other, by the folk, ought to be more "natural" than a work of
+deliberate art--a "literary" epic; that is to say, these Rousseau-ish
+notions will admire it for being further from civilization and nearer to
+the noble savage; civilization being held, by some mysterious argument,
+to be deficient in "naturalness." In the second place, this belief has
+made it credible that the plain corruption of authentic epic by oral
+transmission, or very limited transmission through script, might be the
+sign of multiple authorship; for if you believe that a whole folk can
+compose a ballad, you may easily believe that a dozen poets can compose
+an epic.
+
+But all this rests on simple ignoring of the nature of poetic
+composition. The folk-origin of ballads and the multiple authorship of
+epics are heresies worse than the futilities of the Baconians; at any
+rate, they are based on the same resolute omission, and build on it a
+wilder fantasy. They omit to consider what poetry is. Those who think
+Bacon wrote _Hamlet_, and those who think several poets wrote the
+_Iliad_, can make out a deal of ingenious evidence for their doctrines.
+But it is all useless, because the first assumption in each case is
+unthinkable. It is psychologically impossible that the mind of Bacon
+should have produced _Hamlet_; but the impossibility is even more
+clamant when it comes to supposing that several poets, not in
+collaboration, but in haphazard succession, could produce a poem of vast
+sweeping unity and superbly consistent splendour of style. So far as
+mere authorship goes, then, we cannot make any real difference between
+"authentic" and "literary" epic. We cannot say that, while this is
+written by an individual genius, that is the work of a community.
+Individual genius, of whatever quality, is responsible for both. The
+folk, however, cannot be ruled out. Genius does the work; but the folk
+is the condition in which genius does it. And here we may find a genuine
+difference between "literary" and "authentic"; not so much in the nature
+of the condition as in its closeness and insistence.
+
+The kind of folk-spirit behind the poet is, indeed, different in the
+_Iliad_ and _Beowulf_ and the _Song of Roland_ from what it is in Milton
+and Tasso and Virgil. But there is also as much difference here between
+the members of each class as between the two classes themselves. You
+cannot read much of _Beowulf_ with Homer in your mind, without becoming
+conscious that the difference in individual genius is by no means the
+whole difference. Both poets maintain a similar ideal in life; but they
+maintain it within conditions altogether unlike. The folk-spirit behind
+_Beowulf_ is cloudy and tumultuous, finding grandeur in storm and gloom
+and mere mass--in the misty _lack_ of shape. Behind Homer it is, on the
+contrary, radiant and, however vehement, always delighting in measure,
+finding grandeur in brightness and clarity and shining outline. So,
+again, we may very easily see how Tasso's poetry implies the Italy of
+his time, and Milton's the England of his time. But where Homer and
+Beowulf together differ from Tasso and Milton is in the way the
+surrounding folk-spirit contains the poet's mind. It would be a very
+idle piece of work, to choose between the potency of Homer's genius and
+of Milton's; but it is clear that the immediate circumstance of the
+poet's life presses much more insistently on the _Iliad_ and the
+_Odyssey_ than on _Paradise Lost_. It is the difference between the
+contracted, precise, but vigorous tradition of an heroic age, and the
+diffused, eclectic, complicated culture of a civilization. And if it may
+be said that the insistence of racial circumstance in Homer gives him a
+greater intensity of cordial, human inspiration, it must also be said
+that the larger, less exacting conditions of Milton's mental life allow
+his art to go into greater scope and more subtle complexity of
+significance. Great epic poetry will always frankly accept the social
+conditions within which it is composed; but the conditions contract and
+intensify the conduct of the poem, or allow it to dilate and absorb
+larger matter, according as the narrow primitive torrents of man's
+spirit broaden into the greater but slower volume of civilized life. The
+change is neither desirable nor undesirable; it is merely inevitable. It
+means that epic poetry has kept up with the development of human life.
+
+It is because of all this that we have heard a good deal about the
+"authentic" epic getting "closer to its subject" than "literary" epic.
+It seems, on the face of it, very improbable that there should be any
+real difference here. No great poetry, of whatever kind, is conceivable
+unless the subject has become integrated with the poet's mind and mood.
+Milton is as close to his subject, Virgil to his, as Homer to Achilles
+or the Saxon poet to Beowulf. What is really meant can be nothing but
+the greater insistence of racial tradition in the "authentic" epics. The
+subject of the _Iliad_ is the fighting of heroes, with all its
+implications and consequences; the subject of the _Odyssey_ is adventure
+and its opposite, the longing for safety and home; in _Beowulf_ it is
+kingship--the ability to show man how to conquer the monstrous forces of
+his world; and so on. Such were the subjects which an imperious racial
+tradition pressed on the early epic poet, who delighted to be so
+governed. These were the matters which his people could understand, of
+which they could easily perceive the significance. For him, then, there
+could be no other matters than these, or the like of these. But it is
+not in such matters that a poet living in a time of less primitive and
+more expanded consciousness would find the highest importance. For a
+Roman, the chief matter for an epic poem would be Roman civilization;
+for a Puritan, it would be the relations of God and man. When,
+therefore, we consider how close to his subject an epic poet is, we must
+be careful to be quite clear what his subject is. And if he has gone
+beyond the immediate experiences of primitive society, we need not
+expect him to be as close as the early poets were to the fury of battle
+and the agony of wounds and the desolation of widows; or to the
+sensation of exploring beyond the familiar regions; or to the
+marsh-fiends and fire-drakes into which primitive imagination naturally
+translated the terrible unknown powers of the world. We need not, in a
+word, expect the "literary" epic to compete with the "authentic" epic;
+for the fact is, that the purpose of epic poetry, and therefore the
+nature of its subject, must continually develop. It is quite true that
+the later epics take over, to a very great extent, the methods and
+manners of the earlier poems; just as architecture hands on the style of
+wooden structure to an age that builds in stone, and again imposes the
+manners of stone construction on an age that builds in concrete and
+steel. But, in the case of epic at any rate, this is not merely the
+inertia of artistic convention. With the development of epic intention,
+and the subsequent choosing of themes larger and subtler than what
+common experience is wont to deal in, a certain duplicity becomes
+inevitable. The real intention of the _Aeneid_, and the real intention
+of _Paradise Lost_, are not easily brought into vivid apprehension. The
+natural thing to do, then, would be to use the familiar substance of
+early epic, but to use it as a convenient and pleasant solvent for the
+novel intention. It is what has been done in all the great "literary"
+epics. But hasty criticism, finding that where they resembled Homer
+they seemed not so close to their matter, has taken this as a pervading
+and unfortunate characteristic. It has not perceived that what in Homer
+was the main business of the epic, has become in later epic a device.
+Having so altered, it has naturally lost in significance; but in the
+greatest instances of later epic, that for which the device was used has
+been as profoundly absorbed into the poet's being as Homer's matter was
+into his being. It may be noted, too, that a corresponding change has
+also taken place in the opposite direction. As Homer's chief substance
+becomes a device in later epic, so a device of Homer's becomes in later
+epic the chief substance. Homer's supernatural machinery may be reckoned
+as a device--a device to heighten the general style and action of his
+poems; the _significance_ of Homer must be found among his heroes, not
+among his gods. But with Milton, it has become necessary to entrust to
+the supernatural action the whole aim and purport of the poem.
+
+On the whole, then, there is no reason why "literary" epic should not be
+as close to its subject as "authentic" epic; there is every reason why
+both kinds should be equally close. But in testing whether they actually
+are equally close, we have to remember that in the later epic it has
+become necessary to use the ostensible subject as a vehicle for the real
+subject. And who, with any active sympathy for poetry, can say that
+Milton felt his theme with less intensity than Homer? Milton is not so
+close to his fighting angels as Homer is to his fighting men; but the
+war in heaven is an incident in Milton's figurative expression of
+something that has become altogether himself--the mystery of individual
+existence in universal existence, and the accompanying mystery of sin,
+of individual will inexplicably allowed to tamper with the divinely
+universal will. Milton, of course, in closeness to his subject and in
+everything else, stands as supreme above the other poets of literary
+epic as Homer does above the poets of authentic epic. But what is true
+of Milton is true, in less degree, of the others. If there is any good
+in them, it is primarily because they have got very close to their
+subjects: that is required not only for epic, but for all poetry.
+Coleridge, in a famous estimate put twenty years for the shortest period
+in which an epic could be composed; and of this, ten years were to be
+for preparation. He meant that not less than ten years would do for the
+poet to fill all his being with the theme; and nothing else will serve,
+It is well known how Milton brooded over his subject, how Virgil
+lingered over his, how Camoen. carried the _Luisads_ round the world
+with him, with what furious intensity Tasso gave himself to writing
+_Jerusalem Delivered_. We may suppose, perhaps, that the poets of
+"authentic" epic had a somewhat easier task. There was no need for them
+to be "long choosing and beginning late." The pressure of racial
+tradition would see that they chose the right sort of subject; would
+see, too, that they lived right in the heart of their subject. For the
+poet of "literary" epic, however, it is his own consciousness that must
+select the kind of theme which will fulfil the epic intention for his
+own day; it is his own determination and studious endurance that will
+draw the theme into the secrets of his being. If he is not capable of
+getting close to his subject, we should not for that reason call his
+work "literary" epic. It would put him in the class of Milton, the most
+literary of all poets. We must simply call his stuff bad epic. There is
+plenty of it. Southey is the great instance. Southey would decide to
+write an epic about Spain, or India, or Arabia, or America. Next he
+would read up, in several languages, about his proposed subject; that
+would take him perhaps a year. Then he would versify as much strange
+information as he could remember; that might take a few months. The
+result is deadly; and because he was never anywhere near his subject. It
+is for the same reason that the unspeakable labours of Blackmore, Glover
+and Wilkie, and Voltaire's ridiculous _Henriade_, have gone to pile up
+the rubbish-heaps of literature.
+
+So far, supposed differences between "authentic" and "literary" epic
+have resolved themselves into little more than signs of development in
+epic intention; the change has not been found to produce enough artistic
+difference between early and later epic to warrant anything like a
+division into two distinct species. The epic, whether "literary" or
+"authentic," is a single form of art; but it is a form capable of
+adapting itself to the altering requirements of prevalent consciousness.
+In addition, however, to differences in general conception, there are
+certain mechanical differences which should be just noticed. The first
+epics were intended for recitation; the literary epic is meant to be
+read. It is more difficult to keep the attention of hearers than of
+readers. This in itself would be enough to rule out themes remote from
+common experience, supposing any such were to suggest themselves to the
+primitive epic poet. Perhaps, indeed, we should not be far wrong if we
+saw a chief reason for the pressure of surrounding tradition on the
+early epic in this very fact, that it is poetry meant for recitation.
+Traditional matter must be glorified, since it would be easier to listen
+to the re-creation of familiar stories than to quite new and unexpected
+things; the listeners, we must remember, needed poetry chiefly as the
+re-creation of tired hours. Traditional manner would be equally
+difficult to avoid; for it is a tradition that plainly embodies the
+requirements, fixed by experience, of _recited_ poetry. Those features
+of it which make for tedium when it is read--repetition, stock epithets,
+set phrases for given situations--are the very things best suited, with
+their recurring well-known syllables, to fix the attention of listeners
+more firmly, or to stir it when it drowses; at the least they provide a
+sort of recognizable scaffolding for the events, and it is remarkable
+how easily the progress of events may be missed when poetry is
+declaimed. Indeed, if the primitive epic poet could avoid some of the
+anxieties peculiar to the composition of literary epic, he had others to
+make up for it. He had to study closely the delicate science of holding
+auricular attention when once he had got it; and probably he would have
+some difficulty in getting it at all. The really great poet challenges
+it, like Homer, with some tremendous, irresistible opening; and in this
+respect the magnificent prelude to _Beowulf_ may almost be put beside
+Homer. But lesser poets have another way. That prolixity at the
+beginning of many primitive epics, their wordy deliberation in getting
+under way, is probably intentional. The _Song of Roland_, for instance,
+begins with a long series of exceedingly dull stanzas; to a reader, the
+preliminaries of the story seem insufferably drawn out. But by the time
+the reciter had got through this unimportant dreariness, no doubt his
+audience had settled down to listen. The _Chanson d'Antioche_ contains
+perhaps the most illuminating admission of this difficulty. In the first
+"Chant," the first section opens:[4]
+
+  Seigneurs, faites silence; et que tout bruit cesse,
+  Si vous voulez entendre une glorieuse chanson.
+  Aucun jongleur ne vous en dira une meilleure.
+
+Then some vaguely prelusive lines. But the audience is clearly not quite
+ready yet, for the second section begins:
+
+  Barons, écoutez-moi, et cessez vos querelles!
+  Je vous dirai une très-belle chanson.
+
+And after some further prelude, the section ends:
+
+  Ici commence la chanson où il y a tant à apprendre.
+
+The "Chanson" does, indeed, make some show of beginning in the third
+section, but it still moves with a cautious and prelusive air, as if
+anxious not to launch out too soon. And this was evidently prudent, for
+when the fourth section opens, direct exhortation to the audience has
+again become necessary:
+
+  Maintenant, seigneurs, écoutez ce que dit l'Écriture.
+
+And once more in the fifth section:
+
+  Barons, écoutez un excellent couplet.
+
+In the sixth, the jongleur is getting desperate:
+
+  Seigneurs, pour l'amour de Dieu, faites silence, écoutez-moi,
+  Pour qu'en partant de ce monde vous entriez dans un meilleur;
+
+but after this exclamation he has his way, though the story proper is
+still a good way off. Perhaps not all of these hortatory stanzas were
+commonly used; any or all of them could certainly be omitted without
+damaging the poem. But they were there to be used, according to the
+judgment of the jongleur and the temper of his audience, and their
+presence in the poem is very suggestive of the special difficulties in
+the art of rhapsodic poetry.
+
+But the gravest difficulty, and perhaps the most important, in poetry
+meant solely for recitation, is the difficulty of achieving verbal
+beauty, or rather of making verbal beauty tell. Vigorous but controlled
+imagination, formative power, insight into the significance of
+things--these are qualities which a poet must eminently possess; but
+these are qualities which may also be eminently possessed by men who
+cannot claim the title of poet. The real differentia of the poet is his
+command over the secret magic of words. Others may have as delighted a
+sense of this magic, but it is only the poet who can master it and do
+what he likes with it. And next to the invention of speaking itself, the
+most important invention for the poet has been the invention of writing
+and reading; for this has added immensely to the scope of his mastery
+over words. No poet will ever take the written word as a substitute for
+the spoken word; he knows that it is on the spoken word, and the spoken
+word only, that his art is founded. But he trusts his reader to do as he
+himself does--to receive written words always as the code of spoken
+words. To do so has wonderfully enlarged his technical opportunities;
+for apprehension is quicker and finer through the eye than through the
+ear. After the invention of reading, even poetry designed primarily for
+declamation (like drama or lyric) has depths and subtleties of art which
+were not possible for the primitive poet. Accordingly we find that, on
+the whole, in comparison with "literary" epic, the texture of
+"authentic" epic is flat and dull. The story may be superb, and its
+management may be superb; but the words in which the story lives do not
+come near the grandeur of Milton, or the exquisiteness of Virgil, or the
+deliciousness of Tasso. Indeed, if we are to say what is the real
+difference between _Beowulf_ and _Paradise Lost_, we must simply say
+that _Beowulf_ is not such good poetry. There is, of course, one
+tremendous exception; Homer is the one poet of authentic epic who had
+sufficient genius to make unfailingly, nobly beautiful poetry within the
+strict and hard conditions of purely auricular art. Compare Homer's
+ambrosial glory with the descent tap-water of Hesiod; compare his
+continuous burnished gleam of wrought metal with the sparse grains that
+lie in the sandy diction of all the "authentic" epics of the other
+nations. And, by all ancient accounts, the other early Greek epics would
+not fare much better in the comparison. Homer's singularity in this
+respect is overwhelming; but it is frequently forgotten, and especially
+by those who think to help in the Homeric question by comparing him with
+other "authentic" epics. Supposing (we can only just suppose it) a case
+were made out for the growth rather than the individual authorship of
+some "authentic" epic other than Homer; it could never have any bearing
+on the question of Homeric authorship, because no early epic is
+comparable with the _poetry_ of Homer. Nothing, indeed, is comparable
+with the poetry of Homer, except poetry for whose individual authorship
+history unmistakably vouches.
+
+So we cannot say that Homer was not as deliberate a craftsman in words
+as Milton himself. The scope of his craft was more restricted, as his
+repetitions and stock epithets show; he was restricted by the fact that
+he composed for recitation, and the auricular appreciation of diction is
+limited, the nature of poetry obeying, in the main, the nature of those
+for whom it is composed. But this is just a case in which genius
+transcends technical scope. The effects Homer produced with his methods
+were as great as any effects produced by later and more elaborate
+methods, after poetry began to be read as well as heard. But neither
+must we say that the other poets of "authentic" epic were not deliberate
+craftsmen in words. Poets will always get as much beauty out of words as
+they can. The fact that so often in the early epics a magnificent
+subject is told, on the whole, in a lumpish and tedious diction, is not
+to be explained by any contempt for careful art, as though it were a
+thing unworthy of such heroic singers; it is simply to be explained by
+lack of such genius as is capable of transcending the severe limitations
+of auricular poetry. And we may well believe that only the rarest and
+most potent kind of genius could transcend such limitations.
+
+In summary, then, we find certain conceptual differences and certain
+mechanical differences between "authentic" and "literary" epic. But
+these are not such as to enable us to say that there is, artistically,
+any real difference between the two kinds. Rather, the differences
+exhibit the changes we might expect in an art that has kept up with
+consciousness developing, and civilization becoming more intricate.
+"Literary" epic is as close to its subject as "authentic"; but, as a
+general rule, "authentic" epic, in response to its surrounding needs,
+has a simple and concrete subject, and the closeness of the poet to this
+is therefore more obvious than in "literary" epic, which (again in
+response to surrounding needs) has been driven to take for subject some
+great abstract idea and display this in a concrete but only ostensible
+subject. Then in craftsmanship, the two kinds of epic are equally
+deliberate, equally concerned with careful art; but "literary" epic has
+been able to take such advantage of the habit of reading that, with the
+single exception of Homer, it has achieved a diction much more
+answerable to the greatness of epic matter than the "authentic" poems.
+We may, then, in a general survey, regard epic poetry as being in all
+ages essentially the same kind of art, fulfilling always a similar,
+though constantly developing, intention. Whatever sort of society he
+lives in, whether he be surrounded by illiterate heroism or placid
+culture, the epic poet has a definite function to perform. We see him
+accepting, and with his genius transfiguring, the general circumstance
+of his time; we see him symbolizing, in some appropriate form, whatever
+sense of the significance of life he feels acting as the accepted
+unconscious metaphysic of his age. To do this, he takes some great story
+which has been absorbed into the prevailing consciousness of his people.
+As a rule, though not quite invariably, the story will be of things
+which are, or seem, so far back in the past, that anything may credibly
+happen in it; so imagination has its freedom, and so significance is
+displayed. But quite invariably, the materials of the story will have an
+unmistakable air of actuality; that is, they come profoundly out of
+human experience, whether they declare legendary heroism, as in Homer
+and Virgil, or myth, as in _Beowulf_ and _Paradise Lost_, or actual
+history, as in Lucan and Camoens and Tasso. And he sets out this story
+and its significance in poetry as lofty and as elaborate as he can
+compass. That, roughly, is what we see the epic poets doing, whether
+they be "literary" or "authentic"; and if this can be agreed on, we
+should now have come tolerably close to a definition of epic poetry.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 4: From the version of the Marquise de Sainte-Aulaire.]
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+THE NATURE OF EPIC
+
+Rigid definitions in literature are, however, dangerous. At bottom, it
+is what we feel, not what we think, that makes us put certain poems
+together and apart from others; and feelings cannot be defined, but only
+related. If we define a poem, we say what we think about it; and that
+may not sufficiently imply the essential thing the poem does for us.
+Hence the definition is liable either to be too strict, or to admit work
+which does not properly satisfy the criterion of feeling. It seems
+probable that, in the last resort, classification in literature rests on
+that least tangible, least definable matter, style; for style is the
+sign of the poem's spirit, and it is the spirit that we feel. If we can
+get some notion of how those poems, which we call epic, agree with one
+another in style, it is likely we shall be as close as may be to a
+definition of epic. I use the word "style," of course, in its largest
+sense--manner of conception as well as manner of composition.
+
+An easy way to define epic, though not a very profitable way, would be
+to say simply, that an epic is a poem which produces feelings similar to
+those produced by _Paradise Lost_ or the _Iliad_, _Beowulf_ or the _Song
+of Roland_. Indeed, you might include all the epics of Europe in this
+definition without losing your breath; for the epic poet is the rarest
+kind of artist. And while it is not a simple matter to say off-hand what
+it is that is common to all these poems, there seems to be general
+acknowledgment that they are clearly separable from other kinds of
+poetry; and this although the word epic has been rather badly abused.
+For instance, _The Faery Queene_ and _La Divina Commedia_ have been
+called epic poems; but I do not think that anyone could fail to admit,
+on a little pressure, that the experience of reading _The Faery Queene_
+or _La Divina Commedia_ is not in the least like the experience of
+reading _Paradise Lost_ or the _Iliad_. But as a poem may have lyrical
+qualities without being a lyric, so a poem may have epical qualities
+without being an epic. In all the poems which the world has agreed to
+call epics, there is a story told, and well told. But Dante's poem
+attempts no story at all, and Spenser's, though it attempts several,
+does not tell them well--it scarcely attempts to make the reader believe
+in them, being much more concerned with the decoration and the
+implication of its fables than with the fables themselves. What epic
+quality, detached from epic proper, do these poems possess, then, apart
+from the mere fact that they take up a great many pages? It is simply a
+question of their style--the style of their conception and the style of
+their writing; the whole style of their imagination, in fact. They take
+us into a region in which nothing happens that is not deeply
+significant; a dominant, noticeably symbolic, purpose presides over each
+poem, moulds it greatly and informs it throughout.
+
+This takes us some little way towards deciding the nature of epic. It
+must be a story, and the story must be told well and greatly; and,
+whether in the story itself or in the telling of it, significance must
+be implied. Does that mean that the epic must be allegorical? Many have
+thought so; even Homer has been accused of constructing allegories. But
+this is only a crude way of emphasizing the significance of epic; and
+there is a vast deal of difference between a significant story and an
+allegorical story. Reality of substance is a thing on which epic poetry
+must always be able to rely. Not only because Spenser does not tell his
+stories very well, but even more because their substance (not, of
+course, their meaning) is deliciously and deliberately unreal, _The
+Faery Queene_ is outside the strict sense of the word epic. Allegory
+requires material ingeniously manipulated and fantastic; what is more
+important, it requires material invented by the poet himself. That is a
+long way from the solid reality of material which epic requires. Not
+manipulation, but imaginative transfiguration of material; not
+invention, but selection of existing material appropriate to his genius,
+and complete absorption of it into his being; that is how the epic poet
+works. Allegory is a beautiful way of inculcating and asserting some
+special significance in life; but epic has a severer task, and a more
+impressive one. It has not to say, Life in the world _ought_ to mean
+this or that; it has to show life unmistakably _being_ significant. It
+does not gloss or interpret the fact of life, but re-creates it and
+charges the fact itself with the poet's own sense of ultimate values.
+This will be less precise than the definite assertions of allegory; but
+for that reason it will be more deeply felt. The values will be
+emotional and spiritual rather than intellectual. And they will be the
+poet's own only because he has made them part of his being; in him
+(though he probably does not know it) they will be representative of the
+best and most characteristic life of his time. That does not mean that
+the epic poet's image of life's significance is of merely contemporary
+or transient importance. No stage through which the general
+consciousness of men has gone can ever be outgrown by men; whatever
+happens afterwards does not displace it, but includes it. We could not
+do without _Paradise Lost_ nowadays; but neither can we do without the
+_Iliad_. It would not, perhaps, be far from the truth, if it were even
+said that the significance of _Paradise Lost_ cannot be properly
+understood unless the significance of the _Iliad_ be understood.
+
+The prime material of the epic poet, then, must be real and not
+invented. But when the story of the poem is safely concerned with some
+reality, he can, of course, graft on this as much appropriate invention
+as he pleases; it will be one of his ways of elaborating his main,
+unifying purpose--and to call it "unifying" is to assume that, however
+brilliant his surrounding invention may be, the purpose will always be
+firmly implicit in the central subject. Some of the early epics manage
+to do without any conspicuous added invention designed to extend what
+the main subject intends; but such nobly simple, forthright narrative as
+_Beowulf_ and the _Song of Roland_ would not do for a purpose slightly
+more subtle than what the makers of these ringing poems had in mind. The
+reality of the central subject is, of course, to be understood broadly.
+It means that the story must be founded deep in the general experience
+of men. A decisive campaign is not, for the epic poet, any more real
+than a legend full of human truth. All that the name of Caesar suggests
+is extremely important for mankind; so is all that the name of Satan
+suggests: Satan, in this sense, is as real as Caesar. And, as far as
+reality is concerned, there is nothing to choose between the Christians
+taking Jerusalem and the Greeks taking Troy; nor between Odysseus
+sailing into fairyland and Vasco da Gama sailing round the world. It is
+certainly possible that a poet might devise a story of such a kind that
+we could easily take it as something which might have been a real human
+experience. But that is not enough for the epic poet. He needs something
+which everyone knows about, something which indisputably, and
+admittedly, _has been_ a human experience; and even Grendel, the fiend
+of the marshes, was, we can clearly see, for the poet of _Beowulf_ a
+figure profoundly and generally accepted as not only true but real;
+what, indeed, can be more real for poetry than a devouring fiend which
+lives in pestilent fens? And the reason why epic poetry so imperiously
+demands reality of subject is clear; it is because such poetry has
+symbolically to re-create the actual fact and the actual particulars of
+human existence in terms of a general significance--the reader must feel
+that life itself has submitted to plastic imagination. No fiction will
+ever have the air, so necessary for this epic symbolism, not merely of
+representing, but of unmistakably _being_, human experience. This might
+suggest that history would be the thing for an epic poet; and so it
+would be, if history were superior to legend in poetic reality. But,
+simply as substance, there is nothing to choose between them; while
+history has the obvious disadvantage of being commonly too strict in the
+manner of its events to allow of creative freedom. Its details will
+probably be so well known, that any modification of them will draw more
+attention to discrepancy with the records than to achievement thereby of
+poetic purpose. And yet modification, or at least suppression and
+exaggeration, of the details of history will certainly be necessary. Not
+to declare what happened, and the results of what happened, is the
+object of an epic; but to accept all this as the mere material in which
+a single artistic purpose, a unique, vital symbolism may be shaped. And
+if legend, after passing for innumerable years through popular
+imagination, still requires to be shaped at the hands of the epic poet,
+how much more must the crude events of history require this! For it is
+not in events as they happen, however notably, that man may see symbols
+of vital destiny, but in events as they are transformed by plastic
+imagination.
+
+Yet it has been possible to use history as the material of great epic
+poetry; Camoens and Tasso did this--the chief subject of the _Lusiads_
+is even contemporary history. But evidently success in these cases was
+due to the exceptional and fortunate fact that the fixed notorieties of
+history were combined with a strange and mysterious geography. The
+remoteness and, one might say, the romantic possibilities of the places
+into which Camoens and Tasso were led by their themes, enable
+imagination to deal pretty freely with history. But in a little more
+than ten years after Camoens glorified Portugal in an historical epic,
+Don Alonso de Ercilla tried to do the same for Spain. He puts his action
+far enough from home: the Spaniards are conquering Chili. But the world
+has grown smaller and more familiar in the interval: the astonishing
+things that could easily happen in the seas of Madagascar cannot now
+conveniently happen in Chili. The _Araucana_ is versified history, not
+epic. That is to say, the action has no deeper significance than any
+other actual warfare; it has not been, and could not have been, shaped
+to any symbolic purpose. Long before Tasso and Camoens and Ercilla, two
+Scotchmen had attempted to put patriotism into epic form; Barbour had
+written his _Bruce_ and Blind Harry his _Wallace_. But what with the
+nearness of their events, and what with the rusticity of their authors,
+these tolerable, ambling poems are quite unable to get the better of the
+hardness of history. Probably the boldest attempt to make epic of
+well-known, documented history is Lucan's _Pharsalia_. It is a brilliant
+performance, and a deliberate effort to carry on the development of
+epic. At the very least it has enriched the thought of humanity with
+some imperishable lines. But it is true, what the great critic said of
+it: the _Pharsalia_ partakes more of the nature of oratory than of
+poetry. It means that Lucan, in choosing history, chose something which
+he had to declaim about, something which, at best, he could
+imaginatively realize; but not something which he could imaginatively
+re-create. It is quite different with poems like the _Song of Roland_.
+They are composed in, or are drawn immediately out of, an heroic age; an
+age, that is to say, when the idea of history has not arisen, when
+anything that happens turns inevitably, and in a surprisingly short
+time, into legend. Thus, an unimportant, probably unpunished, attack by
+Basque mountaineers on the Emperor's rear-guard has become, in the _Song
+of Roland_, a great infamy of Saracenic treachery, which must be greatly
+avenged.
+
+Such, in a broad description, is the nature of epic poetry. To define it
+with any narrower nicety would probably be rash. We have not been
+discovering what an epic poem ought to be, but roughly examining what
+similarity of quality there is in all those poems which we feel,
+strictly attending to the emotional experience of reading them, can be
+classed together and, for convenience, termed epic. But it is not much
+good having a name for this species of poetry if it is given as well to
+poems of quite a different nature. It is not much good agreeing to call
+by the name of epic such poems as the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_,
+_Beowulf_ and the _Song of Roland_, _Paradise Lost_ and _Gerusalemme
+Liberata_, if epic is also to be the title for _The Faery Queene_ and
+_La Divina Commedia_, _The Idylls of the King_ and _The Ring and the
+Book_. But I believe most of the importance in the meaning of the word
+epic, when it is reasonably used, will be found in what is written
+above. Apart from the specific form of epic, it shares much of its
+ultimate intention with the greatest kind of drama (though not with all
+drama). And just as drama, whatever grandeur of purpose it may attempt,
+must be a good play, so epic must be a good story. It will tell its tale
+both largely and intensely, and the diction will be carried on the
+volume of a powerful, flowing metre. To distinguish, however, between
+merely narrative poetry, and poetry which goes beyond being mere
+narrative into the being of epic, must often be left to feeling which
+can scarcely be precisely analysed. A curious instance of the
+difficulty in exactly defining epic (but not in exactly deciding what is
+epic) may be found in the work of William Morris. Morris left two long
+narrative poems, _The Life and Death of Jason_, and _The Story of Sigurd
+the Volsung_.
+
+I do not think anyone need hesitate to put _Sigurd_ among the epics; but
+I do not think anyone who will scrupulously compare the experience of
+reading _Jason_ with the experience of reading _Sigurd_, can help
+agreeing that _Jason_ should be kept out of the epics. There is nothing
+to choose between the subjects of the two poems. For an Englishman,
+Greek mythology means as much as the mythology of the North. And I
+should say that the bright, exact diction and the modest metre of
+_Jason_ are more interesting and attractive than the diction, often
+monotonous and vague, and the metre, often clumsily vehement, of
+_Sigurd_. Yet for all that it is the style of _Sigurd_ that puts it with
+the epics and apart from _Jason_; for style goes beyond metre and
+diction, beyond execution, into conception. The whole imagination of
+_Sigurd_ is incomparably larger than that of _Jason_. In _Sigurd_, you
+feel that the fashioning grasp of imagination has not only seized on the
+show of things, and not only on the physical or moral unity of things,
+but has somehow brought into the midst of all this, and has kneaded into
+the texture of it all, something of the ultimate and metaphysical
+significance of life. You scarcely feel that in _Jason_.
+
+Yes, epic poetry must be an affair of evident largeness. It was well
+said, that "the praise of an epic poem is to feign a person exceeding
+Nature." "Feign" here means to imagine; and imagine does not mean to
+invent. But, like most of the numerous epigrams that have been made
+about epic poetry, the remark does not describe the nature of epic, but
+rather one of the conspicuous signs that that nature is fulfilling
+itself. A poem which is, in some sort, a summation for its time of the
+values of life, will inevitably concern itself with at least one figure,
+and probably with several, in whom the whole virtue, and perhaps also
+the whole failure, of living seems superhumanly concentrated. A story
+weighted with the epic purpose could not proceed at all, unless it were
+expressed in persons big enough to support it. The subject, then, as the
+epic poet uses it, will obviously be an important one. Whether, apart
+from the way the poet uses it, the subject ought to be an important one,
+would not start a very profitable discussion. Homer has been praised for
+making, in the _Iliad_, a first-rate poem out of a second-rate subject.
+It is a neat saying; but it seems unlikely that anything really
+second-rate should turn into first-rate epic. I imagine Homer would have
+been considerably surprised, if anyone had told him that the vast train
+of tragic events caused by the gross and insupportable insult put by
+Agamemnon, the mean mind in authority, on Achilles, the typical
+hero--that this noble and profoundly human theme was a second-rate
+subject. At any rate, the subject must be of capital importance in its
+treatment. It must symbolize--not as a particular and separable
+assertion, but at large and generally--some great aspect of vital
+destiny, without losing the air of recording some accepted reality of
+human experience, and without failing to be a good story; and the
+pressure of high purpose will inform diction and metre, as far, at
+least, as the poet's verbal art will let it.
+
+The usual attempts at stricter definition of epic than anything this
+chapter contains, are either, in spite of what they try for, so vague
+that they would admit almost any long stretch of narrative poetry; or
+else they are based on the accidents or devices of epic art; and in that
+case they are apt to exclude work which is essentially epic because
+something inessential is lacking. It has, for instance, been seriously
+debated, whether an epic should not contain a catalogue of heroes. Other
+things, which epics have been required to contain, besides much that is
+not worth mentioning,[5] are a descent into hell and some supernatural
+machinery. Both of these are obviously devices for enlarging the scope
+of the action. The notion of a visit to the ghosts has fascinated many
+poets, and Dante elaborated this Homeric device into the main scheme of
+the greatest of non-epical poems, as Milton elaborated the other
+Homeric device into the main scheme of the greatest of literary epics.
+But a visit to the ghosts is, of course, like games or single combat or
+a set debate, merely an incident which may or may not be useful.
+Supernatural machinery, however, is worth some short discussion here,
+though it must be alluded to further in the sequel. The first and
+obvious thing to remark is, that an unquestionably epic effect can be
+given without any supernatural machinery at all. The poet of _Beowulf_
+has no need of it, for instance. A Christian redactor has worked over
+the poem, with more piety than skill; he can always be detected, and his
+clumsy little interjections have nothing to do with the general tenour
+of the poem. The human world ends off, as it were, precipitously; and
+beyond there is an endless, impracticable abyss in which dwells the
+secret governance of things, an unknowable and implacable
+fate--"Wyrd"--neither malign nor benevolent, but simply inscrutable. The
+peculiar cast of noble and desolate courage which this bleak conception
+gives to the poem is perhaps unique among the epics.
+
+But very few epic poets have ventured to do without supernatural
+machinery of some sort. And it is plain that it must greatly assist the
+epic purpose to surround the action with immortals who are not only
+interested spectators of the event, but are deeply implicated in it;
+nothing could more certainly liberate, or at least more appropriately
+decorate, the significant force of the subject. We may leave Milton out,
+for there can be no question about _Paradise Lost_ here; the
+significance of the subject is not only liberated by, it entirely exists
+in, the supernatural machinery. But with the other epic poets, we should
+certainly expect them to ask us for our belief in their immortals. That,
+however, is just what they seem curiously careless of doing. The
+immortals are there, they are the occasion of splendid poetry; they do
+what they are intended to do--they declare, namely, by their speech and
+their action, the importance to the world of what is going on in the
+poem. Only--there is no obligation to believe in them; and will not that
+mean, no obligation to believe in their concern for the subject, and all
+that that implies? Homer begins this paradox. Think of that lovely and
+exquisitely mischievous passage in the _Iliad_ called _The Cheating of
+Zeus_. The salvationist school of commentators calls this an
+interpolation; but the spirit of it is implicit throughout the whole of
+Homer's dealing with the gods; whenever, at least, he deals with them at
+length, and not merely incidentally. Not to accept that spirit is not to
+accept Homer. The manner of describing the Olympian family at the end of
+the first book is quite continuous throughout, and simply reaches its
+climax in the fourteenth book. Nobody ever believed in Homer's gods, as
+he must believe in Hektor and Achilles. (Puritans like Xenophanes were
+annoyed not with the gods for being as Homer described them, but with
+Homer for describing them as he did.) Virgil is more decorous; but can
+we imagine Virgil praying, or anybody praying, to the gods of the
+_Aeneid_? The supernatural machinery of Camoens and Tasso is frankly
+absurd; they are not only careless of credibility, but of sanity. Lucan
+tried to do without gods; but his witchcraft engages belief even more
+faintly than the mingled Paganism and Christianity of Camoens, and
+merely shows how strongly the most rationalistic of epic poets felt the
+value of some imaginary relaxation in the limits of human existence. Is
+it, then, only as such a relaxation that supernatural machinery is
+valuable? Or only as a superlative kind of ornament? It is surely more
+than that. In spite of the fact that we are not seriously asked to
+believe in it, it does beautifully and strikingly crystallize the poet's
+determination to show us things that go past the reach of common
+knowledge. But by putting it, whether instinctively or deliberately, on
+a lower plane of credibility than the main action, the poet obeys his
+deepest and gravest necessity: the necessity of keeping his poem
+emphatically an affair of recognizable _human_ events. It is of man, and
+man's purpose in the world, that the epic poet has to sing; not of the
+purpose of gods. The gods must only illustrate man's destiny; and they
+must be kept within the bounds of beautiful illustration. But it
+requires a finer genius than most epic poets have possessed, to keep
+supernatural machinery just sufficiently fanciful without missing its
+function. Perhaps only Homer and Virgil have done that perfectly.
+Milton's revolutionary development marks a crisis in the general process
+of epic so important, that it can only be discussed when that process is
+considered, in the following chapter, as a whole.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 5: Such as similes and episodes. It is as if a man were to
+say, the essential thing about a bridge is that it should be painted.]
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+THE EPIC SERIES
+
+By the general process of epic poetry, I mean the way this form of art
+has constantly responded to the profound needs of the society in which
+it was made. But the development of human society does not go straight
+forward; and the epic process will therefore be a recurring process, the
+series a recurring series--though not in exact repetition. Thus, the
+Homeric poems, the _Argonautica_, the _Aeneid_, the _Pharsalia_, and the
+later Latin epics, form one series: the _Aeneid_ would be the climax of
+the series, which thence declines, were it not that the whole originates
+with the incomparable genius of Homer--a fact which makes it seem to
+decline from start to finish. Then the process begins again, and again
+fulfils itself, in the series which goes from _Beowulf_, the _Song of
+Roland_, and the _Nibelungenlied_, through Camoens and Tasso up to
+Milton. And in this case Milton is plainly the climax. There is nothing
+like _Paradise Lost_ in the preceding poems, and epic poetry has done
+nothing since but decline from that towering glory.
+
+But it will be convenient not to make too much of chronology, in a
+general account of epic development. It has already appeared that the
+duties of all "authentic" epic are broadly the same, and the poems of
+this kind, though two thousand years may separate their occurrence, may
+be properly brought together as varieties of one sub-species. "Literary"
+epic differs much more in the specific purpose of its art, as civilized
+societies differ much more than heroic, and also as the looser _milieu_
+of a civilization allows a less strictly traditional exercise of
+personal genius than an heroic age. Still, it does not require any
+manipulation to combine the "literary" epics from both series into a
+single process. Indeed, if we take Homer, Virgil and Milton as the
+outstanding events in the whole progress of epic poetry, and group the
+less important poems appropriately round these three names, we shall not
+be far from the _ideal truth_ of epic development. We might say, then,
+that Homer begins the whole business of epic, imperishably fixes its
+type and, in a way that can never be questioned, declares its artistic
+purpose; Virgil perfects the type; and Milton perfects the purpose.
+Three such poets are not, heaven knows, summed up in a phrase; I mean
+merely to indicate how they are related one to another in the general
+scheme of epic poetry. For discriminating their merits, deciding their
+comparative eminence, I have no inclination; and fortunately it does not
+come within the requirements of this essay. Indeed, I think the reader
+will easily excuse me, if I touch very slightly on the poetic manner, in
+the common and narrow sense, of the poets whom I shall have to mention;
+since these qualities have been so often and sometimes so admirably
+dealt with. It is at the broader aspects of artistic purpose that I wish
+to look.
+
+"From Homer," said Goethe, "I learn every day more clearly, that in our
+life here above ground we have, properly speaking, to enact Hell." It is
+rather a startling sentence at first. That poetry which, for us, in
+Thoreau's excellent words, "lies in the east of literature," scarcely
+suggests, in the usual opinion of it, Hell. We are tempted to think of
+Homer as the most fortunate of poets. It seems as if he had but to open
+his mouth and speak, to create divine poetry; and it does not lessen our
+sense of his good fortune when, on looking a little closer, we see that
+this is really the result of an unerring and unfailing art, an
+extraordinarily skilful technique. He had it entirely at his command;
+and he exercised it in a language in which, though it may be singularly
+artificial and conventional, we can still feel the wonder of its
+sensuous beauty and the splendour of its expressive power. It is a
+language that seems alive with eagerness to respond to imagination. Open
+Homer anywhere, and the casual grandeur of his untranslatable language
+appears; such lines as:
+
+    amphi de naees
+  smerdaleon konabaesan ausanton hup' Achaion.[6]
+
+That, you might say, is Homer at his ease; when he exerts himself you
+get a miracle like:
+
+    su den strophalingi koniaes
+  keiso megas megalosti, lelasmenos hipposunaon.[7]
+
+It seems the art of one who walked through the world of things endowed
+with the senses of a god, and able, with that perfection of effort that
+looks as if it were effortless, to fashion his experience into
+incorruptible song; whether it be the dance of flies round a byre at
+milking-time, or a forest-fire on the mountains at night. The shape and
+clamour of waves breaking on the beach in a storm is as irresistibly
+recorded by Homer as the gleaming flowers which earth put forth to be
+the bed of Zeus and Hera in Gargaros, when a golden cloud was their
+coverlet, and Sleep sat on a pine tree near by in the likeness of a
+murmuring night-jar. It is an art so balanced, that when it tells us,
+with no special emphasis, how the Trojans came on with a din like the
+clangour of a flock of cranes, but the Achaians came on in silence, the
+temper of the two hosts is discriminated for the whole poem; or, in the
+supreme instance, when it tells us how the old men looked at Helen and
+said, "No wonder the young men fight for her!" then Helen's beauty must
+be accepted by the faith of all the world. The particulars of such
+poetry could be enumerated for pages; and this is the poetry which is
+filled, more than any other literature, in the _Iliad_ with the nobility
+of men and women, in the _Odyssey_ with the light of natural magic. And
+think of those gods of Homer's; he is the one poet who has been able to
+make the dark terrors of religion beautiful, harmless and quietly
+entertaining. It is easy to read this poetry and simply _enjoy_ it; it
+is easy to say, the man whose spirit held this poetry must have been
+divinely happy. But this is the poetry whence Goethe learnt that the
+function of man is "to enact Hell."
+
+Goethe is profoundly right; though possibly he puts it in a way to which
+Homer himself might have demurred. For the phrase inevitably has its
+point in the word "Hell"; Homer, we may suppose, would have preferred
+the point to come in the word "enact." In any case, the details of
+Christian eschatology must not engage us much in interpreting Goethe's
+epigram. There is truth in it, not simply because the two poems take
+place in a theatre of calamity; not simply, for instance, because of the
+beloved Hektor's terrible agony of death, and the woes of Andromache and
+Priam. Such things are the partial, incidental expressions of the whole
+artistic purpose. Still less is it because of a strain of latent
+savagery in, at any rate, the _Iliad_; as when the sage and reverend
+Nestor urges that not one of the Greeks should go home until he has lain
+with the wife of a slaughtered Trojan, or as in the tremendous words of
+the oath: "Whoever first offend against this oath, may their brains be
+poured out on the ground like this wine, their own and their children's,
+and may their wives be made subject to strangers." All that is one of
+the accidental qualities of Homer. But the force of the word "enact" in
+Goethe's epigram will certainly come home to us when we think of those
+famous speeches in which courage is unforgettably declared--such
+speeches as that of Sarpedon to Glaukos, or of Glaukos to Diomedes, or
+of Hektor at his parting with Andromache. What these speeches mean,
+however, in the whole artistic purpose of Homer, will assuredly be
+missed if they are _detached_ for consideration; especially we shall
+miss the deep significance of the fact that in all of these speeches the
+substantial thought falls, as it were, into two clauses. Courage is in
+the one clause, a deliberate facing of death; but something equally
+important is in the other. Is it honour? The Homeric hero makes a great
+deal of honour; but it is honour paid to himself, living; what he wants
+above everything is to be admired--"always to be the best"; that is what
+true heroism is. But he is to go where he knows death will strike at
+him; and he does not make much of honour after death; for him, the
+meanest man living is better than a dead hero. Death ends everything, as
+far as he is concerned, honour and all; his courage looks for no reward
+hereafter. No; but _since_ ten thousand fates of death are always
+instant round us; _since_ the generations of men are of no more account
+than leaves of a tree; _since_ Troy and all its people will soon be
+destroyed--he will stand in death's way. Sarpedon emphasizes this with
+its converse: There would be no need of daring and fighting, he says,
+of "man-ennobling battle," if we could be for ever ageless and
+deathless. That is the heroic age; any other would say, If only we could
+not be killed, how pleasant to run what might have been risks! For the
+hero, that would simply not be worth while. Does he find them pleasant,
+then, just because they are risky? Not quite; that, again, is to detach
+part of the meaning from the whole. If anywhere, we shall, perhaps, find
+the whole meaning of Homer most clearly indicated in such words as those
+given (without any enforcement) to Achilles and Thetis near the
+beginning of the _Iliad_, as if to sound the pitch of Homer's poetry:
+
+  mêter, hepi m hetekes ge minynthadion per heonta,
+  timên per moi hophellen Olympios engyalixai
+  Zeus hypsibremetês.[8]
+       *       *       *       *       *
+  timêson moi yion hos hôkymorôtatos hallon
+  heplet'.[9]
+
+Minunthadion--hôkymorôtatos: those are the imporportant words;
+key-words, they might be called. If we really understand these lines, if
+we see in them what it is that Agamemnon's insult has deprived Achilles
+of--the sign and acknowledgment of his fellows' admiration while he is
+still living among them, the one thing which makes a hero's life worth
+living, which enables him to enact his Hell--we shall scarcely complain
+that the _Iliad_ is composed on a second-rate subject. The significance
+of the poem is not in the incidents surrounding the "Achilleis"; the
+whole significance is centred in the Wrath of Achilles, and thence made
+to impregnate every part.
+
+Life is short; we must make the best of it. How trite that sounds! But
+it is not trite at all really. It seems difficult, sometimes, to believe
+that there was a time when sentiments now become habitual, sentiments
+that imply not only the original imperative of conduct, but the original
+metaphysic of living, were by no means altogether habitual. It is
+difficult to imagine backwards into the time when self-consciousness was
+still so fresh from its emergence out of the mere tribal consciousness
+of savagery, that it must not only accept the fact, but first intensely
+_realize_, that man is hôkymorôtatos--a thing of swiftest doom. And it
+was for men who were able, and forced, to do that, that the _Iliad_ and
+the _Odyssey_ and the other early epics were composed. But life is not
+only short; it is, in itself, _valueless_. "As the generation of leaves,
+so is the generation of men." The life of man matters to nobody but
+himself. It happens incidentally in universal destiny; but beyond just
+happening it has no function. No function, of course, except for man
+himself. If man is to find any value in life it is he himself that must
+create the value. For the sense of the ultimate uselessness of life, of
+the blankness of imperturbable darkness that surrounds it, Goethe's word
+"Hell" is not too shocking. But no one has properly lived who has not
+felt this Hell; and we may easily believe that in an heroic age, the
+intensity of this feeling was the secret of the intensity of living. For
+where will the primitive instinct of man, where will the hero, find the
+chance of creating a value for life? In danger, and in the courage that
+welcomes danger. That not only evaluates life; it derives the value from
+the very fact that forces man to create value--the fact of his swift and
+instant doom--hôkymorôtatos once more; it makes this dreadful fact
+_enjoyable_. And so, with courage as the value of life, and man thence
+delightedly accepting whatever can be made of his passage, the doom of
+life is not simply suffered; man enacts his own life; he has mastered
+it.
+
+We need not say that this is the lesson of Homer. And all this, barely
+stated, is a very different matter from what it is when it is poetically
+symbolized in the vast and shapely substance of the _Iliad_ and the
+_Odyssey_. It is quite possible, of course, to appreciate, pleasantly
+and externally, the _Iliad_ with its pressure of thronging life and its
+daring unity, and the _Odyssey_ with its serener life and its superb
+construction, though much more sectional unity. But we do not appreciate
+what Homer did for his time, and is still doing for all the world, we do
+not appreciate the spirit of his music, unless we see the warfare and
+the adventure as symbols of the primary courage of life; and there is
+more in those words than seems when they are baldly written. And it is
+not his morals, but Homer's art that does that for us. And what Homer's
+art does supremely, the other early epics do in their way too. Their way
+is not to be compared with Homer's way. They are very much nearer than
+he is to the mere epic material--to the moderate accomplishment of the
+primitive ballad. Apart from their greatness, and often successful
+greatness, of intention, perhaps the only one that has an answerable
+greatness in the detail of its technique is _Beowulf_. That is not on
+account of its "kennings"--the strange device by which early popular
+poetry (Hesiod is another instance) tries to liberate and master the
+magic of words. A good deal has been made of these "kennings"; but it
+does not take us far towards great poetry, to have the sea called
+"whale-road" or "swan-road" or "gannet's-bath"; though we are getting
+nearer to it when the sun is called "candle of the firmament" or
+"heaven's gem." On the whole, the poem is composed in an elaborate,
+ambitious diction which is not properly governed. Alliteration proves a
+somewhat dangerous principle; it seems mainly responsible for the way
+the poet makes his sentences by piling up clauses, like shooting a load
+of stones out of a cart. You cannot always make out exactly what he
+means; and it is doubtful whether he always had a clearly-thought
+meaning. Most of the subsidiary matter is foisted in with monstrous
+clumsiness. Yet _Beowulf_ has what we do not find, out of Homer, in the
+other early epics. It has occasionally an unforgettable grandeur of
+phrasing. And it has other and perhaps deeper poetic qualities. When the
+warriors are waiting in the haunted hall for the coming of the
+marsh-fiend Grendel, they fall into untroubled sleep; and the poet adds,
+with Homeric restraint: "Not one of them thought that he should thence
+be ever seeking his loved home again, his people or free city, where he
+was nurtured." The opening is magnificent, one of the noblest things
+that have been done in language. There is some wonderful grim landscape
+in the poem; towards the middle there is a great speech on deterioration
+through prosperity, a piece of sustained intensity that reads like an
+Aeschylean chorus; and there is some admirable fighting, especially the
+fight with Grendel in the hall, and with Grendel's mother under the
+waters, while Beowulf's companions anxiously watch the troubled surface
+of the mere. The fact that the action of the poem is chiefly made of
+single combat with supernatural creatures and that there is not tapestry
+figured with radiant gods drawn between the life of men and the ultimate
+darkness, gives a peculiar and notable character to the way Beowulf
+symbolizes the primary courage of life. One would like to think, with
+some enthusiasts, that this great poem, composed in a language totally
+unintelligible to the huge majority of Englishmen--further from English
+than Latin is from Italian--and perhaps not even composed in England,
+certainly not concerned either with England or Englishmen, might
+nevertheless be called an English epic.
+
+But of course the early epics do not, any of them, merely repeat the
+significance of Homer in another form. They might do that, if poetry had
+to inculcate a moral, as some have supposed. But however nicely we may
+analyse it, we shall never find in poetry a significance which is really
+detachable, and expressible in another way. The significance _is_ the
+poetry. What _Beowulf_ or the _Iliad_ or the _Odyssey_ means is simply
+what it is in its whole nature; we can but roughly indicate it. And as
+poetry is never the same, so its significance is never quite the same.
+Courage as the first necessary value of life is most naively and simply
+expressed, perhaps, in the _Poem of the Cid_; but even here the
+expression is, as in all art, unique, and chiefly because it is
+contrived through solidly imagined characters. There is splendid
+characterization, too, in the _Song of Roland_, together with a fine
+sense of poetic form; not fine enough, however, to avoid a prodigious
+deal of conventional gag. The battling is lavish, but always exciting;
+and in, at least, that section which describes how the dying Oliver,
+blinded by weariness and wounds, mistakes Roland for a pagan and feebly
+smites him with his sword, there is real and piercing pathos. But for
+all his sense of character, the poet has very little discretion in his
+admiration of his heroes. Christianity, in these two poems, has less
+effect than one might think. The conspicuous value of life is still the
+original value, courage; but elaboration and refinement of this begin
+to appear, especially in the _Song of Roland_, as passionately conscious
+patriotism and loyalty. The chief contribution of the _Nibelungenlied_
+to the main process of epic poetry is _plot_ in narrative; a
+contribution, that is, to the manner rather than to the content of epic
+symbolism. There is something that can be called plot in Homer; but with
+him, as in all other early epics, it is of no great account compared
+with the straightforward linking of incidents into a direct chain of
+narrative. The story of the _Nibelungenlied_, however, is not a chain
+but a web. Events and the influence of characters are woven closely and
+intricately together into one tragic pattern; and this requires not only
+characterization, but also the adding to the characters of persistent
+and dominant motives.
+
+Epic poetry exhibits life in some great symbolic attitude. It cannot
+strictly be said to symbolize life itself, but always some manner of
+life. But life as courage--the turning of the dark, hard condition of
+life into something which can be exulted in--this, which is the deep
+significance of the art of the first epics, is the absolutely necessary
+foundation for any subsequent valuation of life; Man can achieve nothing
+until he has first achieved courage. And this, much more than any
+inheritance of manner, is what makes all the writers of deliberate or
+"literary" epic imply the existence of Homer. If Homer had not done his
+work, they could not have done theirs. But "literary" epics are as
+necessary as Homer. We cannot go on with courage as the solitary
+valuation of life. We must have the foundation, but we must also have
+the superstructure. Speaking comparatively, it may be said that the
+function of Homeric epic has been to create imperishable symbolism for
+the actual courageous consciousness of life, but the duty of "literary"
+epic has been to develop this function, answerably to the development of
+life itself, into symbolism of some conscious _idea_ of life--something
+at once more formalized and more subtilized than the primary virtue of
+courage. The Greeks, however, were too much overshadowed by the
+greatness of Homer to do much towards this. The _Argonautica_, the
+half-hearted epic of Apollonius Rhodius, is the only attempt that need
+concern us. It is not a poem that can be read straight through; it is
+only enjoyable in moments--moments of charming, minute observation, like
+the description of a sunbeam thrown quivering on the wall from a basin
+of water "which has just been poured out," lines not only charming in
+themselves, but finely used as a simile for Medea's agitated heart; or
+moments of romantic fantasy, as when the Argonauts see the eagle flying
+towards Prometheus, and then hear the Titan's agonized cry. But it is
+not in such passages that what Apollonius did for epic abides. A great
+deal of his third book is a real contribution to the main process, to
+epic content as well as to epic manner. To the manner of epic he added
+analytic psychology. No one will ever imagine character more deeply or
+more firmly than Homer did in, say, Achilles; but Apollonius was the man
+who showed how epic as well as drama may use the nice minutiae of
+psychological imagination. Through Virgil, this contribution to epic
+manner has pervaded subsequent literature. Apollonius, too, in his
+fumbling way, as though he did not quite know what he was doing, has yet
+done something very important for the development of epic significance.
+Love has been nothing but a subordinate incident, almost one might say
+an ornament, in the early epics; in Apollonius, though working through a
+deal of gross and lumbering mythological machinery, love becomes for the
+first time one of the primary values of life. The love of Jason and
+Medea is the vital symbolism of the _Argonautica_.
+
+But it is Virgil who really begins the development of epic art. He took
+over from Apollonius love as part of the epic symbolism of life, and
+delicate psychology as part of the epic method. And, like Apollonius, he
+used these novelties chiefly in the person of a heroine. But in Virgil
+they belong to an incomparably greater art; and it is through Virgil
+that they have become necessities of the epic tradition. More than this,
+however, was required of him. The epic poet collaborates with the spirit
+of his time in the composition of his work. That is, if he is
+successful; the time may refuse to work with him, but he may not refuse
+to work with his time. Virgil not only implies, he often clearly states,
+the original epic values of life, the Homeric values; as in the famous:
+
+  Stat sua cuique dies; breve et inreparabile tempus
+  Omnibus est vitae: sed famam extendere factis,
+  Hoc virtutis opus.[10]
+
+But to write a poem chiefly to symbolize this simple, heroic metaphysic
+would scarcely have done for Virgil; it would certainly not have done
+for his time. It was eminently a time of social organization, one might
+perhaps say of social consciousness. After Sylla and Marius and Caesar,
+life as an affair of sheer individualism would not very strongly appeal
+to a thoughtful Roman. Accordingly, as has so often been remarked, the
+_Aeneid_ celebrates the Roman Empire. A political idea does not seem a
+very likely subject for a kind of poetry which must declare greatly the
+fundamentals of living; not even when it is a political idea unequalled
+in the world, the idea of the Roman Empire. Had Virgil been a _good
+Roman_, the _Aeneid_ might have been what no doubt Augustus, and Rome
+generally, desired, a political epic. But Virgil was not a good Roman;
+there was something in him that was not Roman at all. It was this
+strange incalculable element in him that seems for ever making him
+accomplish something he had not thought of; it was surely this that made
+him, unintentionally it may be, use the idea of the Roman Empire as a
+vehicle for a much profounder valuation of life. We must remember here
+the Virgil of the Fourth Eclogue--that extraordinary, impassioned poem
+in which he dreams of man attaining to some perfection of living. It is
+still this Virgil, though saddened and resigned, who writes the
+_Aeneid_. Man creating his own destiny, man, however wearied with the
+long task of resistance, achieving some conscious community of
+aspiration, and dreaming of the perfection of himself: the poet whose
+lovely and noble art makes us a great symbol of _that_, is assuredly
+carrying on the work of Homer. This was the development in epic
+intention required to make epic poetry answer to the widening needs of
+civilization.
+
+But even more important, in the whole process of epic, than what
+Virgil's art does, is the way it does it. And this in spite of the fact
+which everyone has noticed, that Virgil does not compare with Homer as a
+poet of seafaring and warfaring. He is not, indeed, very interested in
+either; and it is unfortunate that, in managing the story of Aeneas (in
+itself an excellent medium for his symbolic purpose) he felt himself
+compelled to try for some likeness to the _Odyssey_ and the _Iliad_--to
+do by art married to study what the poet of the _Odyssey_ and the
+_Iliad_ had done by art married to intuitive experience. But his failure
+in this does not matter much in comparison with his technical success
+otherwise. Virgil showed how poetry may be made deliberately adequate to
+the epic purpose. That does not mean that Virgil is more artistic than
+Homer. Homer's redundance, wholesale repetition of lines, and stock
+epithets cannot be altogether dismissed as "faults"; they are
+characteristics of a wonderfully accomplished and efficient technique.
+But epic poetry cannot be written as Homer composed it; whereas it must
+be written something as Virgil wrote it; yes, if epic poetry is to be
+_written_, Virgil must show how that is to be done. The superb Virgilian
+economy is the thing for an epic poet now; the concision, the
+scrupulousness, the loading of every word with something appreciable of
+the whole significance. After the _Aeneid_, the epic style must be of
+this fashion:
+
+  Ibant ovscuri sola sub nocte per umbram
+  Perque domos Ditis vacuas et inania regna:
+  Quale per incertam lunam sub luce maligna
+  Est iter in silvis, ubi caelum condidit umbra
+  Jupiter, et rebus nox abstulit atra colorem.[11]
+
+Lucan is much more of a Roman than Virgil; and the _Pharsalia_, so far
+as it is not an historical epic, is a political one; the idea of
+political liberty is at the bottom of it. That is not an unworthy theme;
+and Lucan evidently felt the necessity for development in epic. But he
+made the mistake, characteristically Roman, of thinking history more
+real than legend; and, trying to lead epic in this direction,
+supernatural machinery would inevitably go too. That, perhaps, was
+fortunate, for it enabled Lucan safely to introduce one of his great and
+memorable lines:
+
+  Jupiter est quodcunque vides, quodcunque moveris;[12]
+
+which would certainly explode any supernatural machinery that could be
+invented. The _Pharsalia_ could not be anything more than an interesting
+but unsuccessful attempt; it was not on these lines that epic poetry was
+to develop. Lucan died at an age when most poets have done nothing very
+remarkable; that he already had achieved a poem like the _Pharsalia_,
+would make us think he might have gone to incredible heights, were it
+not that the mistake of the _Pharsalia_ seems to belong incurably to his
+temperament.
+
+Lucan's determined stoicism may, philosophically, be more consistent
+than the dubious stoicism of Virgil. But Virgil knew that, in epic,
+supernatural imagination is better than consistency. It was an important
+step when he made Jupiter, though a personal god, a power to which no
+limits are assigned; when he also made the other divinities but shadows,
+or, at most, functions, of Jupiter. This answers to his conviction that
+spirit universally and singly pervades matter; but, what is more, it
+answers to the needs of epic development. When we come to Tasso and
+Camoens, we seem to have gone backward in this respect; we seem to come
+upon poetry in which supernatural machinery is in a state of chronic
+insubordination. But that, too, was perhaps necessary. In comparison
+with the _Aeneid, Gerusalemme Liberata_ and _Os Lusiadas_ lack
+intellectual control and spiritual depth; but in comparison with the
+Roman, the two modern poems thrill with a new passion of life, a new
+wine of life, heady, as it seems, with new significance--a significance
+as yet only felt, not understood. Both Tasso and Camoens clearly join on
+to the main epic tradition: Tasso derives chiefly from the _Aeneid_ and
+the _Iliad_, Camoens from the _Aeneid_ and the _Odyssey_. Tasso is
+perhaps more Virgilian than Camoens; the plastic power of his
+imagination is more assured. But the advantage Camoens has over Tasso
+seems to repeat the advantage Homer has over Virgil; the ostensible
+subject of the _Lusiads_ glows with the truth of experience. But the
+real subject is behind these splendid voyagings, just as the real
+subject of Tasso is behind the battles of Christian and Saracen; and in
+both poets the inmost theme is broadly the same. It is the consciousness
+of modern Europe. _Jerusalem Delivered_ and the _Lusiads_ are drenched
+with the spirit of the Renaissance; and that is chiefly responsible for
+their lovely poetry. But they reach out towards the new Europe that was
+then just beginning. Europe making common cause against the peoples that
+are not Europe; Europe carrying her domination round the world--is that
+what Tasso and Camoens ultimately mean? It would be too hard and too
+narrow a matter by itself to make these poems what they are. No; it is
+not the action of Europe, but the spirit of European consciousness, that
+gave Tasso and Camoens their deepest inspiration. But what European
+consciousness really is, these poets rather vaguely suggest than master
+into clear and irresistible expression, into the supreme symbolism of
+perfectly adequate art. They still took European consciousness as an
+affair of geography and race rather than simply as a triumphant stage in
+the general progress of man's knowledge of himself. Their time imposed a
+duty on them; that they clearly understood. But they did not clearly
+understand what the duty was; partly, no doubt, because they were both
+strongly influenced by mediaeval religion. And so it is atmosphere, in
+Tasso and Camoens, that counts much more than substance; both poets seem
+perpetually thrilled by something they cannot express--the _non so che_
+of Tasso. And what chiefly gives this sense of quivering, uncertain
+significance to their poetry is the increase of freedom and decrease of
+control in the supernatural. Supernaturalism was emphasized, because
+they instinctively felt that this was the means epic poetry must use to
+accomplish its new duties; it was disorderly, because they did not quite
+know what use these duties required. Tasso and Camoens, for all the
+splendour and loveliness of their work, leave epic poetry, as it were,
+consciously dissatisfied--knowing that its future must achieve some
+significance larger and deeper than anything it had yet done, and
+knowing that this must be done somehow through imagined supernaturalism.
+It waited nearly a hundred years for the poet who understood exactly
+what was to be done and exactly how to do it.
+
+In _Paradise Lost_, the development of epic poetry culminates, as far as
+it has yet gone. The essential inspiration of the poem implies a
+particular sense of human existence which has not yet definitely
+appeared in the epic series, but which the process of life in Europe
+made it absolutely necessary that epic poetry should symbolize. In
+Milton, the poet arose who was supremely adequate to the greatest task
+laid on epic poetry since its beginning with Homer; Milton's task was
+perhaps even more exacting than that original one. "His work is not the
+greatest of heroic poems, only because it is not the first." The epigram
+might just as reasonably have been the other way round. But nothing
+would be more unprofitable than a discussion in which Homer and Milton
+compete for supremacy of genius. Our business here is quite otherwise.
+
+With the partial exception of Tasso and Camoens, all epic poetry before
+Milton is some symbolism of man's sense of his own will. It is simply
+this in Homer; and the succeeding poets developed this intention but
+remained well within it. Not even Virgil, with his metaphysic of
+individual merged into social will--not even Virgil went outside it. In
+fact, it is a sort of _monism_ of consciousness that inspires all
+pre-Miltonic epic. But in Milton, it has become a _dualism_. Before him,
+the primary impulse of epic is an impassioned sense of man's nature
+_being contained_--by his destiny: _his_ only because he is in it and
+belongs to it, as we say "_my_ country." With Milton, this has
+necessarily become not only a sense of man's rigorously contained
+nature, but equally a sense of that which contains man--in fact,
+simultaneously a sense of individual will and of universal necessity.
+The single sense of these two irreconcilables is what Milton's poetry
+has to symbolize. Could they be reconciled, the two elements in man's
+modern consciousness of existence would form a monism. But this
+consciousness is a dualism; its elements are absolutely opposed.
+_Paradise Lost_ is inspired by intense consciousness of the eternal
+contradiction between the general, unlimited, irresistible will of
+universal destiny, and defined individual will existing within this, and
+inexplicably capable of acting on it, even against it. Or, if that seems
+too much of an antinomy to some philosophies (and it is perhaps possible
+to make it look more apparent than real), the dualism can be unavoidably
+declared by putting it entirely in terms of consciousness: destiny
+creating within itself an existence which stands against and apart from
+destiny by being _conscious_ of it. In Milton's poetry the spirit of man
+is equally conscious of its own limited reality and of the unlimited
+reality of that which contains him and drives him with its motion--of
+his own will striving in the midst of destiny: destiny irresistible, yet
+his will unmastered.
+
+This is not to examine the development of epic poetry by looking at that
+which is not _poetry_. In this kind of art, more perhaps than in any
+other, we must ignore the wilful theories of those who would set
+boundaries to the meaning of the word poetry. In such a poem as
+Milton's, whatever is in it is its poetry; the poetry of _Paradise Lost_
+is just--_Paradise Lost_! Its pomp of divine syllables and glorious
+images is no more the poetry of Milton than the idea of man which he
+expressed. But the general manner of an art is for ever similar; it is
+its inspiration that is for ever changing. We need never expect words
+and metre to do more than they do here:
+
+          they, fondly thinking to allay
+  Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit
+  Chewed bitter ashes, which the offended taste
+  With spattering noise rejected: oft they assayed,
+  Hunger and thirst constraining; drugged as oft,
+  With hatefullest disrelish writhed their jaws,
+  With soot and cinders filled;
+
+or more than they do here:
+
+    What though the field be lost?
+  All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
+  And study of revenge, immortal hate,
+  And courage never to submit or yield,
+  And what is else not to be overcome.
+
+But what Homer's words, and perhaps what Virgil's words, set out to do,
+they do just as marvellously. There is no sure way of comparison here.
+How words do their work in poetry, and how we appreciate the way they do
+it--this seems to involve the obscurest processes of the mind: analysis
+can but fumble at it. But we can compare inspiration--the nature of the
+inmost urgent motive of poetry. And it is not irrelevant to add (it
+seems to me mere fact), that Milton had the greatest motive that has
+ever ruled a poet.
+
+For the vehicle of this motive, a fable of purely human action would
+obviously not suffice. What Milton has to express is, of course,
+altogether human; destiny is an entirely human conception. But he has to
+express not simply the sense of human existence occurring in destiny;
+that brings in destiny only mediately, through that which is destined.
+He has to express the sense of destiny immediately, at the same time as
+he expresses its opponent, the destined will of man. Destiny will appear
+in poetry as an omnipotent God; Virgil had already prepared poetry for
+that. But the action at large must clearly consist now, and for the
+first time, overwhelmingly of supernatural imagination. Milton has been
+foolishly blamed for making his supernaturalism too human. But nothing
+can come into poetry that is not shaped and recognizable; how else but
+in anthropomorphism could destiny, or (its poetic equivalent) deity,
+exist in _Paradise Lost_?
+
+We may see what a change has come over epic poetry, if we compare this
+supernatural imagination of Milton's with the supernatural machinery of
+any previous epic poet. Virgil is the most scrupulous in this respect;
+and towards the inevitable change, which Milton completed and perfected
+from Camoens and Tasso, Virgil took a great step in making Jupiter
+professedly almighty. But compare Virgil's "Tantaene animis celestibus
+irae?" with Milton's "Evil, be thou my good!" It is the difference
+between an accidental device and essential substance. That, in order to
+symbolize in epic form--that is to say, in _narrative_ form--the
+dualistic sense of destiny and the destined, and both immediately
+--Milton had to dissolve his human action completely in a
+supernatural action, is the sign not merely of a development, but of a
+re-creation, of epic art.
+
+It has been said that Satan is the hero of _Paradise Lost_. The offence
+which the remark has caused is due, no doubt, to injudicious use of the
+word "hero." It is surely the simple fact that if _Paradise Lost_ exists
+for any one figure, that is Satan; just as the _Iliad_ exists for
+Achilles, and the _Odyssey_ for Odysseus. It is in the figure of Satan
+that the imperishable significance of _Paradise Lost_ is centred; his
+vast unyielding agony symbolizes the profound antinomy of modern
+consciousness. And if this is what he is in significance it is worth
+noting what he is in technique. He is the blending of the poem's human
+plane with its supernatural plane. The epic hero has always represented
+humanity by being superhuman; in Satan he has grown into the
+supernatural. He does not thereby cease to symbolize human existence;
+but he is thereby able to symbolize simultaneously the sense of its
+irreconcilable condition, of the universal destiny that contains it. Out
+of Satan's colossal figure, the single urgency of inspiration, which
+this dualistic consciousness of existence makes, radiates through all
+the regions of Milton's vast and rigorous imagination. "Milton," says
+Landor, "even Milton rankt with living men!"
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 6: 'And all round the ships echoed terribly to the shouting
+Achaians.']
+
+[Footnote 7:
+  'When in a dusty whirlwind thou didst lie,
+    Thy valour lost, forgot thy chivalry.'--OGILBY.
+(The version leaves out megas megalosti.)
+]
+
+[Footnote 8: 'Mother, since thou didst bear me to be so short-lived,
+Olympian Zeus that thunders from on high should especially have bestowed
+honour on me.']
+
+[Footnote 9: 'Honour my son for me, for the swiftest doom of all is
+his.']
+
+[Footnote 10: "For everyone his own day is appointed; for all men the
+period of life is short and not to be recalled: but to spread glory by
+deeds, that is what valour can do."]
+
+[Footnote 11:
+  "They wer' amid the shadows by night in loneliness obscure
+  Walking forth i' the void and vasty dominyon of Ades;
+  As by an uncertain moonray secretly illumin'd
+  One goeth in the forest, when heav'n is gloomily clouded,
+  And black night hath robb'd the colours and beauty from all things."
+--ROBERT BRIDGES.
+]
+
+[Footnote 12: "All that is known, all that is felt, is God."]
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+AFTER MILTON
+
+And after Milton, what is to happen? First, briefly, for a few instances
+of what has happened. We may leave out experiments in religious
+sentiment like Klopstock's _Messiah_. We must leave out also poems which
+have something of the look of epic at first glance, but have nothing of
+the scope of epic intention; such as Scott's longer poems. These might
+resemble the "lays" out of which some people imagine "authentic" epic to
+have been made. But the lays are not the epic. Scott's poems have not
+the depth nor the definiteness of symbolic intention--what is sometimes
+called the epic unity--and this is what we can always discover in any
+poetry which gives us the peculiar experience we must associate with the
+word epic, if it is to have any precision of meaning. What applies to
+Scott, will apply still more to Byron's poems; Byron is one of the
+greatest of modern poets, but that does not make him an epic poet. We
+must keep our minds on epic intention. Shelley's _Revolt of Islam_ has
+something of it, but too vaguely and too fantastically; the generality
+of human experience had little to do with this glittering poem. Keats's
+_Hyperion_ is wonderful; but it does not go far enough to let us form
+any judgment of it appropriate to the present purpose.[13] Our search
+will not take us far before we notice something very remarkable; poems
+which look superficially like epic turn out to have scarce anything of
+real epic intention; whereas epic intention is apt to appear in poems
+that do not look like epic at all. In fact, it seems as if epic manner
+and epic content were trying for a divorce. If this be so, the
+traditional epic manner will scarcely survive the separation. Epic
+content, however, may very well be looking out for a match with a new
+manner; though so far it does not seem to have found an altogether
+satisfactory partner.
+
+But there are one or two poems in which the old union seems still happy.
+Most noteworthy is Goethe's _Hermann und Dorothea_. You may say that it
+does not much matter whether such poetry should be called epic or, as
+some hold, idyllic. But it is interesting to note, first, that the poem
+is deliberately written with epic style and epic intention; and, second,
+that, though singularly beautiful, it makes no attempt to add anything
+to epic development. It is interesting, too, to see epic poetry trying
+to get away from its heroes, and trying to use material the poetic
+importance of which seems to depend solely on the treatment, not on
+itself. This was a natural and, for some things, a laudable reaction.
+But it inevitably meant that epic must renounce the triumphs which
+Milton had won for it. William Morris saw no reason for abandoning
+either the heroes or anything else of the epic tradition. The chief
+personages of _Sigurd the Volsung_ are admittedly more than human, the
+events frankly marvellous. The poem is an impressive one, and in one way
+or another fulfils all the main qualifications of epic. But perhaps no
+great poem ever had so many faults. These have nothing to do with its
+management of supernaturalism; those who object to this simply show
+ignorance of the fundamental necessities of epic poetry. The first book
+is magnificent; everything that epic narrative should be; but after this
+the poem grows long-winded, and that is the last thing epic poetry
+should be. It is written with a running pen; so long as the verse keeps
+going on, Morris seems satisfied, though it is very often going on
+about unimportant things, and in an uninteresting manner. After the
+first book, indeed, as far as Morris's epic manner is concerned, Virgil
+and Milton might never have lived. It attempts to be the grand manner by
+means of vagueness. In an altogether extraordinary way, the poem slurs
+over the crucial incidents (as in the inept lines describing the death
+of Fafnir, and those, equally hollow, describing the death of
+Guttorm--two noble opportunities simply not perceived) and tirelessly
+expatiates on the mere surroundings of the story. Yet there is no
+attempt to make anything there credible: Morris seems to have mixed up
+the effects of epic with the effects of a fairy-tale. The poem lacks
+intellect; it has no clear-cut thought. And it lacks sensuous images; it
+is full of the sentiment, not of the sense of things, which is the wrong
+way round. Hence the protracted conversations are as a rule amazingly
+windy and pointless, as the protracted descriptions are amazingly
+useless and tedious. And the superhuman virtues of the characters are
+not shown in the poem so much as energetically asserted. It says much
+for the genius of Morris that _Sigurd the Volsung_, with all these
+faults, is not to be condemned; that, on the contrary, to read it is
+rather a great than a tiresome experience; and not only because the
+faults are relieved, here and there, by exquisite beauties and
+dignities, indeed by incomparable lines, but because the poem as a whole
+does, as it goes on, accumulate an immense pressure of significance. All
+the great epics of the world have, however, perfectly clearly a
+significance in close relation with the spirit of their time; the
+intense desire to symbolize the consciousness of man as far as it has
+attained, is what vitally inspires an epic poet, and the ardour of this
+infects his whole style. Morris, in this sense, was not vitally
+inspired. _Sigurd the Volsung_ is a kind of set exercise in epic poetry.
+It is great, but it is not _needed_. It is, in fact, an attempt to write
+epic poetry as it might have been written, and to make epic poetry mean
+what it might have meant, in the days when the tale of Sigurd and the
+Niblungs was newly come among men's minds. Mr. Doughty, in his
+surprising poem _The Dawn in Britain_, also seems trying to compose an
+epic exercise, rather than to be obeying a vital necessity of
+inspiration. For all that, it is a great poem, full of irresistible
+vision and memorable diction. But it is written in a revolutionary
+syntax, which, like most revolutions of this kind, achieves nothing
+beyond the fact of being revolutionary; and Mr. Doughty often uses the
+unexpected effects of his queer syntax instead of the unexpected effects
+of poetry, which makes the poem even longer psychologically than it is
+physically. Lander's _Gebir_ has much that can truly be called epic in
+it; and it has learned the lessons in manner which Virgil and Milton so
+nobly taught. It has perhaps learned them too well; never were
+concision, and the loading of each word with heavy duties, so thoroughly
+practised. The action is so compressed that it is difficult to make out
+exactly what is going on; we no sooner realize that an incident has
+begun than we find ourselves in the midst of another. Apart from these
+idiosyncrasies, the poetry of _Gebir_ is a curious mixture of splendour
+and commonplace. If fiction could ever be wholly, and not only
+partially, epic, it would be in _Gebir_.
+
+In all these poems, we see an epic intention still combined with a
+recognizably epic manner. But what is quite evident is, that in all of
+them there is no attempt to carry on the development of epic, to take up
+its symbolic power where Milton left it. On the contrary, this seems to
+be deliberately avoided. For any tentative advance on Miltonic
+significance, even for any real acceptance of it, we must go to poetry
+which tries to put epic intention into a new form. Some obvious
+peculiarities of epic style are sufficiently definite to be detachable.
+Since Theocritus, a perverse kind of pleasure has often been obtained by
+putting some of the peculiarities of epic--peculiarities really required
+by a very long poem--into the compass of a very short poem. An epic
+idyll cannot, of course, contain any considerable epic intention; it is
+wrought out of the mere shell of epic, and avoids any semblance of epic
+scope. But by devising somehow a connected sequence of idylls, something
+of epic scope can be acquired again. As Hugo says, in his preface to _La
+Legende des Siècles_: "Comme dans une mosaïque, chaque pierre a sa
+couleur et sa forme propre; l'ensemble donne une figure. La figure de ce
+livre," he goes on, "c'est l'homme." To get an epic design or _figure_
+through a sequence of small idylls need not be the result of mere
+technical curiosity. It may be a valuable method for the future of epic.
+Tennyson attempted this method in _Idylls of the King_; not, as is now
+usually admitted, with any great success. The sequence is admirable for
+sheer craftsmanship, for astonishing craftsmanship; but it did not
+manage to effect anything like a conspicuous symbolism. You have but to
+think of _Paradise Lost_ to see what _Idylls of the King_ lacks. Victor
+Hugo, however, did better in _La Legende des Siècles_. "La figure, c'est
+l'homme"; there, at any rate, is the intention of epic symbolism. And,
+however pretentious the poem may be, it undoubtedly does make a
+passionate effort to develop the significance which Milton had achieved;
+chiefly to enlarge the scope of this significance.[14] Browning's _The
+Ring and the Book_ also uses this notion of an idyllic sequence; but
+without any semblance of epic purpose, purely for the exhibition of
+human character.
+
+It has already been remarked that the ultimate significance of great
+drama is the same as that of epic. Since the vital epic purpose--the
+kind of epic purpose which answers to the spirit of the time--is
+evidently looking for some new form to inhabit, it is not surprising,
+then, that it should have occasionally tried on dramatic form. And,
+unquestionably, for great poetic symbolism of the depths of modern
+consciousness, for such symbolism as Milton's, we must go to two such
+invasions of epic purpose into dramatic manner--to Goethe's _Faust_ and
+Hardy's _The Dynasts_. But dramatic significance and epic significance
+have been admitted to be broadly the same; to take but one instance,
+Aeschylus's Prometheus is closely related to Milton's Satan (though I
+think Prometheus really represents a monism of consciousness--that which
+is destined--as Satan represents a dualism--at once the destined and the
+destiny). How then can we speak of epic purpose invading drama? Surely
+in this way. Drama seeks to present its significance with narrowed
+intensity, but epic in a large dilatation: the one contracts, the other
+expatiates. When, therefore, we find drama setting out its significance
+in such a way as to become epically dilated, we may say that dramatic
+has grown into epic purpose. Or, even more positively, we may say that
+epic has taken over drama and adapted it to its peculiar needs. In any
+case, with one exception to be mentioned presently, it is only in
+_Faust_ and _The Dynasts_ that we find any great development of Miltonic
+significance. These are the poems that give us immense and shapely
+symbols of the spirit of man, conscious not only of the sense of his
+own destined being, but also of some sense of that which destines. In
+fact, these two are the poems that develop and elaborate, in their own
+way, the Miltonic significance, as all the epics in between Homer and
+Milton develop and elaborate Homeric significance. And yet, in spite of
+_Faust_ and _The Dynasts_, it may be doubted whether the union of epic
+and drama is likely to be permanent. The peculiar effects which epic
+intention, in whatever manner, must aim at, seem to be as much hindered
+as helped by dramatic form; and possibly it is because the detail is
+necessarily too much enforced for the broad perfection of epic effect.
+
+The real truth seems to be, that there is an inevitable and profound
+difficulty in carrying on the Miltonic significance in anything like a
+story. Regular epic having reached its climax in _Paradise Lost_, the
+epic purpose must find some other way of going on. Hugo saw this, when
+he strung his huge epic sequence together not on a connected story but
+on a single idea: "la figure, c'est l'homme." If we are to have, as we
+must have, direct symbolism of the way man is conscious of his being
+nowadays, which means direct symbolism both of man's spirit and of the
+(philosophical) opponent of this, the universal fate of things--if we
+are to have all this, it is hard to see how any story can be adequate to
+such symbolic requirements, unless it is a story which moves in some
+large region of imagined supernaturalism. And it seems questionable
+whether we have enough _formal_ "belief" nowadays to allow of such a
+story appearing as solid and as vividly credible as epic poetry needs.
+It is a decided disadvantage, from the purely epic point of view, that
+those admirable "Intelligences" in Hardy's _The Dynasts_ are so
+obviously abstract ideas disguised. The supernaturalism of epic, however
+incredible it may be in the poem, must be worked up out of the material
+of some generally accepted belief. I think it would be agreed, that what
+was possible for Milton would scarcely be possible to-day; and even more
+impossible would be the naïveté of Homer and the quite different but
+equally impracticable naïveté of Tasso and Camoens. The conclusion seems
+to be, that the epic purpose will have to abandon the necessity of
+telling a story.
+
+Hugo's way may prove to be the right one. But there may be another; and
+what has happened in the past may suggest what may happen in the future.
+Epic poetry in the regular epic form has before now seemed unlikely. It
+seemed unlikely after the Alexandrians had made such poor attempts at
+standing upright under the immensity of Homer; it seemed so, until,
+after several efforts, Latin poetry became triumphantly epic in Virgil.
+And again, when the mystical prestige of Virgil was domineering
+everything, regular epic seemed unlikely; until, after the doubtful
+attempts of Boiardo and Ariosto, Tasso arrived. But in each case, while
+the occurrence of regular epic was seeming so improbable, it
+nevertheless happened that poetry was written which was certainly
+nothing like epic in form, but which was strongly charged with a
+profound pressure of purpose closely akin to epic purpose; and _De Rerum
+Natura_ and _La Divina Commedia_ are very suggestive to speculation now.
+Of course, the fact that, in both these cases, regular epic did
+eventually occur, must warn us that in artistic development anything may
+happen; but it does seem as if there were a deeper improbability for
+the occurrence of regular epic now than in the times just before Virgil
+and Tasso--of regular epic, that is, inspired by some vital import, not
+simply, like _Sigurd the Volsung_, by archaeological import. Lucretius is
+a good deal more suggestive than Dante; for Dante's form is too exactly
+suited to his own peculiar genius and his own peculiar time to be
+adaptable. But the method of Lucretius is eminently adaptable. That
+amazing image of the sublime mind of Lucretius is exactly the kind of
+lofty symbolism that the continuation of epic purpose now seems to
+require--a subjective symbolism. I believe Wordsworth felt this, when he
+planned his great symbolic poem, and partly executed it in _The Prelude_
+and _The Excursion_: for there, more profoundly than anywhere out of
+Milton himself, Milton's spiritual legacy is employed. It may be, then,
+that Lucretius and Wordsworth will preside over the change from
+objective to subjective symbolism which Milton has, perhaps, made
+necessary for the continued development of the epic purpose: after
+Milton, it seems likely that there is nothing more to be done with
+objective epic. But Hugo's method, of a connected sequence of separate
+poems, instead of one continuous poem, may come in here. The
+determination to keep up a continuous form brought both Lucretius and
+Wordsworth at times perilously near to the odious state of didactic
+poetry; it was at least responsible for some tedium. Epic poetry will
+certainly never be didactic. What we may imagine--who knows how vainly
+imagine?--is, then, a sequence of odes expressing, in the image of some
+fortunate and lofty mind, as much of the spiritual significance which
+the epic purpose must continue from Milton, as is possible, in the style
+of Lucretius and Wordsworth, for subjective symbolism. A pregnant
+experiment towards something like this has already been seen--in George
+Meredith's magnificent set of _Odes in Contribution to the Song of the
+French History_. The subject is ostensibly concrete; but France in her
+agonies and triumphs has been personified into a superb symbol of
+Meredith's own reading of human fate. The series builds up a decidedly
+epic significance, and its manner is extraordinarily suggestive of a new
+epic method. Nevertheless, something more Lucretian in central
+imagination, something less bound to concrete and particular event,
+seems required for the complete development of epic purpose.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 13: In the greatest poetry, all the elements of human nature
+are burning in a single flame. The artifice of criticism is to detect
+what peculiar radiance each element contributes to the whole light; but
+this no more affects the singleness of the compounded energy in poetry
+than the spectroscopic examination of fire affects the single nature of
+actual flame. For the purposes of this book, it has been necessary to
+look chiefly at the contribution of intellect to epic poetry; for it is
+in that contribution that the development of poetry, so far as there is
+any development at all, really consists. This being so, it might be
+thought that Keats could hardly have done anything for the real progress
+of epic. But Keats's apparent (it is only apparent) rejection of
+intellect in his poetry was the result of youthful theory; his letters
+show that, in fact, intellect was a thing unusually vigorous in his
+nature. If the Keats of the letters be added to the Keats of the poems,
+a personality appears that seems more likely than any of his
+contemporaries, or than anyone who has come after him, for the work of
+carrying Miltonic epic forward without forsaking Miltonic form.]
+
+[Footnote 14: For all I know, Hugo may never have read Milton; judging
+by some silly remarks of his, I should hope not. But Hugo could feel the
+things in the spirit of man that Milton felt; not only because they were
+still there, but because the secret influence of Milton has intensified
+the consciousness of them in thousands who think they know nothing of
+_Paradise Lost_. Modern literary history will not be properly understood
+until it is realized that Milton is one of the dominating minds of
+Europe, whether Europe know it or not. There are scarcely half a dozen
+figures that can be compared with Milton for irresistible
+influence--quite apart from his unapproachable supremacy in the
+technique of poetry. When Addison remarked that _Paradise Lost_ is
+universally and perpetually interesting, he said what is not to be
+questioned; though he did not perceive the real reason for his
+assertion. Darwin no more injured the significance of _Paradise Lost_
+than air-planes have injured Homer.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Epic, by Lascelles Abercrombie
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+    The Epic: an Essay,
+    by  Lascelles Abercrombie.
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Epic, by Lascelles Abercrombie
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Epic
+       An Essay
+
+Author: Lascelles Abercrombie
+
+Release Date: January 14, 2004 [EBook #10716]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EPIC ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Garrett Alley and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h1>The Epic: an Essay</h1>
+<center>
+<b>By Lascelles Abercrombie </b>
+</center>
+<p>
+London mcmxxii
+</p>
+<p>
+First published 1914.
+</p>
+<p>
+New Edition, reset 1922.
+</p>
+<p>
+By the same Author:
+</p>
+
+<ul>
+  <li>Towards a Theory of Art</li>
+  <li>Speculative Dialogues</li>
+  <li>Four Short Plays</li>
+  <li>Thomas Hardy: A Critical Study</li>
+  <li>Principles of English Prosody</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p>
+<b>Table of Contents</b>
+</p>
+<p><a href="#PRF">PREFACE</a></p>
+<p><a href="#RULE4_1">I. BEGINNINGS</a></p>
+<p><a href="#RULE4_2">II. LITERARY EPIC</a></p>
+<p><a href="#RULE4_3">III. THE NATURE OF EPIC</a></p>
+<p><a href="#RULE4_4">IV. THE EPIC SERIES</a></p>
+<p><a href="#RULE4_5">V. AFTER MILTON</a></p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<a name="PRF"><!-- PRF --></a>
+<h2>
+	PREFACE
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+<i>As this essay is disposed to consider epic poetry as a species of
+literature, and not as a department of sociology or archaeology or
+ethnology, the reader will not find it anything material to the
+discussion which may be typified in those very interesting works,
+Gilbert Murray's "The Rise of the Greek Epic" and Andrew Lang's "The
+World of Homer." The distinction between a literary and a scientific
+attitude to Homer (and all other "authentic" epic) is, I think, finally
+summed up in Mr. Mackail's "Lectures on Greek Poetry"; the following
+pages, at any rate, assume that this is so. Theories about epic origins
+were therefore indifferent to my purpose. Besides, I do not see the need
+for any theories; I think it need only be said, of any epic poem
+whatever, that it was composed by a man and transmitted by men. But this
+is not to say that investigation of the "authentic" epic poet's</i> milieu
+<i>may not be extremely profitable; and for settling the preliminaries of
+this essay, I owe a great deal to Mr. Chadwick's profoundly
+interesting study, "The Heroic Age"; though I daresay Mr. Chadwick would
+repudiate some of my conclusions. I must also acknowledge suggestions
+taken from Mr. Macneile Dixon's learned and vigorous "English Epic and
+Heroic Poetry"; and especially the assistance of Mr. John Clark's
+"History of Epic Poetry." Mr. Clark's book is so thorough and so
+adequate that my own would certainly have been superfluous, were it not
+that I have taken a particular point of view which his method seems to
+rule out&mdash;a point of view which seemed well worth taking. This is my
+excuse, too, for considering only the most conspicuous instances of epic
+poetry. They have been discussed often enough; but not often, so far as
+I know, primarily as stages of one continuous artistic development</i>.
+</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="RULE4_1"><!-- RULE4 1 --></a>
+<h2>
+	I.
+</h2>
+<center>
+BEGINNINGS
+</center>
+<p>
+The invention of epic poetry corresponds with a definite and, in the
+history of the world, often recurring state of society. That is to say,
+epic poetry has been invented many times and independently; but, as the
+needs which prompted the invention have been broadly similar, so the
+invention itself has been. Most nations have passed through the same
+sort of chemistry. Before their hot racial elements have been thoroughly
+compounded, and thence have cooled into the stable convenience of
+routine which is the material shape of civilization&mdash;before this has
+firmly occurred, there has usually been what is called an "Heroic Age."
+It is apt to be the hottest and most glowing stage of the process. So
+much is commonplace. Exactly what causes the racial elements of a
+nation, with all their varying properties, to flash suddenly (as it
+seems) into the splendid incandescence of an Heroic Age, and thence to
+shift again into a comparatively rigid and perhaps comparatively
+lustreless civilization&mdash;this difficult matter has been very nicely
+investigated of late, and to interesting, though not decided, result.
+But I may not concern myself with this; nor even with the detailed
+characteristics, alleged or ascertained, of the Heroic Age of nations.
+It is enough for the purpose of this book that the name "Heroic Age" is
+a good one for this stage of the business; it is obviously, and on the
+whole rightly, descriptive. For the stage displays the first vigorous
+expression, as the natural thing and without conspicuous restraint, of
+private individuality. In savagery, thought, sentiment, religion and
+social organization may be exceedingly complicated, full of the most
+subtle and strange relationships; but they exist as complete and
+determined <i>wholes</i>, each part absolutely bound up with the rest.
+Analysis has never come near them. The savage is blinded to the glaring
+incongruities of his tribal ideas not so much by habit or reverence; it
+is simply that the mere possibility of such a thing as analysis has
+never occurred to him. He thinks, he feels, he lives, all in a whole.
+Each person is the tribe in little. This may make everyone an
+astoundingly complex character; but it makes strong individuality
+impossible in savagery, since everyone accepts the same elaborate
+unanalysed whole of tribal existence. That existence, indeed, would find
+in the assertion of private individuality a serious danger; and tribal
+organization guards against this so efficiently that it is doubtless
+impossible, so long as there is no interruption from outside. In some
+obscure manner, however, savage existence has been constantly
+interrupted; and it seems as if the long-repressed forces of
+individuality then burst out into exaggerated vehemence; for the result
+(if it is not slavery) is, that a people passes from its savage to its
+heroic age, on its way to some permanence of civilization. It must
+always have taken a good deal to break up the rigidity of savage
+society. It might be the shock of enforced mixture with a totally alien
+race, the two kinds of blood, full of independent vigour, compelled to
+flow together;[<a href="#note-1">1</a>] or it might be the migration, due to economic stress,
+from one tract of country to which the tribal existence was perfectly
+adapted to another for which it was quite unsuited, with the added
+necessity of conquering the peoples found in possession. Whatever the
+cause may have been, the result is obvious: a sudden liberation, a
+delighted expansion, of numerous private individualities.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the various appearances of the Heroic Age cannot, perhaps, be
+completely generalized. What has just been written will probably do for
+the Heroic Age which produced Homer, and for that which produced the
+<i>Nibelungenlied, Beowulf</i>, and the Northern Sagas. It may, therefore
+stand as the typical case; since Homer and these Northern poems are what
+most people have in their minds when they speak of "authentic" epic. But
+decidedly Heroic Ages have occurred much later than the latest of these
+cases; and they arose out of a state of society which cannot roundly be
+called savagery. Europe, for instance, had its unmistakable Heroic Age
+when it was fighting with the Moslem, whether that warfare was a cause
+or merely an accompaniment. And the period which preceded it, the period
+after the failure of Roman civilization, was sufficiently "dark" and
+devoid of individuality, to make the sudden plenty of potent and
+splendid individuals seem a phenomenon of the same sort as that which
+has been roughly described; it can scarcely be doubted that the age
+which is exhibited in the <i>Poem of the Cid</i>, the <i>Song of Roland</i>, and
+the lays of the Crusaders (<i>la Chanson d'Antioche</i>, for instance), was
+similar in all essentials to the age we find in Homer and the
+<i>Nibelungenlied</i>. Servia, too, has its ballad-cycles of Christian and
+Mahometan warfare, which suppose an age obviously heroic. But it hardly
+falls in with our scheme; Servia, at this time, might have been expected
+to have gone well past its Heroic Age. Either, then, it was somehow
+unusually prolonged, or else the clash of the Ottoman war revived it.
+The case of Servia is interesting in another way. The songs about the
+battle of Kossovo describe Servian defeat&mdash;defeat so overwhelming that
+poetry cannot possibly translate it, and does not attempt it, into
+anything that looks like victory. Even the splendid courage of its hero
+Milos, who counters an imputation of treachery by riding in full
+daylight into the Ottoman camp and murdering the Sultan, even this
+courage is rather near to desperation. The Marko cycle&mdash;Marko whose
+betrayal of his country seems wiped out by his immense prowess&mdash;has in a
+less degree this utter defeat of Servia as its background. But Servian
+history before all this has many glories, which, one would think, would
+serve the turn of heroic song better than appalling defeat and, indeed,
+enslavement. Why is the latter celebrated and not the former? The reason
+can only be this: heroic poetry depends on an heroic age, and an age is
+heroic because of what it is, not because of what it does. Servia's
+defeat by the armies of Amurath came at a time when its people was too
+strongly possessed by the heroic spirit to avoid uttering itself in
+poetry. And from this it appears, too, that when the heroic age sings,
+it primarily sings of itself, even when that means singing of its own
+humiliation.&mdash;One other exceptional kind of heroic age must just be
+mentioned, in this professedly inadequate summary. It is the kind which
+occurs quite locally and on a petty scale, with causes obscurer than
+ever. The Border Ballads, for instance, and the Robin Hood Ballads,
+clearly suppose a state of society which is nothing but a very
+circumscribed and not very important heroic age. Here the households of
+gentry take the place of courts, and the poetry in vogue there is
+perhaps instantly taken up by the taverns; or perhaps this is a case in
+which the heroes are so little removed from common folk that celebration
+of individual prowess begins among the latter, not, as seems usually to
+have happened, among the social equals of the heroes. But doubtless
+there are infinite grades in the structure of the Heroic Age.
+</p>
+<p>
+The note of the Heroic Age, then, is vehement private individuality
+freely and greatly asserting itself. The assertion is not always what we
+should call noble; but it is always forceful and unmistakable. There
+would be, no doubt, some social and religious scheme to contain the
+individual's self-assertion; but the latter, not the former, is the
+thing that counts. It is not an age that lasts for very long as a rule;
+and before there comes the state in which strong social organization and
+strong private individuality are compatible&mdash;mutually helpful instead of
+destroying one another, as they do, in opposite ways, in savagery and in
+the Heroic Age&mdash;before the state called civilization can arrive, there
+has commonly been a long passage of dark obscurity, which throws up into
+exaggerated brightness the radiance of the Heroic Age. The balance of
+private good and general welfare is at the bottom of civilized morals;
+but the morals of the Heroic Age are founded on individuality, and on
+nothing else. In Homer, for instance, it can be seen pretty clearly that
+a "good" man is simply a man of imposing, active individuality[<a href="#note-2">2</a>]; a
+"bad" man is an inefficient, undistinguished man&mdash;probably, too, like
+Thersites, ugly. It is, in fact, an absolutely aristocratic age&mdash;an age
+in which he who rules is thereby proven the "best." And from its nature
+it must be an age very heartily engaged in something; usually fighting
+whoever is near enough to be fought with, though in <i>Beowulf</i> it seems
+to be doing something more profitable to the civilization which is to
+follow it&mdash;taming the fierceness of surrounding circumstance and man's
+primitive kind. But in any case it has a good deal of leisure; and the
+best way to prevent this from dragging heavily is (after feasting) to
+glory in the things it has done; or perhaps in the things it would like
+to have done. Hence heroic poetry. But exactly what heroic poetry was
+in its origin, probably we shall never know. It would scarcely be
+history, and it would scarcely be very ornate poetry. The first thing
+required would be to translate the prowess of champions into good and
+moving narrative; and this would be metrified, because so it becomes
+both more exciting and more easily remembered. Each succeeding bard
+would improve, according to his own notions, the material he received
+from his teachers; the prowess of the great heroes would become more and
+more astonishing, more and more calculated to keep awake the feasted
+nobles who listened to the song. In an age when writing, if it exists at
+all, is a rare and secret art, the mists of antiquity descend after a
+very few generations. There is little chance of the songs of the bards
+being checked by recorded actuality; for if anyone could write at all,
+it would be the bards themselves, who would use the mystery or purposes
+of their own trade. In quite a short time, oral tradition, in keeping of
+the bards, whose business is to purvey wonders, makes the champions
+perform easily, deeds which "the men of the present time" can only gape
+at; and every bard takes over the stock of tradition, not from original
+sources, but from the mingled fantasy and memory of the bard who came
+just before him. So that when this tradition survives at all, it
+survives in a form very different from what it was in the beginning. But
+apparently we can mark out several stages in the fortunes of the
+tradition. It is first of all court poetry, or perhaps baronial poetry;
+and it may survive as that. From this stage it may pass into possession
+of the common people, or at least into the possession of bards whose
+clients are peasants and not nobles; from being court poetry it becomes
+the poetry of cottages and taverns. It may survive as this. Finally, it
+may be taken up again by the courts, and become poetry of much greater
+sophistication and nicety than it was in either of the preceding stages.
+But each stage leaves its sign on the tradition.
+</p>
+<p>
+All this gives us what is conveniently called "epic material"; the
+material out of which epic poetry might be made. But it does not give us
+epic poetry. The world knows of a vast stock of epic material scattered
+up and down the nations; sometimes its artistic value is as
+extraordinary as its archaeological interest, but not always. Instances
+are our own Border Ballads and Robin Hood Ballads; the Servian cycles of
+the Battle of Kossovo and the prowess of Marko; the modern Greek songs
+of the revolt against Turkey (the conditions of which seem to have been
+similar to those which surrounded the growth of our riding ballads); the
+fragments of Finnish legend which were pieced together into the
+<i>Kalevala</i>; the Ossianic poetry; and perhaps some of the minor sagas
+should be put in here. Then there are the glorious Welsh stories of
+Arthur, Tristram, and the rest, and the not less glorious Irish stories
+of Deirdre and Cuchulain; both of these noble masses of legend seem to
+have only just missed the final shaping which turns epic material into
+epic poetry. For epic material, it must be repeated, is not the same
+thing as epic poetry. Epic material is fragmentary, scattered, loosely
+related, sometimes contradictory, each piece of comparatively small
+size, with no intention beyond hearty narrative. It is a heap of
+excellent stones, admirably quarried out of a great rock-face of
+stubborn experience. But for this to be worked into some great
+structure of epic poetry, the Heroic Age must be capable of producing
+individuality of much profounder nature than any of its fighting
+champions. Or rather, we should simply say that the production of epic
+poetry depends on the occurrence (always an accidental occurrence) of
+creative genius. It is quite likely that what Homer had to work on was
+nothing superior to the Arthurian legends. But Homer occurred; and the
+tales of Troy and Odysseus became incomparable poetry.
+</p>
+<p>
+An epic is not made by piecing together a set of heroic lays, adjusting
+their discrepancies and making them into a continuous narrative. An epic
+is not even a re-creation of old things; it is altogether a new
+creation, a new creation in terms of old things. And what else is any
+other poetry? The epic poet has behind him a tradition of matter and a
+tradition of style; and that is what every other poet has behind him
+too; only, for the epic poet, tradition is rather narrower, rather more
+strictly compelling. This must not be lost sight of. It is what the
+poet does with the tradition he falls in which is, artistically, the
+important thing. He takes a mass of confused splendours, and he makes
+them into something which they certainly were not before; something
+which, as we can clearly see by comparing epic poetry with mere epic
+material, the latter scarce hinted at. He makes this heap of matter into
+a grand design; he forces it to obey a single presiding unity of
+artistic purpose. Obviously, something much more potent is required for
+this than a fine skill in narrative and poetic ornament. Unity is not
+merely an external affair. There is only one thing which can master the
+perplexed stuff of epic material into unity; and that is, an ability to
+see in particular human experience some significant symbolism of man's
+general destiny.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is natural that, after the epic poet has arrived, the crude epic
+material in which he worked should scarcely be heard of. It could only
+be handed on by the minstrels themselves; and their audiences would not
+be likely to listen comfortably to the old piecemeal songs after they
+had heard the familiar events fall into the magnificent ordered pomp of
+the genuine epic poet. The tradition, indeed, would start afresh with
+him; but how the novel tradition fared as it grew old with his
+successors, is difficult guesswork. We can tell, however, sometimes, in
+what stage of the epic material's development the great unifying epic
+poet occurred. Three roughly defined stages have been mentioned. Homer
+perhaps came when the epic material was still in its first stage of
+being court-poetry. Almost certainly this is when the poets of the
+Crusading lays, of the <i>Song of Roland</i>, and the <i>Poem of the Cid</i>, set
+to work. Hesiod is a clear instance of the poet who masters epic
+material after it has passed into popular possession; and the
+<i>Nibelungenlied</i> is thought to be made out of matter that has passed
+from the people back again to the courts.
+</p>
+<p>
+Epic poetry, then, as distinct from mere epic material, is the concern
+of this book. The intention is, to determine wherein epic poetry is a
+definite species of literature, what it characteristically does for
+conscious human life, and to find out whether this species and this
+function have shown, and are likely to show, any development. It must be
+admitted, that the great unifying poet who worked on the epic material
+before him, did not always produce something which must come within the
+scope of this intention. Hesiod has just been given as an instance of
+such a poet; but his work is scarcely an epic.[<a href="#note-3">3</a>] The great sagas, too,
+I must omit. They are epic enough in primary intention, but they are not
+poetry; and I am among those who believe that there is a difference
+between poetry and prose. If epic poetry is a definite species, the
+sagas do not fall within it. But this will leave me more of the
+"authentic" epic poetry than I can possibly deal with; and I shall have
+to confine myself to its greatest examples. Before, however, proceeding
+to consider epic poetry as a whole, as a constantly recurring form of
+art, continually responding to the new needs of man's developing
+consciousness, I must go, rapidly and generally, over the "literary
+epic"; and especially I must question whether it is really justifiable
+or profitable to divide epic poetry into the two contrasted departments
+of "authentic" and "literary."
+</p>
+<center>
+FOOTNOTES:
+</center>
+<p>
+<a name="note-1"><!-- Note Anchor 1 --></a>[Footnote 1: hos d' ote cheimarroi potamoi kat opesthi rheontes es
+misgagkeian xumballeton obrimon udor krounon ek melalon koilaes entosthe
+charadraes. <i>Iliad</i>, IV, 452.]
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="note-2"><!-- Note Anchor 2 --></a>[Footnote 2: Etymologically, the "good" man is the "admirable" man. In
+this sense, Homer's gods are certainly "good"; every epithet he gives
+them&mdash;Joyous-Thunderer, Far-Darter, Cloud-Gatherer and the
+rest&mdash;proclaims their unapproachable "goodness." If it had been said to
+Homer, that his gods cannot be "good" because their behaviour is
+consistently cynical, cruel, unscrupulous and scandalous, he would
+simply think he had not heard aright: Zeus is an habitual liar, of
+course, but what has that got to do with his "goodness"?&mdash;Only those who
+would have Homer a kind of Salvationist need regret this. Just because
+he could only make his gods "good" in this primitive style, he was able
+to treat their discordant family in that vein of exquisite comedy which
+is one of the most precious things in the world.]
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="note-3"><!-- Note Anchor 3 --></a>[Footnote 3: Scarcely what <i>we</i> call epic. "Epos" might include Hesiod
+as well as epic material; "epopee" is the business that Homer started.]
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<a name="RULE4_2"><!-- RULE4 2 --></a>
+<h2>
+	II.
+</h2>
+
+<center>
+LITERARY EPIC
+</center>
+<p>
+Epic poetry, then, was invented to supply the artistic demands of
+society in a certain definite and recognizable state. Or rather, it was
+the epic material which supplied that; the first epic poets gave their
+age, as genius always does, something which the age had never thought of
+asking for; which, nevertheless, when it was given, the age took good
+hold of, and found that, after all, this, too, it had wanted without
+knowing it. But as society went on towards civilization, the need for
+epic grew less and less; and its preservation, if not accidental, was an
+act of conscious aesthetic admiration rather than of unconscious
+necessity. It was preserved somehow, however; and after other kinds of
+literature had arisen as inevitably and naturally as epic, and had
+become, in their turn, things of less instant necessity than they were,
+it was found that, in the manner and purpose of epic poetry, something
+was given which was not given elsewhere; something of extraordinary
+value. Epic poetry would therefore be undertaken again; but now, of
+course, deliberately. With several different kinds of poetry to choose
+from, a man would decide that he would like best to be an epic poet, and
+he would set out, in conscious determination, on an epic poem. The
+result, good or bad, of such a determination is called "literary" epic.
+The poems of Apollonius Rhodius, Virgil, Lucan, Camoens, Tasso and
+Milton are "literary" epics. But such poetry as the <i>Odyssey</i>, the
+<i>Iliad,</i> <i>Beowulf</i>, the <i>Song of Roland</i>, and the <i>Nibelungenlied</i>,
+poetry which seems an immediate response to some general and instant
+need in its surrounding community&mdash;such poetry is "authentic" epic.
+</p>
+<p>
+A great deal has been made of this distinction; it has almost been taken
+to divide epic poetry into two species. And, as the names commonly given
+to the two supposed species suggest, there is some notion that
+"literary" epic must be in a way inferior to "authentic" epic. The
+superstition of antiquity has something to do with this; but the
+presence of Homer among the "authentic" epics has probably still more to
+do with it. For Homer is the poet who is usually chosen to stand for
+"authentic" epic; and, by a facile association of ideas, the conspicuous
+characteristics of Homer seem to be the marks of "authentic" epic as a
+species. It is, of course, quite true, that, for sustained grandeur and
+splendour, no poet can be put beside Homer except Dante and Milton; but
+it is also quite clear that in Homer, as in Dante, and Milton, such
+conspicuous characteristics are simply the marks of peculiar poetic
+genius. If we leave Homer out, and consider poetic greatness only (the
+only important thing to consider), there is no "authentic" epic which
+can stand against <i>Paradise Lost</i> or the <i>Aeneid</i>. Then there is the
+curious modern feeling&mdash;which is sometimes but dressed up by erroneous
+aesthetic theory (the worship of a quite national "lyricism," for
+instance) but which is really nothing but a sign of covert
+barbarism&mdash;that lengthy poetic composition is somehow undesirable; and
+Homer is thought to have had a better excuse for composing a long poem
+than Milton.
+</p>
+<p>
+But doubtless the real reason for the hard division of epic poetry into
+two classes, and for the presumed inferiority of "literary" to
+"authentic," lies in the application of that curiosity among false
+ideas, the belief in a "folk-spirit." This notion that such a thing as a
+"folk-spirit" can create art, and that the art which it does create must
+be somehow better than other art, is, I suppose, the offspring of
+democratic ideas in politics. The chief objection to it is that there
+never has been and never can be anything in actuality corresponding to
+the "folk-spirit" which this notion supposes. Poetry is the work of
+poets, not of peoples or communities; artistic creation can never be
+anything but the production of an individual mind. We may, if we like,
+think that poetry would be more "natural" if it were composed by the
+folk as the folk, and not by persons peculiarly endowed; and to think so
+is doubtless agreeable to the notion that the folk is more important
+than the individual. But there is nothing gained by thinking in this
+way, except a very illusory kind of pleasure; since it is impossible
+that the folk should ever be a poet. This indisputable axiom has been
+ignored more in theories about ballads&mdash;about epic material&mdash;than in
+theories about the epics themselves. But the belief in a real
+folk-origin for ballads, untenable though it be in a little examination,
+has had a decided effect on the common opinion of the authentic epics.
+In the first place, a poem constructed out of ballads composed, somehow
+or other, by the folk, ought to be more "natural" than a work of
+deliberate art&mdash;a "literary" epic; that is to say, these Rousseau-ish
+notions will admire it for being further from civilization and nearer to
+the noble savage; civilization being held, by some mysterious argument,
+to be deficient in "naturalness." In the second place, this belief has
+made it credible that the plain corruption of authentic epic by oral
+transmission, or very limited transmission through script, might be the
+sign of multiple authorship; for if you believe that a whole folk can
+compose a ballad, you may easily believe that a dozen poets can compose
+an epic.
+</p>
+<p>
+But all this rests on simple ignoring of the nature of poetic
+composition. The folk-origin of ballads and the multiple authorship of
+epics are heresies worse than the futilities of the Baconians; at any
+rate, they are based on the same resolute omission, and build on it a
+wilder fantasy. They omit to consider what poetry is. Those who think
+Bacon wrote <i>Hamlet</i>, and those who think several poets wrote the
+<i>Iliad</i>, can make out a deal of ingenious evidence for their doctrines.
+But it is all useless, because the first assumption in each case is
+unthinkable. It is psychologically impossible that the mind of Bacon
+should have produced <i>Hamlet</i>; but the impossibility is even more
+clamant when it comes to supposing that several poets, not in
+collaboration, but in haphazard succession, could produce a poem of vast
+sweeping unity and superbly consistent splendour of style. So far as
+mere authorship goes, then, we cannot make any real difference between
+"authentic" and "literary" epic. We cannot say that, while this is
+written by an individual genius, that is the work of a community.
+Individual genius, of whatever quality, is responsible for both. The
+folk, however, cannot be ruled out. Genius does the work; but the folk
+is the condition in which genius does it. And here we may find a genuine
+difference between "literary" and "authentic"; not so much in the nature
+of the condition as in its closeness and insistence.
+</p>
+<p>
+The kind of folk-spirit behind the poet is, indeed, different in the
+<i>Iliad</i> and <i>Beowulf</i> and the <i>Song of Roland</i> from what it is in Milton
+and Tasso and Virgil. But there is also as much difference here between
+the members of each class as between the two classes themselves. You
+cannot read much of <i>Beowulf</i> with Homer in your mind, without becoming
+conscious that the difference in individual genius is by no means the
+whole difference. Both poets maintain a similar ideal in life; but they
+maintain it within conditions altogether unlike. The folk-spirit behind
+<i>Beowulf</i> is cloudy and tumultuous, finding grandeur in storm and gloom
+and mere mass&mdash;in the misty <i>lack</i> of shape. Behind Homer it is, on the
+contrary, radiant and, however vehement, always delighting in measure,
+finding grandeur in brightness and clarity and shining outline. So,
+again, we may very easily see how Tasso's poetry implies the Italy of
+his time, and Milton's the England of his time. But where Homer and
+Beowulf together differ from Tasso and Milton is in the way the
+surrounding folk-spirit contains the poet's mind. It would be a very
+idle piece of work, to choose between the potency of Homer's genius and
+of Milton's; but it is clear that the immediate circumstance of the
+poet's life presses much more insistently on the <i>Iliad</i> and the
+<i>Odyssey</i> than on <i>Paradise Lost</i>. It is the difference between the
+contracted, precise, but vigorous tradition of an heroic age, and the
+diffused, eclectic, complicated culture of a civilization. And if it may
+be said that the insistence of racial circumstance in Homer gives him a
+greater intensity of cordial, human inspiration, it must also be said
+that the larger, less exacting conditions of Milton's mental life allow
+his art to go into greater scope and more subtle complexity of
+significance. Great epic poetry will always frankly accept the social
+conditions within which it is composed; but the conditions contract and
+intensify the conduct of the poem, or allow it to dilate and absorb
+larger matter, according as the narrow primitive torrents of man's
+spirit broaden into the greater but slower volume of civilized life. The
+change is neither desirable nor undesirable; it is merely inevitable. It
+means that epic poetry has kept up with the development of human life.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is because of all this that we have heard a good deal about the
+"authentic" epic getting "closer to its subject" than "literary" epic.
+It seems, on the face of it, very improbable that there should be any
+real difference here. No great poetry, of whatever kind, is conceivable
+unless the subject has become integrated with the poet's mind and mood.
+Milton is as close to his subject, Virgil to his, as Homer to Achilles
+or the Saxon poet to Beowulf. What is really meant can be nothing but
+the greater insistence of racial tradition in the "authentic" epics. The
+subject of the <i>Iliad</i> is the fighting of heroes, with all its
+implications and consequences; the subject of the <i>Odyssey</i> is adventure
+and its opposite, the longing for safety and home; in <i>Beowulf</i> it is
+kingship&mdash;the ability to show man how to conquer the monstrous forces of
+his world; and so on. Such were the subjects which an imperious racial
+tradition pressed on the early epic poet, who delighted to be so
+governed. These were the matters which his people could understand, of
+which they could easily perceive the significance. For him, then, there
+could be no other matters than these, or the like of these. But it is
+not in such matters that a poet living in a time of less primitive and
+more expanded consciousness would find the highest importance. For a
+Roman, the chief matter for an epic poem would be Roman civilization;
+for a Puritan, it would be the relations of God and man. When,
+therefore, we consider how close to his subject an epic poet is, we must
+be careful to be quite clear what his subject is. And if he has gone
+beyond the immediate experiences of primitive society, we need not
+expect him to be as close as the early poets were to the fury of battle
+and the agony of wounds and the desolation of widows; or to the
+sensation of exploring beyond the familiar regions; or to the
+marsh-fiends and fire-drakes into which primitive imagination naturally
+translated the terrible unknown powers of the world. We need not, in a
+word, expect the "literary" epic to compete with the "authentic" epic;
+for the fact is, that the purpose of epic poetry, and therefore the
+nature of its subject, must continually develop. It is quite true that
+the later epics take over, to a very great extent, the methods and
+manners of the earlier poems; just as architecture hands on the style of
+wooden structure to an age that builds in stone, and again imposes the
+manners of stone construction on an age that builds in concrete and
+steel. But, in the case of epic at any rate, this is not merely the
+inertia of artistic convention. With the development of epic intention,
+and the subsequent choosing of themes larger and subtler than what
+common experience is wont to deal in, a certain duplicity becomes
+inevitable. The real intention of the <i>Aeneid</i>, and the real intention
+of <i>Paradise Lost</i>, are not easily brought into vivid apprehension. The
+natural thing to do, then, would be to use the familiar substance of
+early epic, but to use it as a convenient and pleasant solvent for the
+novel intention. It is what has been done in all the great "literary"
+epics. But hasty criticism, finding that where they resembled Homer
+they seemed not so close to their matter, has taken this as a pervading
+and unfortunate characteristic. It has not perceived that what in Homer
+was the main business of the epic, has become in later epic a device.
+Having so altered, it has naturally lost in significance; but in the
+greatest instances of later epic, that for which the device was used has
+been as profoundly absorbed into the poet's being as Homer's matter was
+into his being. It may be noted, too, that a corresponding change has
+also taken place in the opposite direction. As Homer's chief substance
+becomes a device in later epic, so a device of Homer's becomes in later
+epic the chief substance. Homer's supernatural machinery may be reckoned
+as a device&mdash;a device to heighten the general style and action of his
+poems; the <i>significance</i> of Homer must be found among his heroes, not
+among his gods. But with Milton, it has become necessary to entrust to
+the supernatural action the whole aim and purport of the poem.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the whole, then, there is no reason why "literary" epic should not be
+as close to its subject as "authentic" epic; there is every reason why
+both kinds should be equally close. But in testing whether they actually
+are equally close, we have to remember that in the later epic it has
+become necessary to use the ostensible subject as a vehicle for the real
+subject. And who, with any active sympathy for poetry, can say that
+Milton felt his theme with less intensity than Homer? Milton is not so
+close to his fighting angels as Homer is to his fighting men; but the
+war in heaven is an incident in Milton's figurative expression of
+something that has become altogether himself&mdash;the mystery of individual
+existence in universal existence, and the accompanying mystery of sin,
+of individual will inexplicably allowed to tamper with the divinely
+universal will. Milton, of course, in closeness to his subject and in
+everything else, stands as supreme above the other poets of literary
+epic as Homer does above the poets of authentic epic. But what is true
+of Milton is true, in less degree, of the others. If there is any good
+in them, it is primarily because they have got very close to their
+subjects: that is required not only for epic, but for all poetry.
+Coleridge, in a famous estimate put twenty years for the shortest period
+in which an epic could be composed; and of this, ten years were to be
+for preparation. He meant that not less than ten years would do for the
+poet to fill all his being with the theme; and nothing else will serve,
+It is well known how Milton brooded over his subject, how Virgil
+lingered over his, how Camoen. carried the <i>Luisads</i> round the world
+with him, with what furious intensity Tasso gave himself to writing
+<i>Jerusalem Delivered</i>. We may suppose, perhaps, that the poets of
+"authentic" epic had a somewhat easier task. There was no need for them
+to be "long choosing and beginning late." The pressure of racial
+tradition would see that they chose the right sort of subject; would
+see, too, that they lived right in the heart of their subject. For the
+poet of "literary" epic, however, it is his own consciousness that must
+select the kind of theme which will fulfil the epic intention for his
+own day; it is his own determination and studious endurance that will
+draw the theme into the secrets of his being. If he is not capable of
+getting close to his subject, we should not for that reason call his
+work "literary" epic. It would put him in the class of Milton, the most
+literary of all poets. We must simply call his stuff bad epic. There is
+plenty of it. Southey is the great instance. Southey would decide to
+write an epic about Spain, or India, or Arabia, or America. Next he
+would read up, in several languages, about his proposed subject; that
+would take him perhaps a year. Then he would versify as much strange
+information as he could remember; that might take a few months. The
+result is deadly; and because he was never anywhere near his subject. It
+is for the same reason that the unspeakable labours of Blackmore, Glover
+and Wilkie, and Voltaire's ridiculous <i>Henriade</i>, have gone to pile up
+the rubbish-heaps of literature.
+</p>
+<p>
+So far, supposed differences between "authentic" and "literary" epic
+have resolved themselves into little more than signs of development in
+epic intention; the change has not been found to produce enough artistic
+difference between early and later epic to warrant anything like a
+division into two distinct species. The epic, whether "literary" or
+"authentic," is a single form of art; but it is a form capable of
+adapting itself to the altering requirements of prevalent consciousness.
+In addition, however, to differences in general conception, there are
+certain mechanical differences which should be just noticed. The first
+epics were intended for recitation; the literary epic is meant to be
+read. It is more difficult to keep the attention of hearers than of
+readers. This in itself would be enough to rule out themes remote from
+common experience, supposing any such were to suggest themselves to the
+primitive epic poet. Perhaps, indeed, we should not be far wrong if we
+saw a chief reason for the pressure of surrounding tradition on the
+early epic in this very fact, that it is poetry meant for recitation.
+Traditional matter must be glorified, since it would be easier to listen
+to the re-creation of familiar stories than to quite new and unexpected
+things; the listeners, we must remember, needed poetry chiefly as the
+re-creation of tired hours. Traditional manner would be equally
+difficult to avoid; for it is a tradition that plainly embodies the
+requirements, fixed by experience, of <i>recited</i> poetry. Those features
+of it which make for tedium when it is read&mdash;repetition, stock epithets,
+set phrases for given situations&mdash;are the very things best suited, with
+their recurring well-known syllables, to fix the attention of listeners
+more firmly, or to stir it when it drowses; at the least they provide a
+sort of recognizable scaffolding for the events, and it is remarkable
+how easily the progress of events may be missed when poetry is
+declaimed. Indeed, if the primitive epic poet could avoid some of the
+anxieties peculiar to the composition of literary epic, he had others to
+make up for it. He had to study closely the delicate science of holding
+auricular attention when once he had got it; and probably he would have
+some difficulty in getting it at all. The really great poet challenges
+it, like Homer, with some tremendous, irresistible opening; and in this
+respect the magnificent prelude to <i>Beowulf</i> may almost be put beside
+Homer. But lesser poets have another way. That prolixity at the
+beginning of many primitive epics, their wordy deliberation in getting
+under way, is probably intentional. The <i>Song of Roland</i>, for instance,
+begins with a long series of exceedingly dull stanzas; to a reader, the
+preliminaries of the story seem insufferably drawn out. But by the time
+the reciter had got through this unimportant dreariness, no doubt his
+audience had settled down to listen. The <i>Chanson d'Antioche</i> contains
+perhaps the most illuminating admission of this difficulty. In the first
+"Chant," the first section opens:[<a href="#note-4">4</a>]
+</p>
+
+<PRE>
+Seigneurs, faites silence; et que tout bruit cesse,
+Si vous voulez entendre une glorieuse chanson.
+Aucun jongleur ne vous en dira une meilleure.
+</PRE>
+
+<p>
+Then some vaguely prelusive lines. But the audience is clearly not quite
+ready yet, for the second section begins:
+</p>
+
+<PRE>
+Barons, &eacute;coutez-moi, et cessez vos querelles!
+Je vous dirai une tr&egrave;s-belle chanson.
+</PRE>
+
+<p>
+And after some further prelude, the section ends:
+</p>
+
+<PRE>
+Ici commence la chanson o&ugrave; il y a tant &agrave; apprendre.
+</PRE>
+
+<p>
+The "Chanson" does, indeed, make some show of beginning in the third
+</p>
+
+<PRE>
+Maintenant, seigneurs, &eacute;coutez ce que dit l'&Eacute;criture.
+</PRE>
+
+<p>
+And once more in the fifth section:
+</p>
+
+<PRE>
+Barons, &eacute;coutez un excellent couplet.
+</PRE>
+
+<p>
+In the sixth, the jongleur is getting desperate:
+</p>
+
+<PRE>
+Seigneurs, pour l'amour de Dieu, faites silence, &eacute;coutez-moi,
+Pour qu'en partant de ce monde vous entriez dans un meilleur;
+</PRE>
+
+<p>
+but after this exclamation he has his way, though the story proper is
+still a good way off. Perhaps not all of these hortatory stanzas were
+commonly used; any or all of them could certainly be omitted without
+damaging the poem. But they were there to be used, according to the
+judgment of the jongleur and the temper of his audience, and their
+presence in the poem is very suggestive of the special difficulties in
+the art of rhapsodic poetry.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the gravest difficulty, and perhaps the most important, in poetry
+meant solely for recitation, is the difficulty of achieving verbal
+beauty, or rather of making verbal beauty tell. Vigorous but controlled
+imagination, formative power, insight into the significance of
+things&mdash;these are qualities which a poet must eminently possess; but
+these are qualities which may also be eminently possessed by men who
+cannot claim the title of poet. The real differentia of the poet is his
+command over the secret magic of words. Others may have as delighted a
+sense of this magic, but it is only the poet who can master it and do
+what he likes with it. And next to the invention of speaking itself, the
+most important invention for the poet has been the invention of writing
+and reading; for this has added immensely to the scope of his mastery
+over words. No poet will ever take the written word as a substitute for
+the spoken word; he knows that it is on the spoken word, and the spoken
+word only, that his art is founded. But he trusts his reader to do as he
+himself does&mdash;to receive written words always as the code of spoken
+words. To do so has wonderfully enlarged his technical opportunities;
+for apprehension is quicker and finer through the eye than through the
+ear. After the invention of reading, even poetry designed primarily for
+declamation (like drama or lyric) has depths and subtleties of art which
+were not possible for the primitive poet. Accordingly we find that, on
+the whole, in comparison with "literary" epic, the texture of
+"authentic" epic is flat and dull. The story may be superb, and its
+management may be superb; but the words in which the story lives do not
+come near the grandeur of Milton, or the exquisiteness of Virgil, or the
+deliciousness of Tasso. Indeed, if we are to say what is the real
+difference between <i>Beowulf</i> and <i>Paradise Lost</i>, we must simply say
+that <i>Beowulf</i> is not such good poetry. There is, of course, one
+tremendous exception; Homer is the one poet of authentic epic who had
+sufficient genius to make unfailingly, nobly beautiful poetry within the
+strict and hard conditions of purely auricular art. Compare Homer's
+ambrosial glory with the descent tap-water of Hesiod; compare his
+continuous burnished gleam of wrought metal with the sparse grains that
+lie in the sandy diction of all the "authentic" epics of the other
+nations. And, by all ancient accounts, the other early Greek epics would
+not fare much better in the comparison. Homer's singularity in this
+respect is overwhelming; but it is frequently forgotten, and especially
+by those who think to help in the Homeric question by comparing him with
+other "authentic" epics. Supposing (we can only just suppose it) a case
+were made out for the growth rather than the individual authorship of
+some "authentic" epic other than Homer; it could never have any bearing
+on the question of Homeric authorship, because no early epic is
+comparable with the <i>poetry</i> of Homer. Nothing, indeed, is comparable
+with the poetry of Homer, except poetry for whose individual authorship
+history unmistakably vouches.
+</p>
+<p>
+So we cannot say that Homer was not as deliberate a craftsman in words
+as Milton himself. The scope of his craft was more restricted, as his
+repetitions and stock epithets show; he was restricted by the fact that
+he composed for recitation, and the auricular appreciation of diction is
+limited, the nature of poetry obeying, in the main, the nature of those
+for whom it is composed. But this is just a case in which genius
+transcends technical scope. The effects Homer produced with his methods
+were as great as any effects produced by later and more elaborate
+methods, after poetry began to be read as well as heard. But neither
+must we say that the other poets of "authentic" epic were not deliberate
+craftsmen in words. Poets will always get as much beauty out of words as
+they can. The fact that so often in the early epics a magnificent
+subject is told, on the whole, in a lumpish and tedious diction, is not
+to be explained by any contempt for careful art, as though it were a
+thing unworthy of such heroic singers; it is simply to be explained by
+lack of such genius as is capable of transcending the severe limitations
+of auricular poetry. And we may well believe that only the rarest and
+most potent kind of genius could transcend such limitations.
+</p>
+<p>
+In summary, then, we find certain conceptual differences and certain
+mechanical differences between "authentic" and "literary" epic. But
+these are not such as to enable us to say that there is, artistically,
+any real difference between the two kinds. Rather, the differences
+exhibit the changes we might expect in an art that has kept up with
+consciousness developing, and civilization becoming more intricate.
+"Literary" epic is as close to its subject as "authentic"; but, as a
+general rule, "authentic" epic, in response to its surrounding needs,
+has a simple and concrete subject, and the closeness of the poet to this
+is therefore more obvious than in "literary" epic, which (again in
+response to surrounding needs) has been driven to take for subject some
+great abstract idea and display this in a concrete but only ostensible
+subject. Then in craftsmanship, the two kinds of epic are equally
+deliberate, equally concerned with careful art; but "literary" epic has
+been able to take such advantage of the habit of reading that, with the
+single exception of Homer, it has achieved a diction much more
+answerable to the greatness of epic matter than the "authentic" poems.
+We may, then, in a general survey, regard epic poetry as being in all
+ages essentially the same kind of art, fulfilling always a similar,
+though constantly developing, intention. Whatever sort of society he
+lives in, whether he be surrounded by illiterate heroism or placid
+culture, the epic poet has a definite function to perform. We see him
+accepting, and with his genius transfiguring, the general circumstance
+of his time; we see him symbolizing, in some appropriate form, whatever
+sense of the significance of life he feels acting as the accepted
+unconscious metaphysic of his age. To do this, he takes some great story
+which has been absorbed into the prevailing consciousness of his people.
+As a rule, though not quite invariably, the story will be of things
+which are, or seem, so far back in the past, that anything may credibly
+happen in it; so imagination has its freedom, and so significance is
+displayed. But quite invariably, the materials of the story will have an
+unmistakable air of actuality; that is, they come profoundly out of
+human experience, whether they declare legendary heroism, as in Homer
+and Virgil, or myth, as in <i>Beowulf</i> and <i>Paradise Lost</i>, or actual
+history, as in Lucan and Camoens and Tasso. And he sets out this story
+and its significance in poetry as lofty and as elaborate as he can
+compass. That, roughly, is what we see the epic poets doing, whether
+they be "literary" or "authentic"; and if this can be agreed on, we
+should now have come tolerably close to a definition of epic poetry.
+</p>
+<center>
+FOOTNOTES:
+</center>
+<p>
+<a name="note-4"><!-- Note Anchor 4 --></a>[Footnote 4: From the version of the Marquise de Sainte-Aulaire.]
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<a name="RULE4_3"><!-- RULE4 3 --></a>
+<h2>
+	III.
+</h2>
+
+<center>
+THE NATURE OF EPIC
+</center>
+<p>
+Rigid definitions in literature are, however, dangerous. At bottom, it
+is what we feel, not what we think, that makes us put certain poems
+together and apart from others; and feelings cannot be defined, but only
+related. If we define a poem, we say what we think about it; and that
+may not sufficiently imply the essential thing the poem does for us.
+Hence the definition is liable either to be too strict, or to admit work
+which does not properly satisfy the criterion of feeling. It seems
+probable that, in the last resort, classification in literature rests on
+that least tangible, least definable matter, style; for style is the
+sign of the poem's spirit, and it is the spirit that we feel. If we can
+get some notion of how those poems, which we call epic, agree with one
+another in style, it is likely we shall be as close as may be to a
+definition of epic. I use the word "style," of course, in its largest
+sense&mdash;manner of conception as well as manner of composition.
+</p>
+<p>
+An easy way to define epic, though not a very profitable way, would be
+to say simply, that an epic is a poem which produces feelings similar to
+those produced by <i>Paradise Lost</i> or the <i>Iliad</i>, <i>Beowulf</i> or the <i>Song
+of Roland</i>. Indeed, you might include all the epics of Europe in this
+definition without losing your breath; for the epic poet is the rarest
+kind of artist. And while it is not a simple matter to say off-hand what
+it is that is common to all these poems, there seems to be general
+acknowledgment that they are clearly separable from other kinds of
+poetry; and this although the word epic has been rather badly abused.
+For instance, <i>The Faery Queene</i> and <i>La Divina Commedia</i> have been
+called epic poems; but I do not think that anyone could fail to admit,
+on a little pressure, that the experience of reading <i>The Faery Queene</i>
+or <i>La Divina Commedia</i> is not in the least like the experience of
+reading <i>Paradise Lost</i> or the <i>Iliad</i>. But as a poem may have lyrical
+qualities without being a lyric, so a poem may have epical qualities
+without being an epic. In all the poems which the world has agreed to
+call epics, there is a story told, and well told. But Dante's poem
+attempts no story at all, and Spenser's, though it attempts several,
+does not tell them well&mdash;it scarcely attempts to make the reader believe
+in them, being much more concerned with the decoration and the
+implication of its fables than with the fables themselves. What epic
+quality, detached from epic proper, do these poems possess, then, apart
+from the mere fact that they take up a great many pages? It is simply a
+question of their style&mdash;the style of their conception and the style of
+their writing; the whole style of their imagination, in fact. They take
+us into a region in which nothing happens that is not deeply
+significant; a dominant, noticeably symbolic, purpose presides over each
+poem, moulds it greatly and informs it throughout.
+</p>
+<p>
+This takes us some little way towards deciding the nature of epic. It
+must be a story, and the story must be told well and greatly; and,
+whether in the story itself or in the telling of it, significance must
+be implied. Does that mean that the epic must be allegorical? Many have
+thought so; even Homer has been accused of constructing allegories. But
+this is only a crude way of emphasizing the significance of epic; and
+there is a vast deal of difference between a significant story and an
+allegorical story. Reality of substance is a thing on which epic poetry
+must always be able to rely. Not only because Spenser does not tell his
+stories very well, but even more because their substance (not, of
+course, their meaning) is deliciously and deliberately unreal, <i>The
+Faery Queene</i> is outside the strict sense of the word epic. Allegory
+requires material ingeniously manipulated and fantastic; what is more
+important, it requires material invented by the poet himself. That is a
+long way from the solid reality of material which epic requires. Not
+manipulation, but imaginative transfiguration of material; not
+invention, but selection of existing material appropriate to his genius,
+and complete absorption of it into his being; that is how the epic poet
+works. Allegory is a beautiful way of inculcating and asserting some
+special significance in life; but epic has a severer task, and a more
+impressive one. It has not to say, Life in the world <i>ought</i> to mean
+this or that; it has to show life unmistakably <i>being</i> significant. It
+does not gloss or interpret the fact of life, but re-creates it and
+charges the fact itself with the poet's own sense of ultimate values.
+This will be less precise than the definite assertions of allegory; but
+for that reason it will be more deeply felt. The values will be
+emotional and spiritual rather than intellectual. And they will be the
+poet's own only because he has made them part of his being; in him
+(though he probably does not know it) they will be representative of the
+best and most characteristic life of his time. That does not mean that
+the epic poet's image of life's significance is of merely contemporary
+or transient importance. No stage through which the general
+consciousness of men has gone can ever be outgrown by men; whatever
+happens afterwards does not displace it, but includes it. We could not
+do without <i>Paradise Lost</i> nowadays; but neither can we do without the
+<i>Iliad</i>. It would not, perhaps, be far from the truth, if it were even
+said that the significance of <i>Paradise Lost</i> cannot be properly
+understood unless the significance of the <i>Iliad</i> be understood.
+</p>
+<p>
+The prime material of the epic poet, then, must be real and not
+invented. But when the story of the poem is safely concerned with some
+reality, he can, of course, graft on this as much appropriate invention
+as he pleases; it will be one of his ways of elaborating his main,
+unifying purpose&mdash;and to call it "unifying" is to assume that, however
+brilliant his surrounding invention may be, the purpose will always be
+firmly implicit in the central subject. Some of the early epics manage
+to do without any conspicuous added invention designed to extend what
+the main subject intends; but such nobly simple, forthright narrative as
+<i>Beowulf</i> and the <i>Song of Roland</i> would not do for a purpose slightly
+more subtle than what the makers of these ringing poems had in mind. The
+reality of the central subject is, of course, to be understood broadly.
+It means that the story must be founded deep in the general experience
+of men. A decisive campaign is not, for the epic poet, any more real
+than a legend full of human truth. All that the name of Caesar suggests
+is extremely important for mankind; so is all that the name of Satan
+suggests: Satan, in this sense, is as real as Caesar. And, as far as
+reality is concerned, there is nothing to choose between the Christians
+taking Jerusalem and the Greeks taking Troy; nor between Odysseus
+sailing into fairyland and Vasco da Gama sailing round the world. It is
+certainly possible that a poet might devise a story of such a kind that
+we could easily take it as something which might have been a real human
+experience. But that is not enough for the epic poet. He needs something
+which everyone knows about, something which indisputably, and
+admittedly, <i>has been</i> a human experience; and even Grendel, the fiend
+of the marshes, was, we can clearly see, for the poet of <i>Beowulf</i> a
+figure profoundly and generally accepted as not only true but real;
+what, indeed, can be more real for poetry than a devouring fiend which
+lives in pestilent fens? And the reason why epic poetry so imperiously
+demands reality of subject is clear; it is because such poetry has
+symbolically to re-create the actual fact and the actual particulars of
+human existence in terms of a general significance&mdash;the reader must feel
+that life itself has submitted to plastic imagination. No fiction will
+ever have the air, so necessary for this epic symbolism, not merely of
+representing, but of unmistakably <i>being</i>, human experience. This might
+suggest that history would be the thing for an epic poet; and so it
+would be, if history were superior to legend in poetic reality. But,
+simply as substance, there is nothing to choose between them; while
+history has the obvious disadvantage of being commonly too strict in the
+manner of its events to allow of creative freedom. Its details will
+probably be so well known, that any modification of them will draw more
+attention to discrepancy with the records than to achievement thereby of
+poetic purpose. And yet modification, or at least suppression and
+exaggeration, of the details of history will certainly be necessary. Not
+to declare what happened, and the results of what happened, is the
+object of an epic; but to accept all this as the mere material in which
+a single artistic purpose, a unique, vital symbolism may be shaped. And
+if legend, after passing for innumerable years through popular
+imagination, still requires to be shaped at the hands of the epic poet,
+how much more must the crude events of history require this! For it is
+not in events as they happen, however notably, that man may see symbols
+of vital destiny, but in events as they are transformed by plastic
+imagination.
+</p>
+<p>
+Yet it has been possible to use history as the material of great epic
+poetry; Camoens and Tasso did this&mdash;the chief subject of the <i>Lusiads</i>
+is even contemporary history. But evidently success in these cases was
+due to the exceptional and fortunate fact that the fixed notorieties of
+history were combined with a strange and mysterious geography. The
+remoteness and, one might say, the romantic possibilities of the places
+into which Camoens and Tasso were led by their themes, enable
+imagination to deal pretty freely with history. But in a little more
+than ten years after Camoens glorified Portugal in an historical epic,
+Don Alonso de Ercilla tried to do the same for Spain. He puts his action
+far enough from home: the Spaniards are conquering Chili. But the world
+has grown smaller and more familiar in the interval: the astonishing
+things that could easily happen in the seas of Madagascar cannot now
+conveniently happen in Chili. The <i>Araucana</i> is versified history, not
+epic. That is to say, the action has no deeper significance than any
+other actual warfare; it has not been, and could not have been, shaped
+to any symbolic purpose. Long before Tasso and Camoens and Ercilla, two
+Scotchmen had attempted to put patriotism into epic form; Barbour had
+written his <i>Bruce</i> and Blind Harry his <i>Wallace</i>. But what with the
+nearness of their events, and what with the rusticity of their authors,
+these tolerable, ambling poems are quite unable to get the better of the
+hardness of history. Probably the boldest attempt to make epic of
+well-known, documented history is Lucan's <i>Pharsalia</i>. It is a brilliant
+performance, and a deliberate effort to carry on the development of
+epic. At the very least it has enriched the thought of humanity with
+some imperishable lines. But it is true, what the great critic said of
+it: the <i>Pharsalia</i> partakes more of the nature of oratory than of
+poetry. It means that Lucan, in choosing history, chose something which
+he had to declaim about, something which, at best, he could
+imaginatively realize; but not something which he could imaginatively
+re-create. It is quite different with poems like the <i>Song of Roland</i>.
+They are composed in, or are drawn immediately out of, an heroic age; an
+age, that is to say, when the idea of history has not arisen, when
+anything that happens turns inevitably, and in a surprisingly short
+time, into legend. Thus, an unimportant, probably unpunished, attack by
+Basque mountaineers on the Emperor's rear-guard has become, in the <i>Song
+of Roland</i>, a great infamy of Saracenic treachery, which must be greatly
+avenged.
+</p>
+<p>
+Such, in a broad description, is the nature of epic poetry. To define it
+with any narrower nicety would probably be rash. We have not been
+discovering what an epic poem ought to be, but roughly examining what
+similarity of quality there is in all those poems which we feel,
+strictly attending to the emotional experience of reading them, can be
+classed together and, for convenience, termed epic. But it is not much
+good having a name for this species of poetry if it is given as well to
+poems of quite a different nature. It is not much good agreeing to call
+by the name of epic such poems as the <i>Iliad</i> and the <i>Odyssey</i>,
+<i>Beowulf</i> and the <i>Song of Roland</i>, <i>Paradise Lost</i> and <i>Gerusalemme
+Liberata</i>, if epic is also to be the title for <i>The Faery Queene</i> and
+<i>La Divina Commedia</i>, <i>The Idylls of the King</i> and <i>The Ring and the
+Book</i>. But I believe most of the importance in the meaning of the word
+epic, when it is reasonably used, will be found in what is written
+above. Apart from the specific form of epic, it shares much of its
+ultimate intention with the greatest kind of drama (though not with all
+drama). And just as drama, whatever grandeur of purpose it may attempt,
+must be a good play, so epic must be a good story. It will tell its tale
+both largely and intensely, and the diction will be carried on the
+volume of a powerful, flowing metre. To distinguish, however, between
+merely narrative poetry, and poetry which goes beyond being mere
+narrative into the being of epic, must often be left to feeling which
+can scarcely be precisely analysed. A curious instance of the
+difficulty in exactly defining epic (but not in exactly deciding what is
+epic) may be found in the work of William Morris. Morris left two long
+narrative poems, <i>The Life and Death of Jason</i>, and <i>The Story of Sigurd
+the Volsung</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+I do not think anyone need hesitate to put <i>Sigurd</i> among the epics; but
+I do not think anyone who will scrupulously compare the experience of
+reading <i>Jason</i> with the experience of reading <i>Sigurd</i>, can help
+agreeing that <i>Jason</i> should be kept out of the epics. There is nothing
+to choose between the subjects of the two poems. For an Englishman,
+Greek mythology means as much as the mythology of the North. And I
+should say that the bright, exact diction and the modest metre of
+<i>Jason</i> are more interesting and attractive than the diction, often
+monotonous and vague, and the metre, often clumsily vehement, of
+<i>Sigurd</i>. Yet for all that it is the style of <i>Sigurd</i> that puts it with
+the epics and apart from <i>Jason</i>; for style goes beyond metre and
+diction, beyond execution, into conception. The whole imagination of
+<i>Sigurd</i> is incomparably larger than that of <i>Jason</i>. In <i>Sigurd</i>, you
+feel that the fashioning grasp of imagination has not only seized on the
+show of things, and not only on the physical or moral unity of things,
+but has somehow brought into the midst of all this, and has kneaded into
+the texture of it all, something of the ultimate and metaphysical
+significance of life. You scarcely feel that in <i>Jason</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+Yes, epic poetry must be an affair of evident largeness. It was well
+said, that "the praise of an epic poem is to feign a person exceeding
+Nature." "Feign" here means to imagine; and imagine does not mean to
+invent. But, like most of the numerous epigrams that have been made
+about epic poetry, the remark does not describe the nature of epic, but
+rather one of the conspicuous signs that that nature is fulfilling
+itself. A poem which is, in some sort, a summation for its time of the
+values of life, will inevitably concern itself with at least one figure,
+and probably with several, in whom the whole virtue, and perhaps also
+the whole failure, of living seems superhumanly concentrated. A story
+weighted with the epic purpose could not proceed at all, unless it were
+expressed in persons big enough to support it. The subject, then, as the
+epic poet uses it, will obviously be an important one. Whether, apart
+from the way the poet uses it, the subject ought to be an important one,
+would not start a very profitable discussion. Homer has been praised for
+making, in the <i>Iliad</i>, a first-rate poem out of a second-rate subject.
+It is a neat saying; but it seems unlikely that anything really
+second-rate should turn into first-rate epic. I imagine Homer would have
+been considerably surprised, if anyone had told him that the vast train
+of tragic events caused by the gross and insupportable insult put by
+Agamemnon, the mean mind in authority, on Achilles, the typical
+hero&mdash;that this noble and profoundly human theme was a second-rate
+subject. At any rate, the subject must be of capital importance in its
+treatment. It must symbolize&mdash;not as a particular and separable
+assertion, but at large and generally&mdash;some great aspect of vital
+destiny, without losing the air of recording some accepted reality of
+human experience, and without failing to be a good story; and the
+pressure of high purpose will inform diction and metre, as far, at
+least, as the poet's verbal art will let it.
+</p>
+<p>
+The usual attempts at stricter definition of epic than anything this
+chapter contains, are either, in spite of what they try for, so vague
+that they would admit almost any long stretch of narrative poetry; or
+else they are based on the accidents or devices of epic art; and in that
+case they are apt to exclude work which is essentially epic because
+something inessential is lacking. It has, for instance, been seriously
+debated, whether an epic should not contain a catalogue of heroes. Other
+things, which epics have been required to contain, besides much that is
+not worth mentioning,[<a href="#note-5">5</a>] are a descent into hell and some supernatural
+machinery. Both of these are obviously devices for enlarging the scope
+of the action. The notion of a visit to the ghosts has fascinated many
+poets, and Dante elaborated this Homeric device into the main scheme of
+the greatest of non-epical poems, as Milton elaborated the other
+Homeric device into the main scheme of the greatest of literary epics.
+But a visit to the ghosts is, of course, like games or single combat or
+a set debate, merely an incident which may or may not be useful.
+Supernatural machinery, however, is worth some short discussion here,
+though it must be alluded to further in the sequel. The first and
+obvious thing to remark is, that an unquestionably epic effect can be
+given without any supernatural machinery at all. The poet of <i>Beowulf</i>
+has no need of it, for instance. A Christian redactor has worked over
+the poem, with more piety than skill; he can always be detected, and his
+clumsy little interjections have nothing to do with the general tenour
+of the poem. The human world ends off, as it were, precipitously; and
+beyond there is an endless, impracticable abyss in which dwells the
+secret governance of things, an unknowable and implacable
+fate&mdash;"Wyrd"&mdash;neither malign nor benevolent, but simply inscrutable. The
+peculiar cast of noble and desolate courage which this bleak conception
+gives to the poem is perhaps unique among the epics.
+</p>
+<p>
+But very few epic poets have ventured to do without supernatural
+machinery of some sort. And it is plain that it must greatly assist the
+epic purpose to surround the action with immortals who are not only
+interested spectators of the event, but are deeply implicated in it;
+nothing could more certainly liberate, or at least more appropriately
+decorate, the significant force of the subject. We may leave Milton out,
+for there can be no question about <i>Paradise Lost</i> here; the
+significance of the subject is not only liberated by, it entirely exists
+in, the supernatural machinery. But with the other epic poets, we should
+certainly expect them to ask us for our belief in their immortals. That,
+however, is just what they seem curiously careless of doing. The
+immortals are there, they are the occasion of splendid poetry; they do
+what they are intended to do&mdash;they declare, namely, by their speech and
+their action, the importance to the world of what is going on in the
+poem. Only&mdash;there is no obligation to believe in them; and will not that
+mean, no obligation to believe in their concern for the subject, and all
+that that implies? Homer begins this paradox. Think of that lovely and
+exquisitely mischievous passage in the <i>Iliad</i> called <i>The Cheating of
+Zeus</i>. The salvationist school of commentators calls this an
+interpolation; but the spirit of it is implicit throughout the whole of
+Homer's dealing with the gods; whenever, at least, he deals with them at
+length, and not merely incidentally. Not to accept that spirit is not to
+accept Homer. The manner of describing the Olympian family at the end of
+the first book is quite continuous throughout, and simply reaches its
+climax in the fourteenth book. Nobody ever believed in Homer's gods, as
+he must believe in Hektor and Achilles. (Puritans like Xenophanes were
+annoyed not with the gods for being as Homer described them, but with
+Homer for describing them as he did.) Virgil is more decorous; but can
+we imagine Virgil praying, or anybody praying, to the gods of the
+<i>Aeneid</i>? The supernatural machinery of Camoens and Tasso is frankly
+absurd; they are not only careless of credibility, but of sanity. Lucan
+tried to do without gods; but his witchcraft engages belief even more
+faintly than the mingled Paganism and Christianity of Camoens, and
+merely shows how strongly the most rationalistic of epic poets felt the
+value of some imaginary relaxation in the limits of human existence. Is
+it, then, only as such a relaxation that supernatural machinery is
+valuable? Or only as a superlative kind of ornament? It is surely more
+than that. In spite of the fact that we are not seriously asked to
+believe in it, it does beautifully and strikingly crystallize the poet's
+determination to show us things that go past the reach of common
+knowledge. But by putting it, whether instinctively or deliberately, on
+a lower plane of credibility than the main action, the poet obeys his
+deepest and gravest necessity: the necessity of keeping his poem
+emphatically an affair of recognizable <i>human</i> events. It is of man, and
+man's purpose in the world, that the epic poet has to sing; not of the
+purpose of gods. The gods must only illustrate man's destiny; and they
+must be kept within the bounds of beautiful illustration. But it
+requires a finer genius than most epic poets have possessed, to keep
+supernatural machinery just sufficiently fanciful without missing its
+function. Perhaps only Homer and Virgil have done that perfectly.
+Milton's revolutionary development marks a crisis in the general process
+of epic so important, that it can only be discussed when that process is
+considered, in the following chapter, as a whole.
+</p>
+<center>
+FOOTNOTES:
+</center>
+<p>
+<a name="note-5"><!-- Note Anchor 5 --></a>[Footnote 5: Such as similes and episodes. It is as if a man were to
+say, the essential thing about a bridge is that it should be painted.]
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<a name="RULE4_4"><!-- RULE4 4 --></a>
+<h2>
+	IV.
+</h2>
+
+<center>
+THE EPIC SERIES
+</center>
+<p>
+By the general process of epic poetry, I mean the way this form of art
+has constantly responded to the profound needs of the society in which
+it was made. But the development of human society does not go straight
+forward; and the epic process will therefore be a recurring process, the
+series a recurring series&mdash;though not in exact repetition. Thus, the
+Homeric poems, the <i>Argonautica</i>, the <i>Aeneid</i>, the <i>Pharsalia</i>, and the
+later Latin epics, form one series: the <i>Aeneid</i> would be the climax of
+the series, which thence declines, were it not that the whole originates
+with the incomparable genius of Homer&mdash;a fact which makes it seem to
+decline from start to finish. Then the process begins again, and again
+fulfils itself, in the series which goes from <i>Beowulf</i>, the <i>Song of
+Roland</i>, and the <i>Nibelungenlied</i>, through Camoens and Tasso up to
+Milton. And in this case Milton is plainly the climax. There is nothing
+like <i>Paradise Lost</i> in the preceding poems, and epic poetry has done
+nothing since but decline from that towering glory.
+</p>
+<p>
+But it will be convenient not to make too much of chronology, in a
+general account of epic development. It has already appeared that the
+duties of all "authentic" epic are broadly the same, and the poems of
+this kind, though two thousand years may separate their occurrence, may
+be properly brought together as varieties of one sub-species. "Literary"
+epic differs much more in the specific purpose of its art, as civilized
+societies differ much more than heroic, and also as the looser <i>milieu</i>
+of a civilization allows a less strictly traditional exercise of
+personal genius than an heroic age. Still, it does not require any
+manipulation to combine the "literary" epics from both series into a
+single process. Indeed, if we take Homer, Virgil and Milton as the
+outstanding events in the whole progress of epic poetry, and group the
+less important poems appropriately round these three names, we shall not
+be far from the <i>ideal truth</i> of epic development. We might say, then,
+that Homer begins the whole business of epic, imperishably fixes its
+type and, in a way that can never be questioned, declares its artistic
+purpose; Virgil perfects the type; and Milton perfects the purpose.
+Three such poets are not, heaven knows, summed up in a phrase; I mean
+merely to indicate how they are related one to another in the general
+scheme of epic poetry. For discriminating their merits, deciding their
+comparative eminence, I have no inclination; and fortunately it does not
+come within the requirements of this essay. Indeed, I think the reader
+will easily excuse me, if I touch very slightly on the poetic manner, in
+the common and narrow sense, of the poets whom I shall have to mention;
+since these qualities have been so often and sometimes so admirably
+dealt with. It is at the broader aspects of artistic purpose that I wish
+to look.
+</p>
+<p>
+"From Homer," said Goethe, "I learn every day more clearly, that in our
+life here above ground we have, properly speaking, to enact Hell." It is
+rather a startling sentence at first. That poetry which, for us, in
+Thoreau's excellent words, "lies in the east of literature," scarcely
+suggests, in the usual opinion of it, Hell. We are tempted to think of
+Homer as the most fortunate of poets. It seems as if he had but to open
+his mouth and speak, to create divine poetry; and it does not lessen our
+sense of his good fortune when, on looking a little closer, we see that
+this is really the result of an unerring and unfailing art, an
+extraordinarily skilful technique. He had it entirely at his command;
+and he exercised it in a language in which, though it may be singularly
+artificial and conventional, we can still feel the wonder of its
+sensuous beauty and the splendour of its expressive power. It is a
+language that seems alive with eagerness to respond to imagination. Open
+Homer anywhere, and the casual grandeur of his untranslatable language
+appears; such lines as:
+</p>
+<pre>
+  amphi de naees
+smerdaleon konabaesan ausanton hup' Achaion.[<a href="#note-6">6</a>]
+</pre>
+<p>
+That, you might say, is Homer at his ease; when he exerts himself you
+get a miracle like:
+</p>
+<pre>
+  su den strophalingi koniaes
+keiso megas megalosti, lelasmenos hipposunaon.[<a href="#note-7">7</a>]
+</pre>
+<p>
+It seems the art of one who walked through the world of things endowed
+with the senses of a god, and able, with that perfection of effort that
+looks as if it were effortless, to fashion his experience into
+incorruptible song; whether it be the dance of flies round a byre at
+milking-time, or a forest-fire on the mountains at night. The shape and
+clamour of waves breaking on the beach in a storm is as irresistibly
+recorded by Homer as the gleaming flowers which earth put forth to be
+the bed of Zeus and Hera in Gargaros, when a golden cloud was their
+coverlet, and Sleep sat on a pine tree near by in the likeness of a
+murmuring night-jar. It is an art so balanced, that when it tells us,
+with no special emphasis, how the Trojans came on with a din like the
+clangour of a flock of cranes, but the Achaians came on in silence, the
+temper of the two hosts is discriminated for the whole poem; or, in the
+supreme instance, when it tells us how the old men looked at Helen and
+said, "No wonder the young men fight for her!" then Helen's beauty must
+be accepted by the faith of all the world. The particulars of such
+poetry could be enumerated for pages; and this is the poetry which is
+filled, more than any other literature, in the <i>Iliad</i> with the nobility
+of men and women, in the <i>Odyssey</i> with the light of natural magic. And
+think of those gods of Homer's; he is the one poet who has been able to
+make the dark terrors of religion beautiful, harmless and quietly
+entertaining. It is easy to read this poetry and simply <i>enjoy</i> it; it
+is easy to say, the man whose spirit held this poetry must have been
+divinely happy. But this is the poetry whence Goethe learnt that the
+function of man is "to enact Hell."
+</p>
+<p>
+Goethe is profoundly right; though possibly he puts it in a way to which
+Homer himself might have demurred. For the phrase inevitably has its
+point in the word "Hell"; Homer, we may suppose, would have preferred
+the point to come in the word "enact." In any case, the details of
+Christian eschatology must not engage us much in interpreting Goethe's
+epigram. There is truth in it, not simply because the two poems take
+place in a theatre of calamity; not simply, for instance, because of the
+beloved Hektor's terrible agony of death, and the woes of Andromache and
+Priam. Such things are the partial, incidental expressions of the whole
+artistic purpose. Still less is it because of a strain of latent
+savagery in, at any rate, the <i>Iliad</i>; as when the sage and reverend
+Nestor urges that not one of the Greeks should go home until he has lain
+with the wife of a slaughtered Trojan, or as in the tremendous words of
+the oath: "Whoever first offend against this oath, may their brains be
+poured out on the ground like this wine, their own and their children's,
+and may their wives be made subject to strangers." All that is one of
+the accidental qualities of Homer. But the force of the word "enact" in
+Goethe's epigram will certainly come home to us when we think of those
+famous speeches in which courage is unforgettably declared&mdash;such
+speeches as that of Sarpedon to Glaukos, or of Glaukos to Diomedes, or
+of Hektor at his parting with Andromache. What these speeches mean,
+however, in the whole artistic purpose of Homer, will assuredly be
+missed if they are <i>detached</i> for consideration; especially we shall
+miss the deep significance of the fact that in all of these speeches the
+substantial thought falls, as it were, into two clauses. Courage is in
+the one clause, a deliberate facing of death; but something equally
+important is in the other. Is it honour? The Homeric hero makes a great
+deal of honour; but it is honour paid to himself, living; what he wants
+above everything is to be admired&mdash;"always to be the best"; that is what
+true heroism is. But he is to go where he knows death will strike at
+him; and he does not make much of honour after death; for him, the
+meanest man living is better than a dead hero. Death ends everything, as
+far as he is concerned, honour and all; his courage looks for no reward
+hereafter. No; but <i>since</i> ten thousand fates of death are always
+instant round us; <i>since</i> the generations of men are of no more account
+than leaves of a tree; <i>since</i> Troy and all its people will soon be
+destroyed&mdash;he will stand in death's way. Sarpedon emphasizes this with
+its converse: There would be no need of daring and fighting, he says,
+of "man-ennobling battle," if we could be for ever ageless and
+deathless. That is the heroic age; any other would say, If only we could
+not be killed, how pleasant to run what might have been risks! For the
+hero, that would simply not be worth while. Does he find them pleasant,
+then, just because they are risky? Not quite; that, again, is to detach
+part of the meaning from the whole. If anywhere, we shall, perhaps, find
+the whole meaning of Homer most clearly indicated in such words as those
+given (without any enforcement) to Achilles and Thetis near the
+beginning of the <i>Iliad</i>, as if to sound the pitch of Homer's poetry:
+</p>
+<pre>
+m&ecirc;ter, hepi m hetekes ge minynthadion per heonta,
+tim&ecirc;n per moi hophellen Olympios engyalixai
+Zeus hypsibremet&ecirc;s.[<a href="#note-8">8</a>]
+</pre>
+<pre>
+tim&ecirc;son moi yion hos h&ocirc;kymor&ocirc;tatos hallon
+heplet'.[<a href="#note-9">9</a>]
+</pre>
+<p>
+Minunthadion&mdash;h&ocirc;kymor&ocirc;tatos: those are the imporportant words;
+key-words, they might be called. If we really understand these lines, if
+we see in them what it is that Agamemnon's insult has deprived Achilles
+of&mdash;the sign and acknowledgment of his fellows' admiration while he is
+still living among them, the one thing which makes a hero's life worth
+living, which enables him to enact his Hell&mdash;we shall scarcely complain
+that the <i>Iliad</i> is composed on a second-rate subject. The significance
+of the poem is not in the incidents surrounding the "Achilleis"; the
+whole significance is centred in the Wrath of Achilles, and thence made
+to impregnate every part.
+</p>
+<p>
+Life is short; we must make the best of it. How trite that sounds! But
+it is not trite at all really. It seems difficult, sometimes, to believe
+that there was a time when sentiments now become habitual, sentiments
+that imply not only the original imperative of conduct, but the original
+metaphysic of living, were by no means altogether habitual. It is
+difficult to imagine backwards into the time when self-consciousness was
+still so fresh from its emergence out of the mere tribal consciousness
+of savagery, that it must not only accept the fact, but first intensely
+<i>realize</i>, that man is h&ocirc;kymor&ocirc;tatos&mdash;a thing of swiftest doom. And it
+was for men who were able, and forced, to do that, that the <i>Iliad</i> and
+the <i>Odyssey</i> and the other early epics were composed. But life is not
+only short; it is, in itself, <i>valueless</i>. "As the generation of leaves,
+so is the generation of men." The life of man matters to nobody but
+himself. It happens incidentally in universal destiny; but beyond just
+happening it has no function. No function, of course, except for man
+himself. If man is to find any value in life it is he himself that must
+create the value. For the sense of the ultimate uselessness of life, of
+the blankness of imperturbable darkness that surrounds it, Goethe's word
+"Hell" is not too shocking. But no one has properly lived who has not
+felt this Hell; and we may easily believe that in an heroic age, the
+intensity of this feeling was the secret of the intensity of living. For
+where will the primitive instinct of man, where will the hero, find the
+chance of creating a value for life? In danger, and in the courage that
+welcomes danger. That not only evaluates life; it derives the value from
+the very fact that forces man to create value&mdash;the fact of his swift and
+instant doom&mdash;h&ocirc;kymor&ocirc;tatos once more; it makes this dreadful fact
+<i>enjoyable</i>. And so, with courage as the value of life, and man thence
+delightedly accepting whatever can be made of his passage, the doom of
+life is not simply suffered; man enacts his own life; he has mastered
+it.
+</p>
+<p>
+We need not say that this is the lesson of Homer. And all this, barely
+stated, is a very different matter from what it is when it is poetically
+symbolized in the vast and shapely substance of the <i>Iliad</i> and the
+<i>Odyssey</i>. It is quite possible, of course, to appreciate, pleasantly
+and externally, the <i>Iliad</i> with its pressure of thronging life and its
+daring unity, and the <i>Odyssey</i> with its serener life and its superb
+construction, though much more sectional unity. But we do not appreciate
+what Homer did for his time, and is still doing for all the world, we do
+not appreciate the spirit of his music, unless we see the warfare and
+the adventure as symbols of the primary courage of life; and there is
+more in those words than seems when they are baldly written. And it is
+not his morals, but Homer's art that does that for us. And what Homer's
+art does supremely, the other early epics do in their way too. Their way
+is not to be compared with Homer's way. They are very much nearer than
+he is to the mere epic material&mdash;to the moderate accomplishment of the
+primitive ballad. Apart from their greatness, and often successful
+greatness, of intention, perhaps the only one that has an answerable
+greatness in the detail of its technique is <i>Beowulf</i>. That is not on
+account of its "kennings"&mdash;the strange device by which early popular
+poetry (Hesiod is another instance) tries to liberate and master the
+magic of words. A good deal has been made of these "kennings"; but it
+does not take us far towards great poetry, to have the sea called
+"whale-road" or "swan-road" or "gannet's-bath"; though we are getting
+nearer to it when the sun is called "candle of the firmament" or
+"heaven's gem." On the whole, the poem is composed in an elaborate,
+ambitious diction which is not properly governed. Alliteration proves a
+somewhat dangerous principle; it seems mainly responsible for the way
+the poet makes his sentences by piling up clauses, like shooting a load
+of stones out of a cart. You cannot always make out exactly what he
+means; and it is doubtful whether he always had a clearly-thought
+meaning. Most of the subsidiary matter is foisted in with monstrous
+clumsiness. Yet <i>Beowulf</i> has what we do not find, out of Homer, in the
+other early epics. It has occasionally an unforgettable grandeur of
+phrasing. And it has other and perhaps deeper poetic qualities. When the
+warriors are waiting in the haunted hall for the coming of the
+marsh-fiend Grendel, they fall into untroubled sleep; and the poet adds,
+with Homeric restraint: "Not one of them thought that he should thence
+be ever seeking his loved home again, his people or free city, where he
+was nurtured." The opening is magnificent, one of the noblest things
+that have been done in language. There is some wonderful grim landscape
+in the poem; towards the middle there is a great speech on deterioration
+through prosperity, a piece of sustained intensity that reads like an
+Aeschylean chorus; and there is some admirable fighting, especially the
+fight with Grendel in the hall, and with Grendel's mother under the
+waters, while Beowulf's companions anxiously watch the troubled surface
+of the mere. The fact that the action of the poem is chiefly made of
+single combat with supernatural creatures and that there is not tapestry
+figured with radiant gods drawn between the life of men and the ultimate
+darkness, gives a peculiar and notable character to the way Beowulf
+symbolizes the primary courage of life. One would like to think, with
+some enthusiasts, that this great poem, composed in a language totally
+unintelligible to the huge majority of Englishmen&mdash;further from English
+than Latin is from Italian&mdash;and perhaps not even composed in England,
+certainly not concerned either with England or Englishmen, might
+nevertheless be called an English epic.
+</p>
+<p>
+But of course the early epics do not, any of them, merely repeat the
+significance of Homer in another form. They might do that, if poetry had
+to inculcate a moral, as some have supposed. But however nicely we may
+analyse it, we shall never find in poetry a significance which is really
+detachable, and expressible in another way. The significance <i>is</i> the
+poetry. What <i>Beowulf</i> or the <i>Iliad</i> or the <i>Odyssey</i> means is simply
+what it is in its whole nature; we can but roughly indicate it. And as
+poetry is never the same, so its significance is never quite the same.
+Courage as the first necessary value of life is most naively and simply
+expressed, perhaps, in the <i>Poem of the Cid</i>; but even here the
+expression is, as in all art, unique, and chiefly because it is
+contrived through solidly imagined characters. There is splendid
+characterization, too, in the <i>Song of Roland</i>, together with a fine
+sense of poetic form; not fine enough, however, to avoid a prodigious
+deal of conventional gag. The battling is lavish, but always exciting;
+and in, at least, that section which describes how the dying Oliver,
+blinded by weariness and wounds, mistakes Roland for a pagan and feebly
+smites him with his sword, there is real and piercing pathos. But for
+all his sense of character, the poet has very little discretion in his
+admiration of his heroes. Christianity, in these two poems, has less
+effect than one might think. The conspicuous value of life is still the
+original value, courage; but elaboration and refinement of this begin
+to appear, especially in the <i>Song of Roland</i>, as passionately conscious
+patriotism and loyalty. The chief contribution of the <i>Nibelungenlied</i>
+to the main process of epic poetry is <i>plot</i> in narrative; a
+contribution, that is, to the manner rather than to the content of epic
+symbolism. There is something that can be called plot in Homer; but with
+him, as in all other early epics, it is of no great account compared
+with the straightforward linking of incidents into a direct chain of
+narrative. The story of the <i>Nibelungenlied</i>, however, is not a chain
+but a web. Events and the influence of characters are woven closely and
+intricately together into one tragic pattern; and this requires not only
+characterization, but also the adding to the characters of persistent
+and dominant motives.
+</p>
+<p>
+Epic poetry exhibits life in some great symbolic attitude. It cannot
+strictly be said to symbolize life itself, but always some manner of
+life. But life as courage&mdash;the turning of the dark, hard condition of
+life into something which can be exulted in&mdash;this, which is the deep
+significance of the art of the first epics, is the absolutely necessary
+foundation for any subsequent valuation of life; Man can achieve nothing
+until he has first achieved courage. And this, much more than any
+inheritance of manner, is what makes all the writers of deliberate or
+"literary" epic imply the existence of Homer. If Homer had not done his
+work, they could not have done theirs. But "literary" epics are as
+necessary as Homer. We cannot go on with courage as the solitary
+valuation of life. We must have the foundation, but we must also have
+the superstructure. Speaking comparatively, it may be said that the
+function of Homeric epic has been to create imperishable symbolism for
+the actual courageous consciousness of life, but the duty of "literary"
+epic has been to develop this function, answerably to the development of
+life itself, into symbolism of some conscious <i>idea</i> of life&mdash;something
+at once more formalized and more subtilized than the primary virtue of
+courage. The Greeks, however, were too much overshadowed by the
+greatness of Homer to do much towards this. The <i>Argonautica</i>, the
+half-hearted epic of Apollonius Rhodius, is the only attempt that need
+concern us. It is not a poem that can be read straight through; it is
+only enjoyable in moments&mdash;moments of charming, minute observation, like
+the description of a sunbeam thrown quivering on the wall from a basin
+of water "which has just been poured out," lines not only charming in
+themselves, but finely used as a simile for Medea's agitated heart; or
+moments of romantic fantasy, as when the Argonauts see the eagle flying
+towards Prometheus, and then hear the Titan's agonized cry. But it is
+not in such passages that what Apollonius did for epic abides. A great
+deal of his third book is a real contribution to the main process, to
+epic content as well as to epic manner. To the manner of epic he added
+analytic psychology. No one will ever imagine character more deeply or
+more firmly than Homer did in, say, Achilles; but Apollonius was the man
+who showed how epic as well as drama may use the nice minutiae of
+psychological imagination. Through Virgil, this contribution to epic
+manner has pervaded subsequent literature. Apollonius, too, in his
+fumbling way, as though he did not quite know what he was doing, has yet
+done something very important for the development of epic significance.
+Love has been nothing but a subordinate incident, almost one might say
+an ornament, in the early epics; in Apollonius, though working through a
+deal of gross and lumbering mythological machinery, love becomes for the
+first time one of the primary values of life. The love of Jason and
+Medea is the vital symbolism of the <i>Argonautica</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+But it is Virgil who really begins the development of epic art. He took
+over from Apollonius love as part of the epic symbolism of life, and
+delicate psychology as part of the epic method. And, like Apollonius, he
+used these novelties chiefly in the person of a heroine. But in Virgil
+they belong to an incomparably greater art; and it is through Virgil
+that they have become necessities of the epic tradition. More than this,
+however, was required of him. The epic poet collaborates with the spirit
+of his time in the composition of his work. That is, if he is
+successful; the time may refuse to work with him, but he may not refuse
+to work with his time. Virgil not only implies, he often clearly states,
+the original epic values of life, the Homeric values; as in the famous:
+</p>
+
+<PRE>
+Stat sua cuique dies; breve et inreparabile tempus
+Omnibus est vitae: sed famam extendere factis,
+Hoc virtutis opus.[<a href="#note-10">10</a>]
+</PRE>
+
+<p>
+But to write a poem chiefly to symbolize this simple, heroic metaphysic
+would scarcely have done for Virgil; it would certainly not have done
+for his time. It was eminently a time of social organization, one might
+perhaps say of social consciousness. After Sylla and Marius and Caesar,
+life as an affair of sheer individualism would not very strongly appeal
+to a thoughtful Roman. Accordingly, as has so often been remarked, the
+<i>Aeneid</i> celebrates the Roman Empire. A political idea does not seem a
+very likely subject for a kind of poetry which must declare greatly the
+fundamentals of living; not even when it is a political idea unequalled
+in the world, the idea of the Roman Empire. Had Virgil been a <i>good
+Roman</i>, the <i>Aeneid</i> might have been what no doubt Augustus, and Rome
+generally, desired, a political epic. But Virgil was not a good Roman;
+there was something in him that was not Roman at all. It was this
+strange incalculable element in him that seems for ever making him
+accomplish something he had not thought of; it was surely this that made
+him, unintentionally it may be, use the idea of the Roman Empire as a
+vehicle for a much profounder valuation of life. We must remember here
+the Virgil of the Fourth Eclogue&mdash;that extraordinary, impassioned poem
+in which he dreams of man attaining to some perfection of living. It is
+still this Virgil, though saddened and resigned, who writes the
+<i>Aeneid</i>. Man creating his own destiny, man, however wearied with the
+long task of resistance, achieving some conscious community of
+aspiration, and dreaming of the perfection of himself: the poet whose
+lovely and noble art makes us a great symbol of <i>that</i>, is assuredly
+carrying on the work of Homer. This was the development in epic
+intention required to make epic poetry answer to the widening needs of
+civilization.
+</p>
+<p>
+But even more important, in the whole process of epic, than what
+Virgil's art does, is the way it does it. And this in spite of the fact
+which everyone has noticed, that Virgil does not compare with Homer as a
+poet of seafaring and warfaring. He is not, indeed, very interested in
+either; and it is unfortunate that, in managing the story of Aeneas (in
+itself an excellent medium for his symbolic purpose) he felt himself
+compelled to try for some likeness to the <i>Odyssey</i> and the <i>Iliad</i>&mdash;to
+do by art married to study what the poet of the <i>Odyssey</i> and the
+<i>Iliad</i> had done by art married to intuitive experience. But his failure
+in this does not matter much in comparison with his technical success
+otherwise. Virgil showed how poetry may be made deliberately adequate to
+the epic purpose. That does not mean that Virgil is more artistic than
+Homer. Homer's redundance, wholesale repetition of lines, and stock
+epithets cannot be altogether dismissed as "faults"; they are
+characteristics of a wonderfully accomplished and efficient technique.
+But epic poetry cannot be written as Homer composed it; whereas it must
+be written something as Virgil wrote it; yes, if epic poetry is to be
+<i>written</i>, Virgil must show how that is to be done. The superb Virgilian
+economy is the thing for an epic poet now; the concision, the
+scrupulousness, the loading of every word with something appreciable of
+the whole significance. After the <i>Aeneid</i>, the epic style must be of
+this fashion:
+</p>
+
+<PRE>
+Ibant ovscuri sola sub nocte per umbram
+Perque domos Ditis vacuas et inania regna:
+Quale per incertam lunam sub luce maligna
+Est iter in silvis, ubi caelum condidit umbra
+Jupiter, et rebus nox abstulit atra colorem.[<a href="#note-11">11</a>]
+</PRE>
+
+<p>
+Lucan is much more of a Roman than Virgil; and the <i>Pharsalia</i>, so far
+as it is not an historical epic, is a political one; the idea of
+political liberty is at the bottom of it. That is not an unworthy theme;
+and Lucan evidently felt the necessity for development in epic. But he
+made the mistake, characteristically Roman, of thinking history more
+real than legend; and, trying to lead epic in this direction,
+supernatural machinery would inevitably go too. That, perhaps, was
+fortunate, for it enabled Lucan safely to introduce one of his great and
+memorable lines:
+</p>
+
+<PRE>
+Jupiter est quodcunque vides, quodcunque moveris;[<a href="#note-12">12</a>]
+</PRE>
+
+<p>
+which would certainly explode any supernatural machinery that could be
+invented. The <i>Pharsalia</i> could not be anything more than an interesting
+but unsuccessful attempt; it was not on these lines that epic poetry was
+to develop. Lucan died at an age when most poets have done nothing very
+remarkable; that he already had achieved a poem like the <i>Pharsalia</i>,
+would make us think he might have gone to incredible heights, were it
+not that the mistake of the <i>Pharsalia</i> seems to belong incurably to his
+temperament.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lucan's determined stoicism may, philosophically, be more consistent
+than the dubious stoicism of Virgil. But Virgil knew that, in epic,
+supernatural imagination is better than consistency. It was an important
+step when he made Jupiter, though a personal god, a power to which no
+limits are assigned; when he also made the other divinities but shadows,
+or, at most, functions, of Jupiter. This answers to his conviction that
+spirit universally and singly pervades matter; but, what is more, it
+answers to the needs of epic development. When we come to Tasso and
+Camoens, we seem to have gone backward in this respect; we seem to come
+upon poetry in which supernatural machinery is in a state of chronic
+insubordination. But that, too, was perhaps necessary. In comparison
+with the <i>Aeneid, Gerusalemme Liberata</i> and <i>Os Lusiadas</i> lack
+intellectual control and spiritual depth; but in comparison with the
+Roman, the two modern poems thrill with a new passion of life, a new
+wine of life, heady, as it seems, with new significance&mdash;a significance
+as yet only felt, not understood. Both Tasso and Camoens clearly join on
+to the main epic tradition: Tasso derives chiefly from the <i>Aeneid</i> and
+the <i>Iliad</i>, Camoens from the <i>Aeneid</i> and the <i>Odyssey</i>. Tasso is
+perhaps more Virgilian than Camoens; the plastic power of his
+imagination is more assured. But the advantage Camoens has over Tasso
+seems to repeat the advantage Homer has over Virgil; the ostensible
+subject of the <i>Lusiads</i> glows with the truth of experience. But the
+real subject is behind these splendid voyagings, just as the real
+subject of Tasso is behind the battles of Christian and Saracen; and in
+both poets the inmost theme is broadly the same. It is the consciousness
+of modern Europe. <i>Jerusalem Delivered</i> and the <i>Lusiads</i> are drenched
+with the spirit of the Renaissance; and that is chiefly responsible for
+their lovely poetry. But they reach out towards the new Europe that was
+then just beginning. Europe making common cause against the peoples that
+are not Europe; Europe carrying her domination round the world&mdash;is that
+what Tasso and Camoens ultimately mean? It would be too hard and too
+narrow a matter by itself to make these poems what they are. No; it is
+not the action of Europe, but the spirit of European consciousness, that
+gave Tasso and Camoens their deepest inspiration. But what European
+consciousness really is, these poets rather vaguely suggest than master
+into clear and irresistible expression, into the supreme symbolism of
+perfectly adequate art. They still took European consciousness as an
+affair of geography and race rather than simply as a triumphant stage in
+the general progress of man's knowledge of himself. Their time imposed a
+duty on them; that they clearly understood. But they did not clearly
+understand what the duty was; partly, no doubt, because they were both
+strongly influenced by mediaeval religion. And so it is atmosphere, in
+Tasso and Camoens, that counts much more than substance; both poets seem
+perpetually thrilled by something they cannot express&mdash;the <i>non so che</i>
+of Tasso. And what chiefly gives this sense of quivering, uncertain
+significance to their poetry is the increase of freedom and decrease of
+control in the supernatural. Supernaturalism was emphasized, because
+they instinctively felt that this was the means epic poetry must use to
+accomplish its new duties; it was disorderly, because they did not quite
+know what use these duties required. Tasso and Camoens, for all the
+splendour and loveliness of their work, leave epic poetry, as it were,
+consciously dissatisfied&mdash;knowing that its future must achieve some
+significance larger and deeper than anything it had yet done, and
+knowing that this must be done somehow through imagined supernaturalism.
+It waited nearly a hundred years for the poet who understood exactly
+what was to be done and exactly how to do it.
+</p>
+<p>
+In <i>Paradise Lost</i>, the development of epic poetry culminates, as far as
+it has yet gone. The essential inspiration of the poem implies a
+particular sense of human existence which has not yet definitely
+appeared in the epic series, but which the process of life in Europe
+made it absolutely necessary that epic poetry should symbolize. In
+Milton, the poet arose who was supremely adequate to the greatest task
+laid on epic poetry since its beginning with Homer; Milton's task was
+perhaps even more exacting than that original one. "His work is not the
+greatest of heroic poems, only because it is not the first." The epigram
+might just as reasonably have been the other way round. But nothing
+would be more unprofitable than a discussion in which Homer and Milton
+compete for supremacy of genius. Our business here is quite otherwise.
+</p>
+<p>
+With the partial exception of Tasso and Camoens, all epic poetry before
+Milton is some symbolism of man's sense of his own will. It is simply
+this in Homer; and the succeeding poets developed this intention but
+remained well within it. Not even Virgil, with his metaphysic of
+individual merged into social will&mdash;not even Virgil went outside it. In
+fact, it is a sort of <i>monism</i> of consciousness that inspires all
+pre-Miltonic epic. But in Milton, it has become a <i>dualism</i>. Before him,
+the primary impulse of epic is an impassioned sense of man's nature
+<i>being contained</i>&mdash;by his destiny: <i>his</i> only because he is in it and
+belongs to it, as we say "<i>my</i> country." With Milton, this has
+necessarily become not only a sense of man's rigorously contained
+nature, but equally a sense of that which contains man&mdash;in fact,
+simultaneously a sense of individual will and of universal necessity.
+The single sense of these two irreconcilables is what Milton's poetry
+has to symbolize. Could they be reconciled, the two elements in man's
+modern consciousness of existence would form a monism. But this
+consciousness is a dualism; its elements are absolutely opposed.
+<i>Paradise Lost</i> is inspired by intense consciousness of the eternal
+contradiction between the general, unlimited, irresistible will of
+universal destiny, and defined individual will existing within this, and
+inexplicably capable of acting on it, even against it. Or, if that seems
+too much of an antinomy to some philosophies (and it is perhaps possible
+to make it look more apparent than real), the dualism can be unavoidably
+declared by putting it entirely in terms of consciousness: destiny
+creating within itself an existence which stands against and apart from
+destiny by being <i>conscious</i> of it. In Milton's poetry the spirit of man
+is equally conscious of its own limited reality and of the unlimited
+reality of that which contains him and drives him with its motion&mdash;of
+his own will striving in the midst of destiny: destiny irresistible, yet
+his will unmastered.
+</p>
+<p>
+This is not to examine the development of epic poetry by looking at that
+which is not <i>poetry</i>. In this kind of art, more perhaps than in any
+other, we must ignore the wilful theories of those who would set
+boundaries to the meaning of the word poetry. In such a poem as
+Milton's, whatever is in it is its poetry; the poetry of <i>Paradise Lost</i>
+is just&mdash;<i>Paradise Lost</i>! Its pomp of divine syllables and glorious
+images is no more the poetry of Milton than the idea of man which he
+expressed. But the general manner of an art is for ever similar; it is
+its inspiration that is for ever changing. We need never expect words
+and metre to do more than they do here:
+</p>
+<pre>
+  they, fondly thinking to allay
+Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit
+Chewed bitter ashes, which the offended taste
+With spattering noise rejected: oft they assayed,
+Hunger and thirst constraining; drugged as oft,
+With hatefullest disrelish writhed their jaws,
+With soot and cinders filled;
+</pre>
+<p>
+or more than they do here:
+</p>
+<pre>
+  What though the field be lost?
+All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
+And study of revenge, immortal hate,
+And courage never to submit or yield,
+And what is else not to be overcome.
+</pre>
+<p>
+But what Homer's words, and perhaps what Virgil's words, set out to do,
+they do just as marvellously. There is no sure way of comparison here.
+How words do their work in poetry, and how we appreciate the way they do
+it&mdash;this seems to involve the obscurest processes of the mind: analysis
+can but fumble at it. But we can compare inspiration&mdash;the nature of the
+inmost urgent motive of poetry. And it is not irrelevant to add (it
+seems to me mere fact), that Milton had the greatest motive that has
+ever ruled a poet.
+</p>
+<p>
+For the vehicle of this motive, a fable of purely human action would
+obviously not suffice. What Milton has to express is, of course,
+altogether human; destiny is an entirely human conception. But he has to
+express not simply the sense of human existence occurring in destiny;
+that brings in destiny only mediately, through that which is destined.
+He has to express the sense of destiny immediately, at the same time as
+he expresses its opponent, the destined will of man. Destiny will appear
+in poetry as an omnipotent God; Virgil had already prepared poetry for
+that. But the action at large must clearly consist now, and for the
+first time, overwhelmingly of supernatural imagination. Milton has been
+foolishly blamed for making his supernaturalism too human. But nothing
+can come into poetry that is not shaped and recognizable; how else but
+in anthropomorphism could destiny, or (its poetic equivalent) deity,
+exist in <i>Paradise Lost</i>?
+</p>
+<p>
+We may see what a change has come over epic poetry, if we compare this
+supernatural imagination of Milton's with the supernatural machinery of
+any previous epic poet. Virgil is the most scrupulous in this respect;
+and towards the inevitable change, which Milton completed and perfected
+from Camoens and Tasso, Virgil took a great step in making Jupiter
+professedly almighty. But compare Virgil's "Tantaene animis celestibus
+irae?" with Milton's "Evil, be thou my good!" It is the difference
+between an accidental device and essential substance. That, in order to
+symbolize in epic form&mdash;that is to say, in <i>narrative</i> form&mdash;the
+dualistic sense of destiny and the destined, and both
+immediately&mdash;Milton had to dissolve his human action completely in a
+supernatural action, is the sign not merely of a development, but of a
+re-creation, of epic art.
+</p>
+<p>
+It has been said that Satan is the hero of <i>Paradise Lost</i>. The offence
+which the remark has caused is due, no doubt, to injudicious use of the
+word "hero." It is surely the simple fact that if <i>Paradise Lost</i> exists
+for any one figure, that is Satan; just as the <i>Iliad</i> exists for
+Achilles, and the <i>Odyssey</i> for Odysseus. It is in the figure of Satan
+that the imperishable significance of <i>Paradise Lost</i> is centred; his
+vast unyielding agony symbolizes the profound antinomy of modern
+consciousness. And if this is what he is in significance it is worth
+noting what he is in technique. He is the blending of the poem's human
+plane with its supernatural plane. The epic hero has always represented
+humanity by being superhuman; in Satan he has grown into the
+supernatural. He does not thereby cease to symbolize human existence;
+but he is thereby able to symbolize simultaneously the sense of its
+irreconcilable condition, of the universal destiny that contains it. Out
+of Satan's colossal figure, the single urgency of inspiration, which
+this dualistic consciousness of existence makes, radiates through all
+the regions of Milton's vast and rigorous imagination. "Milton," says
+Landor, "even Milton rankt with living men!"
+</p>
+<center>
+FOOTNOTES:
+</center>
+<p>
+<a name="note-6"><!-- Note Anchor 6 --></a>[Footnote 6: 'And all round the ships echoed terribly to the shouting
+Achaians.']
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="note-7"><!-- Note Anchor 7 --></a>[Footnote 7:
+'When in a dusty whirlwind thou didst lie,
+  Thy valour lost, forgot thy chivalry.'&mdash;OGILBY.
+(The version leaves out megas megalosti.)
+]
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="note-8"><!-- Note Anchor 8 --></a>[Footnote 8: 'Mother, since thou didst bear me to be so short-lived,
+Olympian Zeus that thunders from on high should especially have bestowed
+honour on me.']
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="note-9"><!-- Note Anchor 9 --></a>[Footnote 9: 'Honour my son for me, for the swiftest doom of all is
+his.']
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="note-10"><!-- Note Anchor 10 --></a>[Footnote 10: "For everyone his own day is appointed; for all men the
+period of life is short and not to be recalled: but to spread glory by
+deeds, that is what valour can do."]
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="note-11"><!-- Note Anchor 11 --></a>[Footnote 11:
+"They wer' amid the shadows by night in loneliness obscure
+Walking forth i' the void and vasty dominyon of Ades;
+As by an uncertain moonray secretly illumin'd
+One goeth in the forest, when heav'n is gloomily clouded,
+And black night hath robb'd the colours and beauty from all things."&mdash;ROBERT BRIDGES.
+]
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="note-12"><!-- Note Anchor 12 --></a>[Footnote 12: "All that is known, all that is felt, is God."]
+</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="RULE4_5"><!-- RULE4 5 --></a>
+<h2>
+	V.
+</h2>
+<center>
+AFTER MILTON
+</center>
+<p>
+And after Milton, what is to happen? First, briefly, for a few instances
+of what has happened. We may leave out experiments in religious
+sentiment like Klopstock's <i>Messiah</i>. We must leave out also poems which
+have something of the look of epic at first glance, but have nothing of
+the scope of epic intention; such as Scott's longer poems. These might
+resemble the "lays" out of which some people imagine "authentic" epic to
+have been made. But the lays are not the epic. Scott's poems have not
+the depth nor the definiteness of symbolic intention&mdash;what is sometimes
+called the epic unity&mdash;and this is what we can always discover in any
+poetry which gives us the peculiar experience we must associate with the
+word epic, if it is to have any precision of meaning. What applies to
+Scott, will apply still more to Byron's poems; Byron is one of the
+greatest of modern poets, but that does not make him an epic poet. We
+must keep our minds on epic intention. Shelley's <i>Revolt of Islam</i> has
+something of it, but too vaguely and too fantastically; the generality
+of human experience had little to do with this glittering poem. Keats's
+<i>Hyperion</i> is wonderful; but it does not go far enough to let us form
+any judgment of it appropriate to the present purpose.[<a href="#note-13">13</a>] Our search
+will not take us far before we notice something very remarkable; poems
+which look superficially like epic turn out to have scarce anything of
+real epic intention; whereas epic intention is apt to appear in poems
+that do not look like epic at all. In fact, it seems as if epic manner
+and epic content were trying for a divorce. If this be so, the
+traditional epic manner will scarcely survive the separation. Epic
+content, however, may very well be looking out for a match with a new
+manner; though so far it does not seem to have found an altogether
+satisfactory partner.
+</p>
+<p>
+But there are one or two poems in which the old union seems still happy.
+Most noteworthy is Goethe's <i>Hermann und Dorothea</i>. You may say that it
+does not much matter whether such poetry should be called epic or, as
+some hold, idyllic. But it is interesting to note, first, that the poem
+is deliberately written with epic style and epic intention; and, second,
+that, though singularly beautiful, it makes no attempt to add anything
+to epic development. It is interesting, too, to see epic poetry trying
+to get away from its heroes, and trying to use material the poetic
+importance of which seems to depend solely on the treatment, not on
+itself. This was a natural and, for some things, a laudable reaction.
+But it inevitably meant that epic must renounce the triumphs which
+Milton had won for it. William Morris saw no reason for abandoning
+either the heroes or anything else of the epic tradition. The chief
+personages of <i>Sigurd the Volsung</i> are admittedly more than human, the
+events frankly marvellous. The poem is an impressive one, and in one way
+or another fulfils all the main qualifications of epic. But perhaps no
+great poem ever had so many faults. These have nothing to do with its
+management of supernaturalism; those who object to this simply show
+ignorance of the fundamental necessities of epic poetry. The first book
+is magnificent; everything that epic narrative should be; but after this
+the poem grows long-winded, and that is the last thing epic poetry
+should be. It is written with a running pen; so long as the verse keeps
+going on, Morris seems satisfied, though it is very often going on
+about unimportant things, and in an uninteresting manner. After the
+first book, indeed, as far as Morris's epic manner is concerned, Virgil
+and Milton might never have lived. It attempts to be the grand manner by
+means of vagueness. In an altogether extraordinary way, the poem slurs
+over the crucial incidents (as in the inept lines describing the death
+of Fafnir, and those, equally hollow, describing the death of
+Guttorm&mdash;two noble opportunities simply not perceived) and tirelessly
+expatiates on the mere surroundings of the story. Yet there is no
+attempt to make anything there credible: Morris seems to have mixed up
+the effects of epic with the effects of a fairy-tale. The poem lacks
+intellect; it has no clear-cut thought. And it lacks sensuous images; it
+is full of the sentiment, not of the sense of things, which is the wrong
+way round. Hence the protracted conversations are as a rule amazingly
+windy and pointless, as the protracted descriptions are amazingly
+useless and tedious. And the superhuman virtues of the characters are
+not shown in the poem so much as energetically asserted. It says much
+for the genius of Morris that <i>Sigurd the Volsung</i>, with all these
+faults, is not to be condemned; that, on the contrary, to read it is
+rather a great than a tiresome experience; and not only because the
+faults are relieved, here and there, by exquisite beauties and
+dignities, indeed by incomparable lines, but because the poem as a whole
+does, as it goes on, accumulate an immense pressure of significance. All
+the great epics of the world have, however, perfectly clearly a
+significance in close relation with the spirit of their time; the
+intense desire to symbolize the consciousness of man as far as it has
+attained, is what vitally inspires an epic poet, and the ardour of this
+infects his whole style. Morris, in this sense, was not vitally
+inspired. <i>Sigurd the Volsung</i> is a kind of set exercise in epic poetry.
+It is great, but it is not <i>needed</i>. It is, in fact, an attempt to write
+epic poetry as it might have been written, and to make epic poetry mean
+what it might have meant, in the days when the tale of Sigurd and the
+Niblungs was newly come among men's minds. Mr. Doughty, in his
+surprising poem <i>The Dawn in Britain</i>, also seems trying to compose an
+epic exercise, rather than to be obeying a vital necessity of
+inspiration. For all that, it is a great poem, full of irresistible
+vision and memorable diction. But it is written in a revolutionary
+syntax, which, like most revolutions of this kind, achieves nothing
+beyond the fact of being revolutionary; and Mr. Doughty often uses the
+unexpected effects of his queer syntax instead of the unexpected effects
+of poetry, which makes the poem even longer psychologically than it is
+physically. Lander's <i>Gebir</i> has much that can truly be called epic in
+it; and it has learned the lessons in manner which Virgil and Milton so
+nobly taught. It has perhaps learned them too well; never were
+concision, and the loading of each word with heavy duties, so thoroughly
+practised. The action is so compressed that it is difficult to make out
+exactly what is going on; we no sooner realize that an incident has
+begun than we find ourselves in the midst of another. Apart from these
+idiosyncrasies, the poetry of <i>Gebir</i> is a curious mixture of splendour
+and commonplace. If fiction could ever be wholly, and not only
+partially, epic, it would be in <i>Gebir</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+In all these poems, we see an epic intention still combined with a
+recognizably epic manner. But what is quite evident is, that in all of
+them there is no attempt to carry on the development of epic, to take up
+its symbolic power where Milton left it. On the contrary, this seems to
+be deliberately avoided. For any tentative advance on Miltonic
+significance, even for any real acceptance of it, we must go to poetry
+which tries to put epic intention into a new form. Some obvious
+peculiarities of epic style are sufficiently definite to be detachable.
+Since Theocritus, a perverse kind of pleasure has often been obtained by
+putting some of the peculiarities of epic&mdash;peculiarities really required
+by a very long poem&mdash;into the compass of a very short poem. An epic
+idyll cannot, of course, contain any considerable epic intention; it is
+wrought out of the mere shell of epic, and avoids any semblance of epic
+scope. But by devising somehow a connected sequence of idylls, something
+of epic scope can be acquired again. As Hugo says, in his preface to <i>La
+Legende des Si&egrave;cles</i>: "Comme dans une mosa&iuml;que, chaque pierre a sa
+couleur et sa forme propre; l'ensemble donne une figure. La figure de ce
+livre," he goes on, "c'est l'homme." To get an epic design or <i>figure</i>
+through a sequence of small idylls need not be the result of mere
+technical curiosity. It may be a valuable method for the future of epic.
+Tennyson attempted this method in <i>Idylls of the King</i>; not, as is now
+usually admitted, with any great success. The sequence is admirable for
+sheer craftsmanship, for astonishing craftsmanship; but it did not
+manage to effect anything like a conspicuous symbolism. You have but to
+think of <i>Paradise Lost</i> to see what <i>Idylls of the King</i> lacks. Victor
+Hugo, however, did better in <i>La Legende des Si&egrave;cles</i>. "La figure, c'est
+l'homme"; there, at any rate, is the intention of epic symbolism. And,
+however pretentious the poem may be, it undoubtedly does make a
+passionate effort to develop the significance which Milton had achieved;
+chiefly to enlarge the scope of this significance.[<a href="#note-14">14</a>] Browning's <i>The
+Ring and the Book</i> also uses this notion of an idyllic sequence; but
+without any semblance of epic purpose, purely for the exhibition of
+human character.
+</p>
+<p>
+It has already been remarked that the ultimate significance of great
+drama is the same as that of epic. Since the vital epic purpose&mdash;the
+kind of epic purpose which answers to the spirit of the time&mdash;is
+evidently looking for some new form to inhabit, it is not surprising,
+then, that it should have occasionally tried on dramatic form. And,
+unquestionably, for great poetic symbolism of the depths of modern
+consciousness, for such symbolism as Milton's, we must go to two such
+invasions of epic purpose into dramatic manner&mdash;to Goethe's <i>Faust</i> and
+Hardy's <i>The Dynasts</i>. But dramatic significance and epic significance
+have been admitted to be broadly the same; to take but one instance,
+Aeschylus's Prometheus is closely related to Milton's Satan (though I
+think Prometheus really represents a monism of consciousness&mdash;that which
+is destined&mdash;as Satan represents a dualism&mdash;at once the destined and the
+destiny). How then can we speak of epic purpose invading drama? Surely
+in this way. Drama seeks to present its significance with narrowed
+intensity, but epic in a large dilatation: the one contracts, the other
+expatiates. When, therefore, we find drama setting out its significance
+in such a way as to become epically dilated, we may say that dramatic
+has grown into epic purpose. Or, even more positively, we may say that
+epic has taken over drama and adapted it to its peculiar needs. In any
+case, with one exception to be mentioned presently, it is only in
+<i>Faust</i> and <i>The Dynasts</i> that we find any great development of Miltonic
+significance. These are the poems that give us immense and shapely
+symbols of the spirit of man, conscious not only of the sense of his
+own destined being, but also of some sense of that which destines. In
+fact, these two are the poems that develop and elaborate, in their own
+way, the Miltonic significance, as all the epics in between Homer and
+Milton develop and elaborate Homeric significance. And yet, in spite of
+<i>Faust</i> and <i>The Dynasts</i>, it may be doubted whether the union of epic
+and drama is likely to be permanent. The peculiar effects which epic
+intention, in whatever manner, must aim at, seem to be as much hindered
+as helped by dramatic form; and possibly it is because the detail is
+necessarily too much enforced for the broad perfection of epic effect.
+</p>
+<p>
+The real truth seems to be, that there is an inevitable and profound
+difficulty in carrying on the Miltonic significance in anything like a
+story. Regular epic having reached its climax in <i>Paradise Lost</i>, the
+epic purpose must find some other way of going on. Hugo saw this, when
+he strung his huge epic sequence together not on a connected story but
+on a single idea: "la figure, c'est l'homme." If we are to have, as we
+must have, direct symbolism of the way man is conscious of his being
+nowadays, which means direct symbolism both of man's spirit and of the
+(philosophical) opponent of this, the universal fate of things&mdash;if we
+are to have all this, it is hard to see how any story can be adequate to
+such symbolic requirements, unless it is a story which moves in some
+large region of imagined supernaturalism. And it seems questionable
+whether we have enough <i>formal</i> "belief" nowadays to allow of such a
+story appearing as solid and as vividly credible as epic poetry needs.
+It is a decided disadvantage, from the purely epic point of view, that
+those admirable "Intelligences" in Hardy's <i>The Dynasts</i> are so
+obviously abstract ideas disguised. The supernaturalism of epic, however
+incredible it may be in the poem, must be worked up out of the material
+of some generally accepted belief. I think it would be agreed, that what
+was possible for Milton would scarcely be possible to-day; and even more
+impossible would be the na&iuml;vet&eacute; of Homer and the quite different but
+equally impracticable na&iuml;vet&eacute; of Tasso and Camoens. The conclusion seems
+to be, that the epic purpose will have to abandon the necessity of
+telling a story.
+</p>
+<p>
+Hugo's way may prove to be the right one. But there may be another; and
+what has happened in the past may suggest what may happen in the future.
+Epic poetry in the regular epic form has before now seemed unlikely. It
+seemed unlikely after the Alexandrians had made such poor attempts at
+standing upright under the immensity of Homer; it seemed so, until,
+after several efforts, Latin poetry became triumphantly epic in Virgil.
+And again, when the mystical prestige of Virgil was domineering
+everything, regular epic seemed unlikely; until, after the doubtful
+attempts of Boiardo and Ariosto, Tasso arrived. But in each case, while
+the occurrence of regular epic was seeming so improbable, it
+nevertheless happened that poetry was written which was certainly
+nothing like epic in form, but which was strongly charged with a
+profound pressure of purpose closely akin to epic purpose; and <i>De Rerum
+Natura</i> and <i>La Divina Commedia</i> are very suggestive to speculation now.
+Of course, the fact that, in both these cases, regular epic did
+eventually occur, must warn us that in artistic development anything may
+happen; but it does seem as if there were a deeper improbability for
+the occurrence of regular epic now than in the times just before Virgil
+and Tasso&mdash;of regular epic, that is, inspired by some vital import, not
+simply, like <i>Sigurd the Volsung</i>, by archaeological import. Lucretius is
+a good deal more suggestive than Dante; for Dante's form is too exactly
+suited to his own peculiar genius and his own peculiar time to be
+adaptable. But the method of Lucretius is eminently adaptable. That
+amazing image of the sublime mind of Lucretius is exactly the kind of
+lofty symbolism that the continuation of epic purpose now seems to
+require&mdash;a subjective symbolism. I believe Wordsworth felt this, when he
+planned his great symbolic poem, and partly executed it in <i>The Prelude</i>
+and <i>The Excursion</i>: for there, more profoundly than anywhere out of
+Milton himself, Milton's spiritual legacy is employed. It may be, then,
+that Lucretius and Wordsworth will preside over the change from
+objective to subjective symbolism which Milton has, perhaps, made
+necessary for the continued development of the epic purpose: after
+Milton, it seems likely that there is nothing more to be done with
+objective epic. But Hugo's method, of a connected sequence of separate
+poems, instead of one continuous poem, may come in here. The
+determination to keep up a continuous form brought both Lucretius and
+Wordsworth at times perilously near to the odious state of didactic
+poetry; it was at least responsible for some tedium. Epic poetry will
+certainly never be didactic. What we may imagine&mdash;who knows how vainly
+imagine?&mdash;is, then, a sequence of odes expressing, in the image of some
+fortunate and lofty mind, as much of the spiritual significance which
+the epic purpose must continue from Milton, as is possible, in the style
+of Lucretius and Wordsworth, for subjective symbolism. A pregnant
+experiment towards something like this has already been seen&mdash;in George
+Meredith's magnificent set of <i>Odes in Contribution to the Song of the
+French History</i>. The subject is ostensibly concrete; but France in her
+agonies and triumphs has been personified into a superb symbol of
+Meredith's own reading of human fate. The series builds up a decidedly
+epic significance, and its manner is extraordinarily suggestive of a new
+epic method. Nevertheless, something more Lucretian in central
+imagination, something less bound to concrete and particular event,
+seems required for the complete development of epic purpose.
+</p>
+<center>
+FOOTNOTES:
+</center>
+<p>
+<a name="note-13"><!-- Note Anchor 13 --></a>[Footnote 13: In the greatest poetry, all the elements of human nature
+are burning in a single flame. The artifice of criticism is to detect
+what peculiar radiance each element contributes to the whole light; but
+this no more affects the singleness of the compounded energy in poetry
+than the spectroscopic examination of fire affects the single nature of
+actual flame. For the purposes of this book, it has been necessary to
+look chiefly at the contribution of intellect to epic poetry; for it is
+in that contribution that the development of poetry, so far as there is
+any development at all, really consists. This being so, it might be
+thought that Keats could hardly have done anything for the real progress
+of epic. But Keats's apparent (it is only apparent) rejection of
+intellect in his poetry was the result of youthful theory; his letters
+show that, in fact, intellect was a thing unusually vigorous in his
+nature. If the Keats of the letters be added to the Keats of the poems,
+a personality appears that seems more likely than any of his
+contemporaries, or than anyone who has come after him, for the work of
+carrying Miltonic epic forward without forsaking Miltonic form.]
+</p>
+<p>
+<a name="note-14"><!-- Note Anchor 14 --></a>[Footnote 14: For all I know, Hugo may never have read Milton; judging
+by some silly remarks of his, I should hope not. But Hugo could feel the
+things in the spirit of man that Milton felt; not only because they were
+still there, but because the secret influence of Milton has intensified
+the consciousness of them in thousands who think they know nothing of
+<i>Paradise Lost</i>. Modern literary history will not be properly understood
+until it is realized that Milton is one of the dominating minds of
+Europe, whether Europe know it or not. There are scarcely half a dozen
+figures that can be compared with Milton for irresistible
+influence&mdash;quite apart from his unapproachable supremacy in the
+technique of poetry. When Addison remarked that <i>Paradise Lost</i> is
+universally and perpetually interesting, he said what is not to be
+questioned; though he did not perceive the real reason for his
+assertion. Darwin no more injured the significance of <i>Paradise Lost</i>
+than air-planes have injured Homer.]
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
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diff --git a/old/10716.txt b/old/10716.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Epic, by Lascelles Abercrombie
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Epic
+       An Essay
+
+Author: Lascelles Abercrombie
+
+Release Date: January 14, 2004 [EBook #10716]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EPIC ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Garrett Alley and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+The Epic: an Essay
+
+By Lascelles Abercrombie
+
+
+
+1914.
+
+
+
+By the same Author:
+
+
+Towards a Theory of Art
+Speculative Dialogues
+Four Short Plays
+Thomas Hardy: A Critical Study
+Principles of English Prosody
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+_As this essay is disposed to consider epic poetry as a species of
+literature, and not as a department of sociology or archaeology or
+ethnology, the reader will not find it anything material to the
+discussion which may be typified in those very interesting works,
+Gilbert Murray's "The Rise of the Greek Epic" and Andrew Lang's "The
+World of Homer." The distinction between a literary and a scientific
+attitude to Homer (and all other "authentic" epic) is, I think, finally
+summed up in Mr. Mackail's "Lectures on Greek Poetry"; the following
+pages, at any rate, assume that this is so. Theories about epic origins
+were therefore indifferent to my purpose. Besides, I do not see the need
+for any theories; I think it need only be said, of any epic poem
+whatever, that it was composed by a man and transmitted by men. But this
+is not to say that investigation of the "authentic" epic poet's_ milieu
+_may not be extremely profitable; and for settling the preliminaries of
+this essay, I owe a great deal to Mr. Chadwick's profoundly
+interesting study, "The Heroic Age"; though I daresay Mr. Chadwick would
+repudiate some of my conclusions. I must also acknowledge suggestions
+taken from Mr. Macneile Dixon's learned and vigorous "English Epic and
+Heroic Poetry"; and especially the assistance of Mr. John Clark's
+"History of Epic Poetry." Mr. Clark's book is so thorough and so
+adequate that my own would certainly have been superfluous, were it not
+that I have taken a particular point of view which his method seems to
+rule out--a point of view which seemed well worth taking. This is my
+excuse, too, for considering only the most conspicuous instances of epic
+poetry. They have been discussed often enough; but not often, so far as
+I know, primarily as stages of one continuous artistic development_.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+
+BEGINNINGS
+
+The invention of epic poetry corresponds with a definite and, in the
+history of the world, often recurring state of society. That is to say,
+epic poetry has been invented many times and independently; but, as the
+needs which prompted the invention have been broadly similar, so the
+invention itself has been. Most nations have passed through the same
+sort of chemistry. Before their hot racial elements have been thoroughly
+compounded, and thence have cooled into the stable convenience of
+routine which is the material shape of civilization--before this has
+firmly occurred, there has usually been what is called an "Heroic Age."
+It is apt to be the hottest and most glowing stage of the process. So
+much is commonplace. Exactly what causes the racial elements of a
+nation, with all their varying properties, to flash suddenly (as it
+seems) into the splendid incandescence of an Heroic Age, and thence to
+shift again into a comparatively rigid and perhaps comparatively
+lustreless civilization--this difficult matter has been very nicely
+investigated of late, and to interesting, though not decided, result.
+But I may not concern myself with this; nor even with the detailed
+characteristics, alleged or ascertained, of the Heroic Age of nations.
+It is enough for the purpose of this book that the name "Heroic Age" is
+a good one for this stage of the business; it is obviously, and on the
+whole rightly, descriptive. For the stage displays the first vigorous
+expression, as the natural thing and without conspicuous restraint, of
+private individuality. In savagery, thought, sentiment, religion and
+social organization may be exceedingly complicated, full of the most
+subtle and strange relationships; but they exist as complete and
+determined _wholes_, each part absolutely bound up with the rest.
+Analysis has never come near them. The savage is blinded to the glaring
+incongruities of his tribal ideas not so much by habit or reverence; it
+is simply that the mere possibility of such a thing as analysis has
+never occurred to him. He thinks, he feels, he lives, all in a whole.
+Each person is the tribe in little. This may make everyone an
+astoundingly complex character; but it makes strong individuality
+impossible in savagery, since everyone accepts the same elaborate
+unanalysed whole of tribal existence. That existence, indeed, would find
+in the assertion of private individuality a serious danger; and tribal
+organization guards against this so efficiently that it is doubtless
+impossible, so long as there is no interruption from outside. In some
+obscure manner, however, savage existence has been constantly
+interrupted; and it seems as if the long-repressed forces of
+individuality then burst out into exaggerated vehemence; for the result
+(if it is not slavery) is, that a people passes from its savage to its
+heroic age, on its way to some permanence of civilization. It must
+always have taken a good deal to break up the rigidity of savage
+society. It might be the shock of enforced mixture with a totally alien
+race, the two kinds of blood, full of independent vigour, compelled to
+flow together;[1] or it might be the migration, due to economic stress,
+from one tract of country to which the tribal existence was perfectly
+adapted to another for which it was quite unsuited, with the added
+necessity of conquering the peoples found in possession. Whatever the
+cause may have been, the result is obvious: a sudden liberation, a
+delighted expansion, of numerous private individualities.
+
+But the various appearances of the Heroic Age cannot, perhaps, be
+completely generalized. What has just been written will probably do for
+the Heroic Age which produced Homer, and for that which produced the
+_Nibelungenlied, Beowulf_, and the Northern Sagas. It may, therefore
+stand as the typical case; since Homer and these Northern poems are what
+most people have in their minds when they speak of "authentic" epic. But
+decidedly Heroic Ages have occurred much later than the latest of these
+cases; and they arose out of a state of society which cannot roundly be
+called savagery. Europe, for instance, had its unmistakable Heroic Age
+when it was fighting with the Moslem, whether that warfare was a cause
+or merely an accompaniment. And the period which preceded it, the period
+after the failure of Roman civilization, was sufficiently "dark" and
+devoid of individuality, to make the sudden plenty of potent and
+splendid individuals seem a phenomenon of the same sort as that which
+has been roughly described; it can scarcely be doubted that the age
+which is exhibited in the _Poem of the Cid_, the _Song of Roland_, and
+the lays of the Crusaders (_la Chanson d'Antioche_, for instance), was
+similar in all essentials to the age we find in Homer and the
+_Nibelungenlied_. Servia, too, has its ballad-cycles of Christian and
+Mahometan warfare, which suppose an age obviously heroic. But it hardly
+falls in with our scheme; Servia, at this time, might have been expected
+to have gone well past its Heroic Age. Either, then, it was somehow
+unusually prolonged, or else the clash of the Ottoman war revived it.
+The case of Servia is interesting in another way. The songs about the
+battle of Kossovo describe Servian defeat--defeat so overwhelming that
+poetry cannot possibly translate it, and does not attempt it, into
+anything that looks like victory. Even the splendid courage of its hero
+Milos, who counters an imputation of treachery by riding in full
+daylight into the Ottoman camp and murdering the Sultan, even this
+courage is rather near to desperation. The Marko cycle--Marko whose
+betrayal of his country seems wiped out by his immense prowess--has in a
+less degree this utter defeat of Servia as its background. But Servian
+history before all this has many glories, which, one would think, would
+serve the turn of heroic song better than appalling defeat and, indeed,
+enslavement. Why is the latter celebrated and not the former? The reason
+can only be this: heroic poetry depends on an heroic age, and an age is
+heroic because of what it is, not because of what it does. Servia's
+defeat by the armies of Amurath came at a time when its people was too
+strongly possessed by the heroic spirit to avoid uttering itself in
+poetry. And from this it appears, too, that when the heroic age sings,
+it primarily sings of itself, even when that means singing of its own
+humiliation.--One other exceptional kind of heroic age must just be
+mentioned, in this professedly inadequate summary. It is the kind which
+occurs quite locally and on a petty scale, with causes obscurer than
+ever. The Border Ballads, for instance, and the Robin Hood Ballads,
+clearly suppose a state of society which is nothing but a very
+circumscribed and not very important heroic age. Here the households of
+gentry take the place of courts, and the poetry in vogue there is
+perhaps instantly taken up by the taverns; or perhaps this is a case in
+which the heroes are so little removed from common folk that celebration
+of individual prowess begins among the latter, not, as seems usually to
+have happened, among the social equals of the heroes. But doubtless
+there are infinite grades in the structure of the Heroic Age.
+
+The note of the Heroic Age, then, is vehement private individuality
+freely and greatly asserting itself. The assertion is not always what we
+should call noble; but it is always forceful and unmistakable. There
+would be, no doubt, some social and religious scheme to contain the
+individual's self-assertion; but the latter, not the former, is the
+thing that counts. It is not an age that lasts for very long as a rule;
+and before there comes the state in which strong social organization and
+strong private individuality are compatible--mutually helpful instead of
+destroying one another, as they do, in opposite ways, in savagery and in
+the Heroic Age--before the state called civilization can arrive, there
+has commonly been a long passage of dark obscurity, which throws up into
+exaggerated brightness the radiance of the Heroic Age. The balance of
+private good and general welfare is at the bottom of civilized morals;
+but the morals of the Heroic Age are founded on individuality, and on
+nothing else. In Homer, for instance, it can be seen pretty clearly that
+a "good" man is simply a man of imposing, active individuality[2]; a
+"bad" man is an inefficient, undistinguished man--probably, too, like
+Thersites, ugly. It is, in fact, an absolutely aristocratic age--an age
+in which he who rules is thereby proven the "best." And from its nature
+it must be an age very heartily engaged in something; usually fighting
+whoever is near enough to be fought with, though in _Beowulf_ it seems
+to be doing something more profitable to the civilization which is to
+follow it--taming the fierceness of surrounding circumstance and man's
+primitive kind. But in any case it has a good deal of leisure; and the
+best way to prevent this from dragging heavily is (after feasting) to
+glory in the things it has done; or perhaps in the things it would like
+to have done. Hence heroic poetry. But exactly what heroic poetry was
+in its origin, probably we shall never know. It would scarcely be
+history, and it would scarcely be very ornate poetry. The first thing
+required would be to translate the prowess of champions into good and
+moving narrative; and this would be metrified, because so it becomes
+both more exciting and more easily remembered. Each succeeding bard
+would improve, according to his own notions, the material he received
+from his teachers; the prowess of the great heroes would become more and
+more astonishing, more and more calculated to keep awake the feasted
+nobles who listened to the song. In an age when writing, if it exists at
+all, is a rare and secret art, the mists of antiquity descend after a
+very few generations. There is little chance of the songs of the bards
+being checked by recorded actuality; for if anyone could write at all,
+it would be the bards themselves, who would use the mystery or purposes
+of their own trade. In quite a short time, oral tradition, in keeping of
+the bards, whose business is to purvey wonders, makes the champions
+perform easily, deeds which "the men of the present time" can only gape
+at; and every bard takes over the stock of tradition, not from original
+sources, but from the mingled fantasy and memory of the bard who came
+just before him. So that when this tradition survives at all, it
+survives in a form very different from what it was in the beginning. But
+apparently we can mark out several stages in the fortunes of the
+tradition. It is first of all court poetry, or perhaps baronial poetry;
+and it may survive as that. From this stage it may pass into possession
+of the common people, or at least into the possession of bards whose
+clients are peasants and not nobles; from being court poetry it becomes
+the poetry of cottages and taverns. It may survive as this. Finally, it
+may be taken up again by the courts, and become poetry of much greater
+sophistication and nicety than it was in either of the preceding stages.
+But each stage leaves its sign on the tradition.
+
+All this gives us what is conveniently called "epic material"; the
+material out of which epic poetry might be made. But it does not give us
+epic poetry. The world knows of a vast stock of epic material scattered
+up and down the nations; sometimes its artistic value is as
+extraordinary as its archaeological interest, but not always. Instances
+are our own Border Ballads and Robin Hood Ballads; the Servian cycles of
+the Battle of Kossovo and the prowess of Marko; the modern Greek songs
+of the revolt against Turkey (the conditions of which seem to have been
+similar to those which surrounded the growth of our riding ballads); the
+fragments of Finnish legend which were pieced together into the
+_Kalevala_; the Ossianic poetry; and perhaps some of the minor sagas
+should be put in here. Then there are the glorious Welsh stories of
+Arthur, Tristram, and the rest, and the not less glorious Irish stories
+of Deirdre and Cuchulain; both of these noble masses of legend seem to
+have only just missed the final shaping which turns epic material into
+epic poetry. For epic material, it must be repeated, is not the same
+thing as epic poetry. Epic material is fragmentary, scattered, loosely
+related, sometimes contradictory, each piece of comparatively small
+size, with no intention beyond hearty narrative. It is a heap of
+excellent stones, admirably quarried out of a great rock-face of
+stubborn experience. But for this to be worked into some great
+structure of epic poetry, the Heroic Age must be capable of producing
+individuality of much profounder nature than any of its fighting
+champions. Or rather, we should simply say that the production of epic
+poetry depends on the occurrence (always an accidental occurrence) of
+creative genius. It is quite likely that what Homer had to work on was
+nothing superior to the Arthurian legends. But Homer occurred; and the
+tales of Troy and Odysseus became incomparable poetry.
+
+An epic is not made by piecing together a set of heroic lays, adjusting
+their discrepancies and making them into a continuous narrative. An epic
+is not even a re-creation of old things; it is altogether a new
+creation, a new creation in terms of old things. And what else is any
+other poetry? The epic poet has behind him a tradition of matter and a
+tradition of style; and that is what every other poet has behind him
+too; only, for the epic poet, tradition is rather narrower, rather more
+strictly compelling. This must not be lost sight of. It is what the
+poet does with the tradition he falls in which is, artistically, the
+important thing. He takes a mass of confused splendours, and he makes
+them into something which they certainly were not before; something
+which, as we can clearly see by comparing epic poetry with mere epic
+material, the latter scarce hinted at. He makes this heap of matter into
+a grand design; he forces it to obey a single presiding unity of
+artistic purpose. Obviously, something much more potent is required for
+this than a fine skill in narrative and poetic ornament. Unity is not
+merely an external affair. There is only one thing which can master the
+perplexed stuff of epic material into unity; and that is, an ability to
+see in particular human experience some significant symbolism of man's
+general destiny.
+
+It is natural that, after the epic poet has arrived, the crude epic
+material in which he worked should scarcely be heard of. It could only
+be handed on by the minstrels themselves; and their audiences would not
+be likely to listen comfortably to the old piecemeal songs after they
+had heard the familiar events fall into the magnificent ordered pomp of
+the genuine epic poet. The tradition, indeed, would start afresh with
+him; but how the novel tradition fared as it grew old with his
+successors, is difficult guesswork. We can tell, however, sometimes, in
+what stage of the epic material's development the great unifying epic
+poet occurred. Three roughly defined stages have been mentioned. Homer
+perhaps came when the epic material was still in its first stage of
+being court-poetry. Almost certainly this is when the poets of the
+Crusading lays, of the _Song of Roland_, and the _Poem of the Cid_, set
+to work. Hesiod is a clear instance of the poet who masters epic
+material after it has passed into popular possession; and the
+_Nibelungenlied_ is thought to be made out of matter that has passed
+from the people back again to the courts.
+
+Epic poetry, then, as distinct from mere epic material, is the concern
+of this book. The intention is, to determine wherein epic poetry is a
+definite species of literature, what it characteristically does for
+conscious human life, and to find out whether this species and this
+function have shown, and are likely to show, any development. It must be
+admitted, that the great unifying poet who worked on the epic material
+before him, did not always produce something which must come within the
+scope of this intention. Hesiod has just been given as an instance of
+such a poet; but his work is scarcely an epic.[3] The great sagas, too,
+I must omit. They are epic enough in primary intention, but they are not
+poetry; and I am among those who believe that there is a difference
+between poetry and prose. If epic poetry is a definite species, the
+sagas do not fall within it. But this will leave me more of the
+"authentic" epic poetry than I can possibly deal with; and I shall have
+to confine myself to its greatest examples. Before, however, proceeding
+to consider epic poetry as a whole, as a constantly recurring form of
+art, continually responding to the new needs of man's developing
+consciousness, I must go, rapidly and generally, over the "literary
+epic"; and especially I must question whether it is really justifiable
+or profitable to divide epic poetry into the two contrasted departments
+of "authentic" and "literary."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: hos d' ote cheimarroi potamoi kat opesthi rheontes es
+misgagkeian xumballeton obrimon udor krounon ek melalon koilaes entosthe
+charadraes. _Iliad_, IV, 452.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Etymologically, the "good" man is the "admirable" man. In
+this sense, Homer's gods are certainly "good"; every epithet he gives
+them--Joyous-Thunderer, Far-Darter, Cloud-Gatherer and the
+rest--proclaims their unapproachable "goodness." If it had been said to
+Homer, that his gods cannot be "good" because their behaviour is
+consistently cynical, cruel, unscrupulous and scandalous, he would
+simply think he had not heard aright: Zeus is an habitual liar, of
+course, but what has that got to do with his "goodness"?--Only those who
+would have Homer a kind of Salvationist need regret this. Just because
+he could only make his gods "good" in this primitive style, he was able
+to treat their discordant family in that vein of exquisite comedy which
+is one of the most precious things in the world.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Scarcely what _we_ call epic. "Epos" might include Hesiod
+as well as epic material; "epopee" is the business that Homer started.]
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+LITERARY EPIC
+
+Epic poetry, then, was invented to supply the artistic demands of
+society in a certain definite and recognizable state. Or rather, it was
+the epic material which supplied that; the first epic poets gave their
+age, as genius always does, something which the age had never thought of
+asking for; which, nevertheless, when it was given, the age took good
+hold of, and found that, after all, this, too, it had wanted without
+knowing it. But as society went on towards civilization, the need for
+epic grew less and less; and its preservation, if not accidental, was an
+act of conscious aesthetic admiration rather than of unconscious
+necessity. It was preserved somehow, however; and after other kinds of
+literature had arisen as inevitably and naturally as epic, and had
+become, in their turn, things of less instant necessity than they were,
+it was found that, in the manner and purpose of epic poetry, something
+was given which was not given elsewhere; something of extraordinary
+value. Epic poetry would therefore be undertaken again; but now, of
+course, deliberately. With several different kinds of poetry to choose
+from, a man would decide that he would like best to be an epic poet, and
+he would set out, in conscious determination, on an epic poem. The
+result, good or bad, of such a determination is called "literary" epic.
+The poems of Apollonius Rhodius, Virgil, Lucan, Camoens, Tasso and
+Milton are "literary" epics. But such poetry as the _Odyssey_, the
+_Iliad,_ _Beowulf_, the _Song of Roland_, and the _Nibelungenlied_,
+poetry which seems an immediate response to some general and instant
+need in its surrounding community--such poetry is "authentic" epic.
+
+A great deal has been made of this distinction; it has almost been taken
+to divide epic poetry into two species. And, as the names commonly given
+to the two supposed species suggest, there is some notion that
+"literary" epic must be in a way inferior to "authentic" epic. The
+superstition of antiquity has something to do with this; but the
+presence of Homer among the "authentic" epics has probably still more to
+do with it. For Homer is the poet who is usually chosen to stand for
+"authentic" epic; and, by a facile association of ideas, the conspicuous
+characteristics of Homer seem to be the marks of "authentic" epic as a
+species. It is, of course, quite true, that, for sustained grandeur and
+splendour, no poet can be put beside Homer except Dante and Milton; but
+it is also quite clear that in Homer, as in Dante, and Milton, such
+conspicuous characteristics are simply the marks of peculiar poetic
+genius. If we leave Homer out, and consider poetic greatness only (the
+only important thing to consider), there is no "authentic" epic which
+can stand against _Paradise Lost_ or the _Aeneid_. Then there is the
+curious modern feeling--which is sometimes but dressed up by erroneous
+aesthetic theory (the worship of a quite national "lyricism," for
+instance) but which is really nothing but a sign of covert
+barbarism--that lengthy poetic composition is somehow undesirable; and
+Homer is thought to have had a better excuse for composing a long poem
+than Milton.
+
+But doubtless the real reason for the hard division of epic poetry into
+two classes, and for the presumed inferiority of "literary" to
+"authentic," lies in the application of that curiosity among false
+ideas, the belief in a "folk-spirit." This notion that such a thing as a
+"folk-spirit" can create art, and that the art which it does create must
+be somehow better than other art, is, I suppose, the offspring of
+democratic ideas in politics. The chief objection to it is that there
+never has been and never can be anything in actuality corresponding to
+the "folk-spirit" which this notion supposes. Poetry is the work of
+poets, not of peoples or communities; artistic creation can never be
+anything but the production of an individual mind. We may, if we like,
+think that poetry would be more "natural" if it were composed by the
+folk as the folk, and not by persons peculiarly endowed; and to think so
+is doubtless agreeable to the notion that the folk is more important
+than the individual. But there is nothing gained by thinking in this
+way, except a very illusory kind of pleasure; since it is impossible
+that the folk should ever be a poet. This indisputable axiom has been
+ignored more in theories about ballads--about epic material--than in
+theories about the epics themselves. But the belief in a real
+folk-origin for ballads, untenable though it be in a little examination,
+has had a decided effect on the common opinion of the authentic epics.
+In the first place, a poem constructed out of ballads composed, somehow
+or other, by the folk, ought to be more "natural" than a work of
+deliberate art--a "literary" epic; that is to say, these Rousseau-ish
+notions will admire it for being further from civilization and nearer to
+the noble savage; civilization being held, by some mysterious argument,
+to be deficient in "naturalness." In the second place, this belief has
+made it credible that the plain corruption of authentic epic by oral
+transmission, or very limited transmission through script, might be the
+sign of multiple authorship; for if you believe that a whole folk can
+compose a ballad, you may easily believe that a dozen poets can compose
+an epic.
+
+But all this rests on simple ignoring of the nature of poetic
+composition. The folk-origin of ballads and the multiple authorship of
+epics are heresies worse than the futilities of the Baconians; at any
+rate, they are based on the same resolute omission, and build on it a
+wilder fantasy. They omit to consider what poetry is. Those who think
+Bacon wrote _Hamlet_, and those who think several poets wrote the
+_Iliad_, can make out a deal of ingenious evidence for their doctrines.
+But it is all useless, because the first assumption in each case is
+unthinkable. It is psychologically impossible that the mind of Bacon
+should have produced _Hamlet_; but the impossibility is even more
+clamant when it comes to supposing that several poets, not in
+collaboration, but in haphazard succession, could produce a poem of vast
+sweeping unity and superbly consistent splendour of style. So far as
+mere authorship goes, then, we cannot make any real difference between
+"authentic" and "literary" epic. We cannot say that, while this is
+written by an individual genius, that is the work of a community.
+Individual genius, of whatever quality, is responsible for both. The
+folk, however, cannot be ruled out. Genius does the work; but the folk
+is the condition in which genius does it. And here we may find a genuine
+difference between "literary" and "authentic"; not so much in the nature
+of the condition as in its closeness and insistence.
+
+The kind of folk-spirit behind the poet is, indeed, different in the
+_Iliad_ and _Beowulf_ and the _Song of Roland_ from what it is in Milton
+and Tasso and Virgil. But there is also as much difference here between
+the members of each class as between the two classes themselves. You
+cannot read much of _Beowulf_ with Homer in your mind, without becoming
+conscious that the difference in individual genius is by no means the
+whole difference. Both poets maintain a similar ideal in life; but they
+maintain it within conditions altogether unlike. The folk-spirit behind
+_Beowulf_ is cloudy and tumultuous, finding grandeur in storm and gloom
+and mere mass--in the misty _lack_ of shape. Behind Homer it is, on the
+contrary, radiant and, however vehement, always delighting in measure,
+finding grandeur in brightness and clarity and shining outline. So,
+again, we may very easily see how Tasso's poetry implies the Italy of
+his time, and Milton's the England of his time. But where Homer and
+Beowulf together differ from Tasso and Milton is in the way the
+surrounding folk-spirit contains the poet's mind. It would be a very
+idle piece of work, to choose between the potency of Homer's genius and
+of Milton's; but it is clear that the immediate circumstance of the
+poet's life presses much more insistently on the _Iliad_ and the
+_Odyssey_ than on _Paradise Lost_. It is the difference between the
+contracted, precise, but vigorous tradition of an heroic age, and the
+diffused, eclectic, complicated culture of a civilization. And if it may
+be said that the insistence of racial circumstance in Homer gives him a
+greater intensity of cordial, human inspiration, it must also be said
+that the larger, less exacting conditions of Milton's mental life allow
+his art to go into greater scope and more subtle complexity of
+significance. Great epic poetry will always frankly accept the social
+conditions within which it is composed; but the conditions contract and
+intensify the conduct of the poem, or allow it to dilate and absorb
+larger matter, according as the narrow primitive torrents of man's
+spirit broaden into the greater but slower volume of civilized life. The
+change is neither desirable nor undesirable; it is merely inevitable. It
+means that epic poetry has kept up with the development of human life.
+
+It is because of all this that we have heard a good deal about the
+"authentic" epic getting "closer to its subject" than "literary" epic.
+It seems, on the face of it, very improbable that there should be any
+real difference here. No great poetry, of whatever kind, is conceivable
+unless the subject has become integrated with the poet's mind and mood.
+Milton is as close to his subject, Virgil to his, as Homer to Achilles
+or the Saxon poet to Beowulf. What is really meant can be nothing but
+the greater insistence of racial tradition in the "authentic" epics. The
+subject of the _Iliad_ is the fighting of heroes, with all its
+implications and consequences; the subject of the _Odyssey_ is adventure
+and its opposite, the longing for safety and home; in _Beowulf_ it is
+kingship--the ability to show man how to conquer the monstrous forces of
+his world; and so on. Such were the subjects which an imperious racial
+tradition pressed on the early epic poet, who delighted to be so
+governed. These were the matters which his people could understand, of
+which they could easily perceive the significance. For him, then, there
+could be no other matters than these, or the like of these. But it is
+not in such matters that a poet living in a time of less primitive and
+more expanded consciousness would find the highest importance. For a
+Roman, the chief matter for an epic poem would be Roman civilization;
+for a Puritan, it would be the relations of God and man. When,
+therefore, we consider how close to his subject an epic poet is, we must
+be careful to be quite clear what his subject is. And if he has gone
+beyond the immediate experiences of primitive society, we need not
+expect him to be as close as the early poets were to the fury of battle
+and the agony of wounds and the desolation of widows; or to the
+sensation of exploring beyond the familiar regions; or to the
+marsh-fiends and fire-drakes into which primitive imagination naturally
+translated the terrible unknown powers of the world. We need not, in a
+word, expect the "literary" epic to compete with the "authentic" epic;
+for the fact is, that the purpose of epic poetry, and therefore the
+nature of its subject, must continually develop. It is quite true that
+the later epics take over, to a very great extent, the methods and
+manners of the earlier poems; just as architecture hands on the style of
+wooden structure to an age that builds in stone, and again imposes the
+manners of stone construction on an age that builds in concrete and
+steel. But, in the case of epic at any rate, this is not merely the
+inertia of artistic convention. With the development of epic intention,
+and the subsequent choosing of themes larger and subtler than what
+common experience is wont to deal in, a certain duplicity becomes
+inevitable. The real intention of the _Aeneid_, and the real intention
+of _Paradise Lost_, are not easily brought into vivid apprehension. The
+natural thing to do, then, would be to use the familiar substance of
+early epic, but to use it as a convenient and pleasant solvent for the
+novel intention. It is what has been done in all the great "literary"
+epics. But hasty criticism, finding that where they resembled Homer
+they seemed not so close to their matter, has taken this as a pervading
+and unfortunate characteristic. It has not perceived that what in Homer
+was the main business of the epic, has become in later epic a device.
+Having so altered, it has naturally lost in significance; but in the
+greatest instances of later epic, that for which the device was used has
+been as profoundly absorbed into the poet's being as Homer's matter was
+into his being. It may be noted, too, that a corresponding change has
+also taken place in the opposite direction. As Homer's chief substance
+becomes a device in later epic, so a device of Homer's becomes in later
+epic the chief substance. Homer's supernatural machinery may be reckoned
+as a device--a device to heighten the general style and action of his
+poems; the _significance_ of Homer must be found among his heroes, not
+among his gods. But with Milton, it has become necessary to entrust to
+the supernatural action the whole aim and purport of the poem.
+
+On the whole, then, there is no reason why "literary" epic should not be
+as close to its subject as "authentic" epic; there is every reason why
+both kinds should be equally close. But in testing whether they actually
+are equally close, we have to remember that in the later epic it has
+become necessary to use the ostensible subject as a vehicle for the real
+subject. And who, with any active sympathy for poetry, can say that
+Milton felt his theme with less intensity than Homer? Milton is not so
+close to his fighting angels as Homer is to his fighting men; but the
+war in heaven is an incident in Milton's figurative expression of
+something that has become altogether himself--the mystery of individual
+existence in universal existence, and the accompanying mystery of sin,
+of individual will inexplicably allowed to tamper with the divinely
+universal will. Milton, of course, in closeness to his subject and in
+everything else, stands as supreme above the other poets of literary
+epic as Homer does above the poets of authentic epic. But what is true
+of Milton is true, in less degree, of the others. If there is any good
+in them, it is primarily because they have got very close to their
+subjects: that is required not only for epic, but for all poetry.
+Coleridge, in a famous estimate put twenty years for the shortest period
+in which an epic could be composed; and of this, ten years were to be
+for preparation. He meant that not less than ten years would do for the
+poet to fill all his being with the theme; and nothing else will serve,
+It is well known how Milton brooded over his subject, how Virgil
+lingered over his, how Camoen. carried the _Luisads_ round the world
+with him, with what furious intensity Tasso gave himself to writing
+_Jerusalem Delivered_. We may suppose, perhaps, that the poets of
+"authentic" epic had a somewhat easier task. There was no need for them
+to be "long choosing and beginning late." The pressure of racial
+tradition would see that they chose the right sort of subject; would
+see, too, that they lived right in the heart of their subject. For the
+poet of "literary" epic, however, it is his own consciousness that must
+select the kind of theme which will fulfil the epic intention for his
+own day; it is his own determination and studious endurance that will
+draw the theme into the secrets of his being. If he is not capable of
+getting close to his subject, we should not for that reason call his
+work "literary" epic. It would put him in the class of Milton, the most
+literary of all poets. We must simply call his stuff bad epic. There is
+plenty of it. Southey is the great instance. Southey would decide to
+write an epic about Spain, or India, or Arabia, or America. Next he
+would read up, in several languages, about his proposed subject; that
+would take him perhaps a year. Then he would versify as much strange
+information as he could remember; that might take a few months. The
+result is deadly; and because he was never anywhere near his subject. It
+is for the same reason that the unspeakable labours of Blackmore, Glover
+and Wilkie, and Voltaire's ridiculous _Henriade_, have gone to pile up
+the rubbish-heaps of literature.
+
+So far, supposed differences between "authentic" and "literary" epic
+have resolved themselves into little more than signs of development in
+epic intention; the change has not been found to produce enough artistic
+difference between early and later epic to warrant anything like a
+division into two distinct species. The epic, whether "literary" or
+"authentic," is a single form of art; but it is a form capable of
+adapting itself to the altering requirements of prevalent consciousness.
+In addition, however, to differences in general conception, there are
+certain mechanical differences which should be just noticed. The first
+epics were intended for recitation; the literary epic is meant to be
+read. It is more difficult to keep the attention of hearers than of
+readers. This in itself would be enough to rule out themes remote from
+common experience, supposing any such were to suggest themselves to the
+primitive epic poet. Perhaps, indeed, we should not be far wrong if we
+saw a chief reason for the pressure of surrounding tradition on the
+early epic in this very fact, that it is poetry meant for recitation.
+Traditional matter must be glorified, since it would be easier to listen
+to the re-creation of familiar stories than to quite new and unexpected
+things; the listeners, we must remember, needed poetry chiefly as the
+re-creation of tired hours. Traditional manner would be equally
+difficult to avoid; for it is a tradition that plainly embodies the
+requirements, fixed by experience, of _recited_ poetry. Those features
+of it which make for tedium when it is read--repetition, stock epithets,
+set phrases for given situations--are the very things best suited, with
+their recurring well-known syllables, to fix the attention of listeners
+more firmly, or to stir it when it drowses; at the least they provide a
+sort of recognizable scaffolding for the events, and it is remarkable
+how easily the progress of events may be missed when poetry is
+declaimed. Indeed, if the primitive epic poet could avoid some of the
+anxieties peculiar to the composition of literary epic, he had others to
+make up for it. He had to study closely the delicate science of holding
+auricular attention when once he had got it; and probably he would have
+some difficulty in getting it at all. The really great poet challenges
+it, like Homer, with some tremendous, irresistible opening; and in this
+respect the magnificent prelude to _Beowulf_ may almost be put beside
+Homer. But lesser poets have another way. That prolixity at the
+beginning of many primitive epics, their wordy deliberation in getting
+under way, is probably intentional. The _Song of Roland_, for instance,
+begins with a long series of exceedingly dull stanzas; to a reader, the
+preliminaries of the story seem insufferably drawn out. But by the time
+the reciter had got through this unimportant dreariness, no doubt his
+audience had settled down to listen. The _Chanson d'Antioche_ contains
+perhaps the most illuminating admission of this difficulty. In the first
+"Chant," the first section opens:[4]
+
+  Seigneurs, faites silence; et que tout bruit cesse,
+  Si vous voulez entendre une glorieuse chanson.
+  Aucun jongleur ne vous en dira une meilleure.
+
+Then some vaguely prelusive lines. But the audience is clearly not quite
+ready yet, for the second section begins:
+
+  Barons, ecoutez-moi, et cessez vos querelles!
+  Je vous dirai une tres-belle chanson.
+
+And after some further prelude, the section ends:
+
+  Ici commence la chanson ou il y a tant a apprendre.
+
+The "Chanson" does, indeed, make some show of beginning in the third
+section, but it still moves with a cautious and prelusive air, as if
+anxious not to launch out too soon. And this was evidently prudent, for
+when the fourth section opens, direct exhortation to the audience has
+again become necessary:
+
+  Maintenant, seigneurs, ecoutez ce que dit l'Ecriture.
+
+And once more in the fifth section:
+
+  Barons, ecoutez un excellent couplet.
+
+In the sixth, the jongleur is getting desperate:
+
+  Seigneurs, pour l'amour de Dieu, faites silence, ecoutez-moi,
+  Pour qu'en partant de ce monde vous entriez dans un meilleur;
+
+but after this exclamation he has his way, though the story proper is
+still a good way off. Perhaps not all of these hortatory stanzas were
+commonly used; any or all of them could certainly be omitted without
+damaging the poem. But they were there to be used, according to the
+judgment of the jongleur and the temper of his audience, and their
+presence in the poem is very suggestive of the special difficulties in
+the art of rhapsodic poetry.
+
+But the gravest difficulty, and perhaps the most important, in poetry
+meant solely for recitation, is the difficulty of achieving verbal
+beauty, or rather of making verbal beauty tell. Vigorous but controlled
+imagination, formative power, insight into the significance of
+things--these are qualities which a poet must eminently possess; but
+these are qualities which may also be eminently possessed by men who
+cannot claim the title of poet. The real differentia of the poet is his
+command over the secret magic of words. Others may have as delighted a
+sense of this magic, but it is only the poet who can master it and do
+what he likes with it. And next to the invention of speaking itself, the
+most important invention for the poet has been the invention of writing
+and reading; for this has added immensely to the scope of his mastery
+over words. No poet will ever take the written word as a substitute for
+the spoken word; he knows that it is on the spoken word, and the spoken
+word only, that his art is founded. But he trusts his reader to do as he
+himself does--to receive written words always as the code of spoken
+words. To do so has wonderfully enlarged his technical opportunities;
+for apprehension is quicker and finer through the eye than through the
+ear. After the invention of reading, even poetry designed primarily for
+declamation (like drama or lyric) has depths and subtleties of art which
+were not possible for the primitive poet. Accordingly we find that, on
+the whole, in comparison with "literary" epic, the texture of
+"authentic" epic is flat and dull. The story may be superb, and its
+management may be superb; but the words in which the story lives do not
+come near the grandeur of Milton, or the exquisiteness of Virgil, or the
+deliciousness of Tasso. Indeed, if we are to say what is the real
+difference between _Beowulf_ and _Paradise Lost_, we must simply say
+that _Beowulf_ is not such good poetry. There is, of course, one
+tremendous exception; Homer is the one poet of authentic epic who had
+sufficient genius to make unfailingly, nobly beautiful poetry within the
+strict and hard conditions of purely auricular art. Compare Homer's
+ambrosial glory with the descent tap-water of Hesiod; compare his
+continuous burnished gleam of wrought metal with the sparse grains that
+lie in the sandy diction of all the "authentic" epics of the other
+nations. And, by all ancient accounts, the other early Greek epics would
+not fare much better in the comparison. Homer's singularity in this
+respect is overwhelming; but it is frequently forgotten, and especially
+by those who think to help in the Homeric question by comparing him with
+other "authentic" epics. Supposing (we can only just suppose it) a case
+were made out for the growth rather than the individual authorship of
+some "authentic" epic other than Homer; it could never have any bearing
+on the question of Homeric authorship, because no early epic is
+comparable with the _poetry_ of Homer. Nothing, indeed, is comparable
+with the poetry of Homer, except poetry for whose individual authorship
+history unmistakably vouches.
+
+So we cannot say that Homer was not as deliberate a craftsman in words
+as Milton himself. The scope of his craft was more restricted, as his
+repetitions and stock epithets show; he was restricted by the fact that
+he composed for recitation, and the auricular appreciation of diction is
+limited, the nature of poetry obeying, in the main, the nature of those
+for whom it is composed. But this is just a case in which genius
+transcends technical scope. The effects Homer produced with his methods
+were as great as any effects produced by later and more elaborate
+methods, after poetry began to be read as well as heard. But neither
+must we say that the other poets of "authentic" epic were not deliberate
+craftsmen in words. Poets will always get as much beauty out of words as
+they can. The fact that so often in the early epics a magnificent
+subject is told, on the whole, in a lumpish and tedious diction, is not
+to be explained by any contempt for careful art, as though it were a
+thing unworthy of such heroic singers; it is simply to be explained by
+lack of such genius as is capable of transcending the severe limitations
+of auricular poetry. And we may well believe that only the rarest and
+most potent kind of genius could transcend such limitations.
+
+In summary, then, we find certain conceptual differences and certain
+mechanical differences between "authentic" and "literary" epic. But
+these are not such as to enable us to say that there is, artistically,
+any real difference between the two kinds. Rather, the differences
+exhibit the changes we might expect in an art that has kept up with
+consciousness developing, and civilization becoming more intricate.
+"Literary" epic is as close to its subject as "authentic"; but, as a
+general rule, "authentic" epic, in response to its surrounding needs,
+has a simple and concrete subject, and the closeness of the poet to this
+is therefore more obvious than in "literary" epic, which (again in
+response to surrounding needs) has been driven to take for subject some
+great abstract idea and display this in a concrete but only ostensible
+subject. Then in craftsmanship, the two kinds of epic are equally
+deliberate, equally concerned with careful art; but "literary" epic has
+been able to take such advantage of the habit of reading that, with the
+single exception of Homer, it has achieved a diction much more
+answerable to the greatness of epic matter than the "authentic" poems.
+We may, then, in a general survey, regard epic poetry as being in all
+ages essentially the same kind of art, fulfilling always a similar,
+though constantly developing, intention. Whatever sort of society he
+lives in, whether he be surrounded by illiterate heroism or placid
+culture, the epic poet has a definite function to perform. We see him
+accepting, and with his genius transfiguring, the general circumstance
+of his time; we see him symbolizing, in some appropriate form, whatever
+sense of the significance of life he feels acting as the accepted
+unconscious metaphysic of his age. To do this, he takes some great story
+which has been absorbed into the prevailing consciousness of his people.
+As a rule, though not quite invariably, the story will be of things
+which are, or seem, so far back in the past, that anything may credibly
+happen in it; so imagination has its freedom, and so significance is
+displayed. But quite invariably, the materials of the story will have an
+unmistakable air of actuality; that is, they come profoundly out of
+human experience, whether they declare legendary heroism, as in Homer
+and Virgil, or myth, as in _Beowulf_ and _Paradise Lost_, or actual
+history, as in Lucan and Camoens and Tasso. And he sets out this story
+and its significance in poetry as lofty and as elaborate as he can
+compass. That, roughly, is what we see the epic poets doing, whether
+they be "literary" or "authentic"; and if this can be agreed on, we
+should now have come tolerably close to a definition of epic poetry.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 4: From the version of the Marquise de Sainte-Aulaire.]
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+THE NATURE OF EPIC
+
+Rigid definitions in literature are, however, dangerous. At bottom, it
+is what we feel, not what we think, that makes us put certain poems
+together and apart from others; and feelings cannot be defined, but only
+related. If we define a poem, we say what we think about it; and that
+may not sufficiently imply the essential thing the poem does for us.
+Hence the definition is liable either to be too strict, or to admit work
+which does not properly satisfy the criterion of feeling. It seems
+probable that, in the last resort, classification in literature rests on
+that least tangible, least definable matter, style; for style is the
+sign of the poem's spirit, and it is the spirit that we feel. If we can
+get some notion of how those poems, which we call epic, agree with one
+another in style, it is likely we shall be as close as may be to a
+definition of epic. I use the word "style," of course, in its largest
+sense--manner of conception as well as manner of composition.
+
+An easy way to define epic, though not a very profitable way, would be
+to say simply, that an epic is a poem which produces feelings similar to
+those produced by _Paradise Lost_ or the _Iliad_, _Beowulf_ or the _Song
+of Roland_. Indeed, you might include all the epics of Europe in this
+definition without losing your breath; for the epic poet is the rarest
+kind of artist. And while it is not a simple matter to say off-hand what
+it is that is common to all these poems, there seems to be general
+acknowledgment that they are clearly separable from other kinds of
+poetry; and this although the word epic has been rather badly abused.
+For instance, _The Faery Queene_ and _La Divina Commedia_ have been
+called epic poems; but I do not think that anyone could fail to admit,
+on a little pressure, that the experience of reading _The Faery Queene_
+or _La Divina Commedia_ is not in the least like the experience of
+reading _Paradise Lost_ or the _Iliad_. But as a poem may have lyrical
+qualities without being a lyric, so a poem may have epical qualities
+without being an epic. In all the poems which the world has agreed to
+call epics, there is a story told, and well told. But Dante's poem
+attempts no story at all, and Spenser's, though it attempts several,
+does not tell them well--it scarcely attempts to make the reader believe
+in them, being much more concerned with the decoration and the
+implication of its fables than with the fables themselves. What epic
+quality, detached from epic proper, do these poems possess, then, apart
+from the mere fact that they take up a great many pages? It is simply a
+question of their style--the style of their conception and the style of
+their writing; the whole style of their imagination, in fact. They take
+us into a region in which nothing happens that is not deeply
+significant; a dominant, noticeably symbolic, purpose presides over each
+poem, moulds it greatly and informs it throughout.
+
+This takes us some little way towards deciding the nature of epic. It
+must be a story, and the story must be told well and greatly; and,
+whether in the story itself or in the telling of it, significance must
+be implied. Does that mean that the epic must be allegorical? Many have
+thought so; even Homer has been accused of constructing allegories. But
+this is only a crude way of emphasizing the significance of epic; and
+there is a vast deal of difference between a significant story and an
+allegorical story. Reality of substance is a thing on which epic poetry
+must always be able to rely. Not only because Spenser does not tell his
+stories very well, but even more because their substance (not, of
+course, their meaning) is deliciously and deliberately unreal, _The
+Faery Queene_ is outside the strict sense of the word epic. Allegory
+requires material ingeniously manipulated and fantastic; what is more
+important, it requires material invented by the poet himself. That is a
+long way from the solid reality of material which epic requires. Not
+manipulation, but imaginative transfiguration of material; not
+invention, but selection of existing material appropriate to his genius,
+and complete absorption of it into his being; that is how the epic poet
+works. Allegory is a beautiful way of inculcating and asserting some
+special significance in life; but epic has a severer task, and a more
+impressive one. It has not to say, Life in the world _ought_ to mean
+this or that; it has to show life unmistakably _being_ significant. It
+does not gloss or interpret the fact of life, but re-creates it and
+charges the fact itself with the poet's own sense of ultimate values.
+This will be less precise than the definite assertions of allegory; but
+for that reason it will be more deeply felt. The values will be
+emotional and spiritual rather than intellectual. And they will be the
+poet's own only because he has made them part of his being; in him
+(though he probably does not know it) they will be representative of the
+best and most characteristic life of his time. That does not mean that
+the epic poet's image of life's significance is of merely contemporary
+or transient importance. No stage through which the general
+consciousness of men has gone can ever be outgrown by men; whatever
+happens afterwards does not displace it, but includes it. We could not
+do without _Paradise Lost_ nowadays; but neither can we do without the
+_Iliad_. It would not, perhaps, be far from the truth, if it were even
+said that the significance of _Paradise Lost_ cannot be properly
+understood unless the significance of the _Iliad_ be understood.
+
+The prime material of the epic poet, then, must be real and not
+invented. But when the story of the poem is safely concerned with some
+reality, he can, of course, graft on this as much appropriate invention
+as he pleases; it will be one of his ways of elaborating his main,
+unifying purpose--and to call it "unifying" is to assume that, however
+brilliant his surrounding invention may be, the purpose will always be
+firmly implicit in the central subject. Some of the early epics manage
+to do without any conspicuous added invention designed to extend what
+the main subject intends; but such nobly simple, forthright narrative as
+_Beowulf_ and the _Song of Roland_ would not do for a purpose slightly
+more subtle than what the makers of these ringing poems had in mind. The
+reality of the central subject is, of course, to be understood broadly.
+It means that the story must be founded deep in the general experience
+of men. A decisive campaign is not, for the epic poet, any more real
+than a legend full of human truth. All that the name of Caesar suggests
+is extremely important for mankind; so is all that the name of Satan
+suggests: Satan, in this sense, is as real as Caesar. And, as far as
+reality is concerned, there is nothing to choose between the Christians
+taking Jerusalem and the Greeks taking Troy; nor between Odysseus
+sailing into fairyland and Vasco da Gama sailing round the world. It is
+certainly possible that a poet might devise a story of such a kind that
+we could easily take it as something which might have been a real human
+experience. But that is not enough for the epic poet. He needs something
+which everyone knows about, something which indisputably, and
+admittedly, _has been_ a human experience; and even Grendel, the fiend
+of the marshes, was, we can clearly see, for the poet of _Beowulf_ a
+figure profoundly and generally accepted as not only true but real;
+what, indeed, can be more real for poetry than a devouring fiend which
+lives in pestilent fens? And the reason why epic poetry so imperiously
+demands reality of subject is clear; it is because such poetry has
+symbolically to re-create the actual fact and the actual particulars of
+human existence in terms of a general significance--the reader must feel
+that life itself has submitted to plastic imagination. No fiction will
+ever have the air, so necessary for this epic symbolism, not merely of
+representing, but of unmistakably _being_, human experience. This might
+suggest that history would be the thing for an epic poet; and so it
+would be, if history were superior to legend in poetic reality. But,
+simply as substance, there is nothing to choose between them; while
+history has the obvious disadvantage of being commonly too strict in the
+manner of its events to allow of creative freedom. Its details will
+probably be so well known, that any modification of them will draw more
+attention to discrepancy with the records than to achievement thereby of
+poetic purpose. And yet modification, or at least suppression and
+exaggeration, of the details of history will certainly be necessary. Not
+to declare what happened, and the results of what happened, is the
+object of an epic; but to accept all this as the mere material in which
+a single artistic purpose, a unique, vital symbolism may be shaped. And
+if legend, after passing for innumerable years through popular
+imagination, still requires to be shaped at the hands of the epic poet,
+how much more must the crude events of history require this! For it is
+not in events as they happen, however notably, that man may see symbols
+of vital destiny, but in events as they are transformed by plastic
+imagination.
+
+Yet it has been possible to use history as the material of great epic
+poetry; Camoens and Tasso did this--the chief subject of the _Lusiads_
+is even contemporary history. But evidently success in these cases was
+due to the exceptional and fortunate fact that the fixed notorieties of
+history were combined with a strange and mysterious geography. The
+remoteness and, one might say, the romantic possibilities of the places
+into which Camoens and Tasso were led by their themes, enable
+imagination to deal pretty freely with history. But in a little more
+than ten years after Camoens glorified Portugal in an historical epic,
+Don Alonso de Ercilla tried to do the same for Spain. He puts his action
+far enough from home: the Spaniards are conquering Chili. But the world
+has grown smaller and more familiar in the interval: the astonishing
+things that could easily happen in the seas of Madagascar cannot now
+conveniently happen in Chili. The _Araucana_ is versified history, not
+epic. That is to say, the action has no deeper significance than any
+other actual warfare; it has not been, and could not have been, shaped
+to any symbolic purpose. Long before Tasso and Camoens and Ercilla, two
+Scotchmen had attempted to put patriotism into epic form; Barbour had
+written his _Bruce_ and Blind Harry his _Wallace_. But what with the
+nearness of their events, and what with the rusticity of their authors,
+these tolerable, ambling poems are quite unable to get the better of the
+hardness of history. Probably the boldest attempt to make epic of
+well-known, documented history is Lucan's _Pharsalia_. It is a brilliant
+performance, and a deliberate effort to carry on the development of
+epic. At the very least it has enriched the thought of humanity with
+some imperishable lines. But it is true, what the great critic said of
+it: the _Pharsalia_ partakes more of the nature of oratory than of
+poetry. It means that Lucan, in choosing history, chose something which
+he had to declaim about, something which, at best, he could
+imaginatively realize; but not something which he could imaginatively
+re-create. It is quite different with poems like the _Song of Roland_.
+They are composed in, or are drawn immediately out of, an heroic age; an
+age, that is to say, when the idea of history has not arisen, when
+anything that happens turns inevitably, and in a surprisingly short
+time, into legend. Thus, an unimportant, probably unpunished, attack by
+Basque mountaineers on the Emperor's rear-guard has become, in the _Song
+of Roland_, a great infamy of Saracenic treachery, which must be greatly
+avenged.
+
+Such, in a broad description, is the nature of epic poetry. To define it
+with any narrower nicety would probably be rash. We have not been
+discovering what an epic poem ought to be, but roughly examining what
+similarity of quality there is in all those poems which we feel,
+strictly attending to the emotional experience of reading them, can be
+classed together and, for convenience, termed epic. But it is not much
+good having a name for this species of poetry if it is given as well to
+poems of quite a different nature. It is not much good agreeing to call
+by the name of epic such poems as the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_,
+_Beowulf_ and the _Song of Roland_, _Paradise Lost_ and _Gerusalemme
+Liberata_, if epic is also to be the title for _The Faery Queene_ and
+_La Divina Commedia_, _The Idylls of the King_ and _The Ring and the
+Book_. But I believe most of the importance in the meaning of the word
+epic, when it is reasonably used, will be found in what is written
+above. Apart from the specific form of epic, it shares much of its
+ultimate intention with the greatest kind of drama (though not with all
+drama). And just as drama, whatever grandeur of purpose it may attempt,
+must be a good play, so epic must be a good story. It will tell its tale
+both largely and intensely, and the diction will be carried on the
+volume of a powerful, flowing metre. To distinguish, however, between
+merely narrative poetry, and poetry which goes beyond being mere
+narrative into the being of epic, must often be left to feeling which
+can scarcely be precisely analysed. A curious instance of the
+difficulty in exactly defining epic (but not in exactly deciding what is
+epic) may be found in the work of William Morris. Morris left two long
+narrative poems, _The Life and Death of Jason_, and _The Story of Sigurd
+the Volsung_.
+
+I do not think anyone need hesitate to put _Sigurd_ among the epics; but
+I do not think anyone who will scrupulously compare the experience of
+reading _Jason_ with the experience of reading _Sigurd_, can help
+agreeing that _Jason_ should be kept out of the epics. There is nothing
+to choose between the subjects of the two poems. For an Englishman,
+Greek mythology means as much as the mythology of the North. And I
+should say that the bright, exact diction and the modest metre of
+_Jason_ are more interesting and attractive than the diction, often
+monotonous and vague, and the metre, often clumsily vehement, of
+_Sigurd_. Yet for all that it is the style of _Sigurd_ that puts it with
+the epics and apart from _Jason_; for style goes beyond metre and
+diction, beyond execution, into conception. The whole imagination of
+_Sigurd_ is incomparably larger than that of _Jason_. In _Sigurd_, you
+feel that the fashioning grasp of imagination has not only seized on the
+show of things, and not only on the physical or moral unity of things,
+but has somehow brought into the midst of all this, and has kneaded into
+the texture of it all, something of the ultimate and metaphysical
+significance of life. You scarcely feel that in _Jason_.
+
+Yes, epic poetry must be an affair of evident largeness. It was well
+said, that "the praise of an epic poem is to feign a person exceeding
+Nature." "Feign" here means to imagine; and imagine does not mean to
+invent. But, like most of the numerous epigrams that have been made
+about epic poetry, the remark does not describe the nature of epic, but
+rather one of the conspicuous signs that that nature is fulfilling
+itself. A poem which is, in some sort, a summation for its time of the
+values of life, will inevitably concern itself with at least one figure,
+and probably with several, in whom the whole virtue, and perhaps also
+the whole failure, of living seems superhumanly concentrated. A story
+weighted with the epic purpose could not proceed at all, unless it were
+expressed in persons big enough to support it. The subject, then, as the
+epic poet uses it, will obviously be an important one. Whether, apart
+from the way the poet uses it, the subject ought to be an important one,
+would not start a very profitable discussion. Homer has been praised for
+making, in the _Iliad_, a first-rate poem out of a second-rate subject.
+It is a neat saying; but it seems unlikely that anything really
+second-rate should turn into first-rate epic. I imagine Homer would have
+been considerably surprised, if anyone had told him that the vast train
+of tragic events caused by the gross and insupportable insult put by
+Agamemnon, the mean mind in authority, on Achilles, the typical
+hero--that this noble and profoundly human theme was a second-rate
+subject. At any rate, the subject must be of capital importance in its
+treatment. It must symbolize--not as a particular and separable
+assertion, but at large and generally--some great aspect of vital
+destiny, without losing the air of recording some accepted reality of
+human experience, and without failing to be a good story; and the
+pressure of high purpose will inform diction and metre, as far, at
+least, as the poet's verbal art will let it.
+
+The usual attempts at stricter definition of epic than anything this
+chapter contains, are either, in spite of what they try for, so vague
+that they would admit almost any long stretch of narrative poetry; or
+else they are based on the accidents or devices of epic art; and in that
+case they are apt to exclude work which is essentially epic because
+something inessential is lacking. It has, for instance, been seriously
+debated, whether an epic should not contain a catalogue of heroes. Other
+things, which epics have been required to contain, besides much that is
+not worth mentioning,[5] are a descent into hell and some supernatural
+machinery. Both of these are obviously devices for enlarging the scope
+of the action. The notion of a visit to the ghosts has fascinated many
+poets, and Dante elaborated this Homeric device into the main scheme of
+the greatest of non-epical poems, as Milton elaborated the other
+Homeric device into the main scheme of the greatest of literary epics.
+But a visit to the ghosts is, of course, like games or single combat or
+a set debate, merely an incident which may or may not be useful.
+Supernatural machinery, however, is worth some short discussion here,
+though it must be alluded to further in the sequel. The first and
+obvious thing to remark is, that an unquestionably epic effect can be
+given without any supernatural machinery at all. The poet of _Beowulf_
+has no need of it, for instance. A Christian redactor has worked over
+the poem, with more piety than skill; he can always be detected, and his
+clumsy little interjections have nothing to do with the general tenour
+of the poem. The human world ends off, as it were, precipitously; and
+beyond there is an endless, impracticable abyss in which dwells the
+secret governance of things, an unknowable and implacable
+fate--"Wyrd"--neither malign nor benevolent, but simply inscrutable. The
+peculiar cast of noble and desolate courage which this bleak conception
+gives to the poem is perhaps unique among the epics.
+
+But very few epic poets have ventured to do without supernatural
+machinery of some sort. And it is plain that it must greatly assist the
+epic purpose to surround the action with immortals who are not only
+interested spectators of the event, but are deeply implicated in it;
+nothing could more certainly liberate, or at least more appropriately
+decorate, the significant force of the subject. We may leave Milton out,
+for there can be no question about _Paradise Lost_ here; the
+significance of the subject is not only liberated by, it entirely exists
+in, the supernatural machinery. But with the other epic poets, we should
+certainly expect them to ask us for our belief in their immortals. That,
+however, is just what they seem curiously careless of doing. The
+immortals are there, they are the occasion of splendid poetry; they do
+what they are intended to do--they declare, namely, by their speech and
+their action, the importance to the world of what is going on in the
+poem. Only--there is no obligation to believe in them; and will not that
+mean, no obligation to believe in their concern for the subject, and all
+that that implies? Homer begins this paradox. Think of that lovely and
+exquisitely mischievous passage in the _Iliad_ called _The Cheating of
+Zeus_. The salvationist school of commentators calls this an
+interpolation; but the spirit of it is implicit throughout the whole of
+Homer's dealing with the gods; whenever, at least, he deals with them at
+length, and not merely incidentally. Not to accept that spirit is not to
+accept Homer. The manner of describing the Olympian family at the end of
+the first book is quite continuous throughout, and simply reaches its
+climax in the fourteenth book. Nobody ever believed in Homer's gods, as
+he must believe in Hektor and Achilles. (Puritans like Xenophanes were
+annoyed not with the gods for being as Homer described them, but with
+Homer for describing them as he did.) Virgil is more decorous; but can
+we imagine Virgil praying, or anybody praying, to the gods of the
+_Aeneid_? The supernatural machinery of Camoens and Tasso is frankly
+absurd; they are not only careless of credibility, but of sanity. Lucan
+tried to do without gods; but his witchcraft engages belief even more
+faintly than the mingled Paganism and Christianity of Camoens, and
+merely shows how strongly the most rationalistic of epic poets felt the
+value of some imaginary relaxation in the limits of human existence. Is
+it, then, only as such a relaxation that supernatural machinery is
+valuable? Or only as a superlative kind of ornament? It is surely more
+than that. In spite of the fact that we are not seriously asked to
+believe in it, it does beautifully and strikingly crystallize the poet's
+determination to show us things that go past the reach of common
+knowledge. But by putting it, whether instinctively or deliberately, on
+a lower plane of credibility than the main action, the poet obeys his
+deepest and gravest necessity: the necessity of keeping his poem
+emphatically an affair of recognizable _human_ events. It is of man, and
+man's purpose in the world, that the epic poet has to sing; not of the
+purpose of gods. The gods must only illustrate man's destiny; and they
+must be kept within the bounds of beautiful illustration. But it
+requires a finer genius than most epic poets have possessed, to keep
+supernatural machinery just sufficiently fanciful without missing its
+function. Perhaps only Homer and Virgil have done that perfectly.
+Milton's revolutionary development marks a crisis in the general process
+of epic so important, that it can only be discussed when that process is
+considered, in the following chapter, as a whole.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 5: Such as similes and episodes. It is as if a man were to
+say, the essential thing about a bridge is that it should be painted.]
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+THE EPIC SERIES
+
+By the general process of epic poetry, I mean the way this form of art
+has constantly responded to the profound needs of the society in which
+it was made. But the development of human society does not go straight
+forward; and the epic process will therefore be a recurring process, the
+series a recurring series--though not in exact repetition. Thus, the
+Homeric poems, the _Argonautica_, the _Aeneid_, the _Pharsalia_, and the
+later Latin epics, form one series: the _Aeneid_ would be the climax of
+the series, which thence declines, were it not that the whole originates
+with the incomparable genius of Homer--a fact which makes it seem to
+decline from start to finish. Then the process begins again, and again
+fulfils itself, in the series which goes from _Beowulf_, the _Song of
+Roland_, and the _Nibelungenlied_, through Camoens and Tasso up to
+Milton. And in this case Milton is plainly the climax. There is nothing
+like _Paradise Lost_ in the preceding poems, and epic poetry has done
+nothing since but decline from that towering glory.
+
+But it will be convenient not to make too much of chronology, in a
+general account of epic development. It has already appeared that the
+duties of all "authentic" epic are broadly the same, and the poems of
+this kind, though two thousand years may separate their occurrence, may
+be properly brought together as varieties of one sub-species. "Literary"
+epic differs much more in the specific purpose of its art, as civilized
+societies differ much more than heroic, and also as the looser _milieu_
+of a civilization allows a less strictly traditional exercise of
+personal genius than an heroic age. Still, it does not require any
+manipulation to combine the "literary" epics from both series into a
+single process. Indeed, if we take Homer, Virgil and Milton as the
+outstanding events in the whole progress of epic poetry, and group the
+less important poems appropriately round these three names, we shall not
+be far from the _ideal truth_ of epic development. We might say, then,
+that Homer begins the whole business of epic, imperishably fixes its
+type and, in a way that can never be questioned, declares its artistic
+purpose; Virgil perfects the type; and Milton perfects the purpose.
+Three such poets are not, heaven knows, summed up in a phrase; I mean
+merely to indicate how they are related one to another in the general
+scheme of epic poetry. For discriminating their merits, deciding their
+comparative eminence, I have no inclination; and fortunately it does not
+come within the requirements of this essay. Indeed, I think the reader
+will easily excuse me, if I touch very slightly on the poetic manner, in
+the common and narrow sense, of the poets whom I shall have to mention;
+since these qualities have been so often and sometimes so admirably
+dealt with. It is at the broader aspects of artistic purpose that I wish
+to look.
+
+"From Homer," said Goethe, "I learn every day more clearly, that in our
+life here above ground we have, properly speaking, to enact Hell." It is
+rather a startling sentence at first. That poetry which, for us, in
+Thoreau's excellent words, "lies in the east of literature," scarcely
+suggests, in the usual opinion of it, Hell. We are tempted to think of
+Homer as the most fortunate of poets. It seems as if he had but to open
+his mouth and speak, to create divine poetry; and it does not lessen our
+sense of his good fortune when, on looking a little closer, we see that
+this is really the result of an unerring and unfailing art, an
+extraordinarily skilful technique. He had it entirely at his command;
+and he exercised it in a language in which, though it may be singularly
+artificial and conventional, we can still feel the wonder of its
+sensuous beauty and the splendour of its expressive power. It is a
+language that seems alive with eagerness to respond to imagination. Open
+Homer anywhere, and the casual grandeur of his untranslatable language
+appears; such lines as:
+
+    amphi de naees
+  smerdaleon konabaesan ausanton hup' Achaion.[6]
+
+That, you might say, is Homer at his ease; when he exerts himself you
+get a miracle like:
+
+    su den strophalingi koniaes
+  keiso megas megalosti, lelasmenos hipposunaon.[7]
+
+It seems the art of one who walked through the world of things endowed
+with the senses of a god, and able, with that perfection of effort that
+looks as if it were effortless, to fashion his experience into
+incorruptible song; whether it be the dance of flies round a byre at
+milking-time, or a forest-fire on the mountains at night. The shape and
+clamour of waves breaking on the beach in a storm is as irresistibly
+recorded by Homer as the gleaming flowers which earth put forth to be
+the bed of Zeus and Hera in Gargaros, when a golden cloud was their
+coverlet, and Sleep sat on a pine tree near by in the likeness of a
+murmuring night-jar. It is an art so balanced, that when it tells us,
+with no special emphasis, how the Trojans came on with a din like the
+clangour of a flock of cranes, but the Achaians came on in silence, the
+temper of the two hosts is discriminated for the whole poem; or, in the
+supreme instance, when it tells us how the old men looked at Helen and
+said, "No wonder the young men fight for her!" then Helen's beauty must
+be accepted by the faith of all the world. The particulars of such
+poetry could be enumerated for pages; and this is the poetry which is
+filled, more than any other literature, in the _Iliad_ with the nobility
+of men and women, in the _Odyssey_ with the light of natural magic. And
+think of those gods of Homer's; he is the one poet who has been able to
+make the dark terrors of religion beautiful, harmless and quietly
+entertaining. It is easy to read this poetry and simply _enjoy_ it; it
+is easy to say, the man whose spirit held this poetry must have been
+divinely happy. But this is the poetry whence Goethe learnt that the
+function of man is "to enact Hell."
+
+Goethe is profoundly right; though possibly he puts it in a way to which
+Homer himself might have demurred. For the phrase inevitably has its
+point in the word "Hell"; Homer, we may suppose, would have preferred
+the point to come in the word "enact." In any case, the details of
+Christian eschatology must not engage us much in interpreting Goethe's
+epigram. There is truth in it, not simply because the two poems take
+place in a theatre of calamity; not simply, for instance, because of the
+beloved Hektor's terrible agony of death, and the woes of Andromache and
+Priam. Such things are the partial, incidental expressions of the whole
+artistic purpose. Still less is it because of a strain of latent
+savagery in, at any rate, the _Iliad_; as when the sage and reverend
+Nestor urges that not one of the Greeks should go home until he has lain
+with the wife of a slaughtered Trojan, or as in the tremendous words of
+the oath: "Whoever first offend against this oath, may their brains be
+poured out on the ground like this wine, their own and their children's,
+and may their wives be made subject to strangers." All that is one of
+the accidental qualities of Homer. But the force of the word "enact" in
+Goethe's epigram will certainly come home to us when we think of those
+famous speeches in which courage is unforgettably declared--such
+speeches as that of Sarpedon to Glaukos, or of Glaukos to Diomedes, or
+of Hektor at his parting with Andromache. What these speeches mean,
+however, in the whole artistic purpose of Homer, will assuredly be
+missed if they are _detached_ for consideration; especially we shall
+miss the deep significance of the fact that in all of these speeches the
+substantial thought falls, as it were, into two clauses. Courage is in
+the one clause, a deliberate facing of death; but something equally
+important is in the other. Is it honour? The Homeric hero makes a great
+deal of honour; but it is honour paid to himself, living; what he wants
+above everything is to be admired--"always to be the best"; that is what
+true heroism is. But he is to go where he knows death will strike at
+him; and he does not make much of honour after death; for him, the
+meanest man living is better than a dead hero. Death ends everything, as
+far as he is concerned, honour and all; his courage looks for no reward
+hereafter. No; but _since_ ten thousand fates of death are always
+instant round us; _since_ the generations of men are of no more account
+than leaves of a tree; _since_ Troy and all its people will soon be
+destroyed--he will stand in death's way. Sarpedon emphasizes this with
+its converse: There would be no need of daring and fighting, he says,
+of "man-ennobling battle," if we could be for ever ageless and
+deathless. That is the heroic age; any other would say, If only we could
+not be killed, how pleasant to run what might have been risks! For the
+hero, that would simply not be worth while. Does he find them pleasant,
+then, just because they are risky? Not quite; that, again, is to detach
+part of the meaning from the whole. If anywhere, we shall, perhaps, find
+the whole meaning of Homer most clearly indicated in such words as those
+given (without any enforcement) to Achilles and Thetis near the
+beginning of the _Iliad_, as if to sound the pitch of Homer's poetry:
+
+  meter, hepi m hetekes ge minynthadion per heonta,
+  timen per moi hophellen Olympios engyalixai
+  Zeus hypsibremetes.[8]
+       *       *       *       *       *
+  timeson moi yion hos hokymorotatos hallon
+  heplet'.[9]
+
+Minunthadion--hokymorotatos: those are the imporportant words;
+key-words, they might be called. If we really understand these lines, if
+we see in them what it is that Agamemnon's insult has deprived Achilles
+of--the sign and acknowledgment of his fellows' admiration while he is
+still living among them, the one thing which makes a hero's life worth
+living, which enables him to enact his Hell--we shall scarcely complain
+that the _Iliad_ is composed on a second-rate subject. The significance
+of the poem is not in the incidents surrounding the "Achilleis"; the
+whole significance is centred in the Wrath of Achilles, and thence made
+to impregnate every part.
+
+Life is short; we must make the best of it. How trite that sounds! But
+it is not trite at all really. It seems difficult, sometimes, to believe
+that there was a time when sentiments now become habitual, sentiments
+that imply not only the original imperative of conduct, but the original
+metaphysic of living, were by no means altogether habitual. It is
+difficult to imagine backwards into the time when self-consciousness was
+still so fresh from its emergence out of the mere tribal consciousness
+of savagery, that it must not only accept the fact, but first intensely
+_realize_, that man is hokymorotatos--a thing of swiftest doom. And it
+was for men who were able, and forced, to do that, that the _Iliad_ and
+the _Odyssey_ and the other early epics were composed. But life is not
+only short; it is, in itself, _valueless_. "As the generation of leaves,
+so is the generation of men." The life of man matters to nobody but
+himself. It happens incidentally in universal destiny; but beyond just
+happening it has no function. No function, of course, except for man
+himself. If man is to find any value in life it is he himself that must
+create the value. For the sense of the ultimate uselessness of life, of
+the blankness of imperturbable darkness that surrounds it, Goethe's word
+"Hell" is not too shocking. But no one has properly lived who has not
+felt this Hell; and we may easily believe that in an heroic age, the
+intensity of this feeling was the secret of the intensity of living. For
+where will the primitive instinct of man, where will the hero, find the
+chance of creating a value for life? In danger, and in the courage that
+welcomes danger. That not only evaluates life; it derives the value from
+the very fact that forces man to create value--the fact of his swift and
+instant doom--hokymorotatos once more; it makes this dreadful fact
+_enjoyable_. And so, with courage as the value of life, and man thence
+delightedly accepting whatever can be made of his passage, the doom of
+life is not simply suffered; man enacts his own life; he has mastered
+it.
+
+We need not say that this is the lesson of Homer. And all this, barely
+stated, is a very different matter from what it is when it is poetically
+symbolized in the vast and shapely substance of the _Iliad_ and the
+_Odyssey_. It is quite possible, of course, to appreciate, pleasantly
+and externally, the _Iliad_ with its pressure of thronging life and its
+daring unity, and the _Odyssey_ with its serener life and its superb
+construction, though much more sectional unity. But we do not appreciate
+what Homer did for his time, and is still doing for all the world, we do
+not appreciate the spirit of his music, unless we see the warfare and
+the adventure as symbols of the primary courage of life; and there is
+more in those words than seems when they are baldly written. And it is
+not his morals, but Homer's art that does that for us. And what Homer's
+art does supremely, the other early epics do in their way too. Their way
+is not to be compared with Homer's way. They are very much nearer than
+he is to the mere epic material--to the moderate accomplishment of the
+primitive ballad. Apart from their greatness, and often successful
+greatness, of intention, perhaps the only one that has an answerable
+greatness in the detail of its technique is _Beowulf_. That is not on
+account of its "kennings"--the strange device by which early popular
+poetry (Hesiod is another instance) tries to liberate and master the
+magic of words. A good deal has been made of these "kennings"; but it
+does not take us far towards great poetry, to have the sea called
+"whale-road" or "swan-road" or "gannet's-bath"; though we are getting
+nearer to it when the sun is called "candle of the firmament" or
+"heaven's gem." On the whole, the poem is composed in an elaborate,
+ambitious diction which is not properly governed. Alliteration proves a
+somewhat dangerous principle; it seems mainly responsible for the way
+the poet makes his sentences by piling up clauses, like shooting a load
+of stones out of a cart. You cannot always make out exactly what he
+means; and it is doubtful whether he always had a clearly-thought
+meaning. Most of the subsidiary matter is foisted in with monstrous
+clumsiness. Yet _Beowulf_ has what we do not find, out of Homer, in the
+other early epics. It has occasionally an unforgettable grandeur of
+phrasing. And it has other and perhaps deeper poetic qualities. When the
+warriors are waiting in the haunted hall for the coming of the
+marsh-fiend Grendel, they fall into untroubled sleep; and the poet adds,
+with Homeric restraint: "Not one of them thought that he should thence
+be ever seeking his loved home again, his people or free city, where he
+was nurtured." The opening is magnificent, one of the noblest things
+that have been done in language. There is some wonderful grim landscape
+in the poem; towards the middle there is a great speech on deterioration
+through prosperity, a piece of sustained intensity that reads like an
+Aeschylean chorus; and there is some admirable fighting, especially the
+fight with Grendel in the hall, and with Grendel's mother under the
+waters, while Beowulf's companions anxiously watch the troubled surface
+of the mere. The fact that the action of the poem is chiefly made of
+single combat with supernatural creatures and that there is not tapestry
+figured with radiant gods drawn between the life of men and the ultimate
+darkness, gives a peculiar and notable character to the way Beowulf
+symbolizes the primary courage of life. One would like to think, with
+some enthusiasts, that this great poem, composed in a language totally
+unintelligible to the huge majority of Englishmen--further from English
+than Latin is from Italian--and perhaps not even composed in England,
+certainly not concerned either with England or Englishmen, might
+nevertheless be called an English epic.
+
+But of course the early epics do not, any of them, merely repeat the
+significance of Homer in another form. They might do that, if poetry had
+to inculcate a moral, as some have supposed. But however nicely we may
+analyse it, we shall never find in poetry a significance which is really
+detachable, and expressible in another way. The significance _is_ the
+poetry. What _Beowulf_ or the _Iliad_ or the _Odyssey_ means is simply
+what it is in its whole nature; we can but roughly indicate it. And as
+poetry is never the same, so its significance is never quite the same.
+Courage as the first necessary value of life is most naively and simply
+expressed, perhaps, in the _Poem of the Cid_; but even here the
+expression is, as in all art, unique, and chiefly because it is
+contrived through solidly imagined characters. There is splendid
+characterization, too, in the _Song of Roland_, together with a fine
+sense of poetic form; not fine enough, however, to avoid a prodigious
+deal of conventional gag. The battling is lavish, but always exciting;
+and in, at least, that section which describes how the dying Oliver,
+blinded by weariness and wounds, mistakes Roland for a pagan and feebly
+smites him with his sword, there is real and piercing pathos. But for
+all his sense of character, the poet has very little discretion in his
+admiration of his heroes. Christianity, in these two poems, has less
+effect than one might think. The conspicuous value of life is still the
+original value, courage; but elaboration and refinement of this begin
+to appear, especially in the _Song of Roland_, as passionately conscious
+patriotism and loyalty. The chief contribution of the _Nibelungenlied_
+to the main process of epic poetry is _plot_ in narrative; a
+contribution, that is, to the manner rather than to the content of epic
+symbolism. There is something that can be called plot in Homer; but with
+him, as in all other early epics, it is of no great account compared
+with the straightforward linking of incidents into a direct chain of
+narrative. The story of the _Nibelungenlied_, however, is not a chain
+but a web. Events and the influence of characters are woven closely and
+intricately together into one tragic pattern; and this requires not only
+characterization, but also the adding to the characters of persistent
+and dominant motives.
+
+Epic poetry exhibits life in some great symbolic attitude. It cannot
+strictly be said to symbolize life itself, but always some manner of
+life. But life as courage--the turning of the dark, hard condition of
+life into something which can be exulted in--this, which is the deep
+significance of the art of the first epics, is the absolutely necessary
+foundation for any subsequent valuation of life; Man can achieve nothing
+until he has first achieved courage. And this, much more than any
+inheritance of manner, is what makes all the writers of deliberate or
+"literary" epic imply the existence of Homer. If Homer had not done his
+work, they could not have done theirs. But "literary" epics are as
+necessary as Homer. We cannot go on with courage as the solitary
+valuation of life. We must have the foundation, but we must also have
+the superstructure. Speaking comparatively, it may be said that the
+function of Homeric epic has been to create imperishable symbolism for
+the actual courageous consciousness of life, but the duty of "literary"
+epic has been to develop this function, answerably to the development of
+life itself, into symbolism of some conscious _idea_ of life--something
+at once more formalized and more subtilized than the primary virtue of
+courage. The Greeks, however, were too much overshadowed by the
+greatness of Homer to do much towards this. The _Argonautica_, the
+half-hearted epic of Apollonius Rhodius, is the only attempt that need
+concern us. It is not a poem that can be read straight through; it is
+only enjoyable in moments--moments of charming, minute observation, like
+the description of a sunbeam thrown quivering on the wall from a basin
+of water "which has just been poured out," lines not only charming in
+themselves, but finely used as a simile for Medea's agitated heart; or
+moments of romantic fantasy, as when the Argonauts see the eagle flying
+towards Prometheus, and then hear the Titan's agonized cry. But it is
+not in such passages that what Apollonius did for epic abides. A great
+deal of his third book is a real contribution to the main process, to
+epic content as well as to epic manner. To the manner of epic he added
+analytic psychology. No one will ever imagine character more deeply or
+more firmly than Homer did in, say, Achilles; but Apollonius was the man
+who showed how epic as well as drama may use the nice minutiae of
+psychological imagination. Through Virgil, this contribution to epic
+manner has pervaded subsequent literature. Apollonius, too, in his
+fumbling way, as though he did not quite know what he was doing, has yet
+done something very important for the development of epic significance.
+Love has been nothing but a subordinate incident, almost one might say
+an ornament, in the early epics; in Apollonius, though working through a
+deal of gross and lumbering mythological machinery, love becomes for the
+first time one of the primary values of life. The love of Jason and
+Medea is the vital symbolism of the _Argonautica_.
+
+But it is Virgil who really begins the development of epic art. He took
+over from Apollonius love as part of the epic symbolism of life, and
+delicate psychology as part of the epic method. And, like Apollonius, he
+used these novelties chiefly in the person of a heroine. But in Virgil
+they belong to an incomparably greater art; and it is through Virgil
+that they have become necessities of the epic tradition. More than this,
+however, was required of him. The epic poet collaborates with the spirit
+of his time in the composition of his work. That is, if he is
+successful; the time may refuse to work with him, but he may not refuse
+to work with his time. Virgil not only implies, he often clearly states,
+the original epic values of life, the Homeric values; as in the famous:
+
+  Stat sua cuique dies; breve et inreparabile tempus
+  Omnibus est vitae: sed famam extendere factis,
+  Hoc virtutis opus.[10]
+
+But to write a poem chiefly to symbolize this simple, heroic metaphysic
+would scarcely have done for Virgil; it would certainly not have done
+for his time. It was eminently a time of social organization, one might
+perhaps say of social consciousness. After Sylla and Marius and Caesar,
+life as an affair of sheer individualism would not very strongly appeal
+to a thoughtful Roman. Accordingly, as has so often been remarked, the
+_Aeneid_ celebrates the Roman Empire. A political idea does not seem a
+very likely subject for a kind of poetry which must declare greatly the
+fundamentals of living; not even when it is a political idea unequalled
+in the world, the idea of the Roman Empire. Had Virgil been a _good
+Roman_, the _Aeneid_ might have been what no doubt Augustus, and Rome
+generally, desired, a political epic. But Virgil was not a good Roman;
+there was something in him that was not Roman at all. It was this
+strange incalculable element in him that seems for ever making him
+accomplish something he had not thought of; it was surely this that made
+him, unintentionally it may be, use the idea of the Roman Empire as a
+vehicle for a much profounder valuation of life. We must remember here
+the Virgil of the Fourth Eclogue--that extraordinary, impassioned poem
+in which he dreams of man attaining to some perfection of living. It is
+still this Virgil, though saddened and resigned, who writes the
+_Aeneid_. Man creating his own destiny, man, however wearied with the
+long task of resistance, achieving some conscious community of
+aspiration, and dreaming of the perfection of himself: the poet whose
+lovely and noble art makes us a great symbol of _that_, is assuredly
+carrying on the work of Homer. This was the development in epic
+intention required to make epic poetry answer to the widening needs of
+civilization.
+
+But even more important, in the whole process of epic, than what
+Virgil's art does, is the way it does it. And this in spite of the fact
+which everyone has noticed, that Virgil does not compare with Homer as a
+poet of seafaring and warfaring. He is not, indeed, very interested in
+either; and it is unfortunate that, in managing the story of Aeneas (in
+itself an excellent medium for his symbolic purpose) he felt himself
+compelled to try for some likeness to the _Odyssey_ and the _Iliad_--to
+do by art married to study what the poet of the _Odyssey_ and the
+_Iliad_ had done by art married to intuitive experience. But his failure
+in this does not matter much in comparison with his technical success
+otherwise. Virgil showed how poetry may be made deliberately adequate to
+the epic purpose. That does not mean that Virgil is more artistic than
+Homer. Homer's redundance, wholesale repetition of lines, and stock
+epithets cannot be altogether dismissed as "faults"; they are
+characteristics of a wonderfully accomplished and efficient technique.
+But epic poetry cannot be written as Homer composed it; whereas it must
+be written something as Virgil wrote it; yes, if epic poetry is to be
+_written_, Virgil must show how that is to be done. The superb Virgilian
+economy is the thing for an epic poet now; the concision, the
+scrupulousness, the loading of every word with something appreciable of
+the whole significance. After the _Aeneid_, the epic style must be of
+this fashion:
+
+  Ibant ovscuri sola sub nocte per umbram
+  Perque domos Ditis vacuas et inania regna:
+  Quale per incertam lunam sub luce maligna
+  Est iter in silvis, ubi caelum condidit umbra
+  Jupiter, et rebus nox abstulit atra colorem.[11]
+
+Lucan is much more of a Roman than Virgil; and the _Pharsalia_, so far
+as it is not an historical epic, is a political one; the idea of
+political liberty is at the bottom of it. That is not an unworthy theme;
+and Lucan evidently felt the necessity for development in epic. But he
+made the mistake, characteristically Roman, of thinking history more
+real than legend; and, trying to lead epic in this direction,
+supernatural machinery would inevitably go too. That, perhaps, was
+fortunate, for it enabled Lucan safely to introduce one of his great and
+memorable lines:
+
+  Jupiter est quodcunque vides, quodcunque moveris;[12]
+
+which would certainly explode any supernatural machinery that could be
+invented. The _Pharsalia_ could not be anything more than an interesting
+but unsuccessful attempt; it was not on these lines that epic poetry was
+to develop. Lucan died at an age when most poets have done nothing very
+remarkable; that he already had achieved a poem like the _Pharsalia_,
+would make us think he might have gone to incredible heights, were it
+not that the mistake of the _Pharsalia_ seems to belong incurably to his
+temperament.
+
+Lucan's determined stoicism may, philosophically, be more consistent
+than the dubious stoicism of Virgil. But Virgil knew that, in epic,
+supernatural imagination is better than consistency. It was an important
+step when he made Jupiter, though a personal god, a power to which no
+limits are assigned; when he also made the other divinities but shadows,
+or, at most, functions, of Jupiter. This answers to his conviction that
+spirit universally and singly pervades matter; but, what is more, it
+answers to the needs of epic development. When we come to Tasso and
+Camoens, we seem to have gone backward in this respect; we seem to come
+upon poetry in which supernatural machinery is in a state of chronic
+insubordination. But that, too, was perhaps necessary. In comparison
+with the _Aeneid, Gerusalemme Liberata_ and _Os Lusiadas_ lack
+intellectual control and spiritual depth; but in comparison with the
+Roman, the two modern poems thrill with a new passion of life, a new
+wine of life, heady, as it seems, with new significance--a significance
+as yet only felt, not understood. Both Tasso and Camoens clearly join on
+to the main epic tradition: Tasso derives chiefly from the _Aeneid_ and
+the _Iliad_, Camoens from the _Aeneid_ and the _Odyssey_. Tasso is
+perhaps more Virgilian than Camoens; the plastic power of his
+imagination is more assured. But the advantage Camoens has over Tasso
+seems to repeat the advantage Homer has over Virgil; the ostensible
+subject of the _Lusiads_ glows with the truth of experience. But the
+real subject is behind these splendid voyagings, just as the real
+subject of Tasso is behind the battles of Christian and Saracen; and in
+both poets the inmost theme is broadly the same. It is the consciousness
+of modern Europe. _Jerusalem Delivered_ and the _Lusiads_ are drenched
+with the spirit of the Renaissance; and that is chiefly responsible for
+their lovely poetry. But they reach out towards the new Europe that was
+then just beginning. Europe making common cause against the peoples that
+are not Europe; Europe carrying her domination round the world--is that
+what Tasso and Camoens ultimately mean? It would be too hard and too
+narrow a matter by itself to make these poems what they are. No; it is
+not the action of Europe, but the spirit of European consciousness, that
+gave Tasso and Camoens their deepest inspiration. But what European
+consciousness really is, these poets rather vaguely suggest than master
+into clear and irresistible expression, into the supreme symbolism of
+perfectly adequate art. They still took European consciousness as an
+affair of geography and race rather than simply as a triumphant stage in
+the general progress of man's knowledge of himself. Their time imposed a
+duty on them; that they clearly understood. But they did not clearly
+understand what the duty was; partly, no doubt, because they were both
+strongly influenced by mediaeval religion. And so it is atmosphere, in
+Tasso and Camoens, that counts much more than substance; both poets seem
+perpetually thrilled by something they cannot express--the _non so che_
+of Tasso. And what chiefly gives this sense of quivering, uncertain
+significance to their poetry is the increase of freedom and decrease of
+control in the supernatural. Supernaturalism was emphasized, because
+they instinctively felt that this was the means epic poetry must use to
+accomplish its new duties; it was disorderly, because they did not quite
+know what use these duties required. Tasso and Camoens, for all the
+splendour and loveliness of their work, leave epic poetry, as it were,
+consciously dissatisfied--knowing that its future must achieve some
+significance larger and deeper than anything it had yet done, and
+knowing that this must be done somehow through imagined supernaturalism.
+It waited nearly a hundred years for the poet who understood exactly
+what was to be done and exactly how to do it.
+
+In _Paradise Lost_, the development of epic poetry culminates, as far as
+it has yet gone. The essential inspiration of the poem implies a
+particular sense of human existence which has not yet definitely
+appeared in the epic series, but which the process of life in Europe
+made it absolutely necessary that epic poetry should symbolize. In
+Milton, the poet arose who was supremely adequate to the greatest task
+laid on epic poetry since its beginning with Homer; Milton's task was
+perhaps even more exacting than that original one. "His work is not the
+greatest of heroic poems, only because it is not the first." The epigram
+might just as reasonably have been the other way round. But nothing
+would be more unprofitable than a discussion in which Homer and Milton
+compete for supremacy of genius. Our business here is quite otherwise.
+
+With the partial exception of Tasso and Camoens, all epic poetry before
+Milton is some symbolism of man's sense of his own will. It is simply
+this in Homer; and the succeeding poets developed this intention but
+remained well within it. Not even Virgil, with his metaphysic of
+individual merged into social will--not even Virgil went outside it. In
+fact, it is a sort of _monism_ of consciousness that inspires all
+pre-Miltonic epic. But in Milton, it has become a _dualism_. Before him,
+the primary impulse of epic is an impassioned sense of man's nature
+_being contained_--by his destiny: _his_ only because he is in it and
+belongs to it, as we say "_my_ country." With Milton, this has
+necessarily become not only a sense of man's rigorously contained
+nature, but equally a sense of that which contains man--in fact,
+simultaneously a sense of individual will and of universal necessity.
+The single sense of these two irreconcilables is what Milton's poetry
+has to symbolize. Could they be reconciled, the two elements in man's
+modern consciousness of existence would form a monism. But this
+consciousness is a dualism; its elements are absolutely opposed.
+_Paradise Lost_ is inspired by intense consciousness of the eternal
+contradiction between the general, unlimited, irresistible will of
+universal destiny, and defined individual will existing within this, and
+inexplicably capable of acting on it, even against it. Or, if that seems
+too much of an antinomy to some philosophies (and it is perhaps possible
+to make it look more apparent than real), the dualism can be unavoidably
+declared by putting it entirely in terms of consciousness: destiny
+creating within itself an existence which stands against and apart from
+destiny by being _conscious_ of it. In Milton's poetry the spirit of man
+is equally conscious of its own limited reality and of the unlimited
+reality of that which contains him and drives him with its motion--of
+his own will striving in the midst of destiny: destiny irresistible, yet
+his will unmastered.
+
+This is not to examine the development of epic poetry by looking at that
+which is not _poetry_. In this kind of art, more perhaps than in any
+other, we must ignore the wilful theories of those who would set
+boundaries to the meaning of the word poetry. In such a poem as
+Milton's, whatever is in it is its poetry; the poetry of _Paradise Lost_
+is just--_Paradise Lost_! Its pomp of divine syllables and glorious
+images is no more the poetry of Milton than the idea of man which he
+expressed. But the general manner of an art is for ever similar; it is
+its inspiration that is for ever changing. We need never expect words
+and metre to do more than they do here:
+
+          they, fondly thinking to allay
+  Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit
+  Chewed bitter ashes, which the offended taste
+  With spattering noise rejected: oft they assayed,
+  Hunger and thirst constraining; drugged as oft,
+  With hatefullest disrelish writhed their jaws,
+  With soot and cinders filled;
+
+or more than they do here:
+
+    What though the field be lost?
+  All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
+  And study of revenge, immortal hate,
+  And courage never to submit or yield,
+  And what is else not to be overcome.
+
+But what Homer's words, and perhaps what Virgil's words, set out to do,
+they do just as marvellously. There is no sure way of comparison here.
+How words do their work in poetry, and how we appreciate the way they do
+it--this seems to involve the obscurest processes of the mind: analysis
+can but fumble at it. But we can compare inspiration--the nature of the
+inmost urgent motive of poetry. And it is not irrelevant to add (it
+seems to me mere fact), that Milton had the greatest motive that has
+ever ruled a poet.
+
+For the vehicle of this motive, a fable of purely human action would
+obviously not suffice. What Milton has to express is, of course,
+altogether human; destiny is an entirely human conception. But he has to
+express not simply the sense of human existence occurring in destiny;
+that brings in destiny only mediately, through that which is destined.
+He has to express the sense of destiny immediately, at the same time as
+he expresses its opponent, the destined will of man. Destiny will appear
+in poetry as an omnipotent God; Virgil had already prepared poetry for
+that. But the action at large must clearly consist now, and for the
+first time, overwhelmingly of supernatural imagination. Milton has been
+foolishly blamed for making his supernaturalism too human. But nothing
+can come into poetry that is not shaped and recognizable; how else but
+in anthropomorphism could destiny, or (its poetic equivalent) deity,
+exist in _Paradise Lost_?
+
+We may see what a change has come over epic poetry, if we compare this
+supernatural imagination of Milton's with the supernatural machinery of
+any previous epic poet. Virgil is the most scrupulous in this respect;
+and towards the inevitable change, which Milton completed and perfected
+from Camoens and Tasso, Virgil took a great step in making Jupiter
+professedly almighty. But compare Virgil's "Tantaene animis celestibus
+irae?" with Milton's "Evil, be thou my good!" It is the difference
+between an accidental device and essential substance. That, in order to
+symbolize in epic form--that is to say, in _narrative_ form--the
+dualistic sense of destiny and the destined, and both immediately
+--Milton had to dissolve his human action completely in a
+supernatural action, is the sign not merely of a development, but of a
+re-creation, of epic art.
+
+It has been said that Satan is the hero of _Paradise Lost_. The offence
+which the remark has caused is due, no doubt, to injudicious use of the
+word "hero." It is surely the simple fact that if _Paradise Lost_ exists
+for any one figure, that is Satan; just as the _Iliad_ exists for
+Achilles, and the _Odyssey_ for Odysseus. It is in the figure of Satan
+that the imperishable significance of _Paradise Lost_ is centred; his
+vast unyielding agony symbolizes the profound antinomy of modern
+consciousness. And if this is what he is in significance it is worth
+noting what he is in technique. He is the blending of the poem's human
+plane with its supernatural plane. The epic hero has always represented
+humanity by being superhuman; in Satan he has grown into the
+supernatural. He does not thereby cease to symbolize human existence;
+but he is thereby able to symbolize simultaneously the sense of its
+irreconcilable condition, of the universal destiny that contains it. Out
+of Satan's colossal figure, the single urgency of inspiration, which
+this dualistic consciousness of existence makes, radiates through all
+the regions of Milton's vast and rigorous imagination. "Milton," says
+Landor, "even Milton rankt with living men!"
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 6: 'And all round the ships echoed terribly to the shouting
+Achaians.']
+
+[Footnote 7:
+  'When in a dusty whirlwind thou didst lie,
+    Thy valour lost, forgot thy chivalry.'--OGILBY.
+(The version leaves out megas megalosti.)
+]
+
+[Footnote 8: 'Mother, since thou didst bear me to be so short-lived,
+Olympian Zeus that thunders from on high should especially have bestowed
+honour on me.']
+
+[Footnote 9: 'Honour my son for me, for the swiftest doom of all is
+his.']
+
+[Footnote 10: "For everyone his own day is appointed; for all men the
+period of life is short and not to be recalled: but to spread glory by
+deeds, that is what valour can do."]
+
+[Footnote 11:
+  "They wer' amid the shadows by night in loneliness obscure
+  Walking forth i' the void and vasty dominyon of Ades;
+  As by an uncertain moonray secretly illumin'd
+  One goeth in the forest, when heav'n is gloomily clouded,
+  And black night hath robb'd the colours and beauty from all things."
+--ROBERT BRIDGES.
+]
+
+[Footnote 12: "All that is known, all that is felt, is God."]
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+AFTER MILTON
+
+And after Milton, what is to happen? First, briefly, for a few instances
+of what has happened. We may leave out experiments in religious
+sentiment like Klopstock's _Messiah_. We must leave out also poems which
+have something of the look of epic at first glance, but have nothing of
+the scope of epic intention; such as Scott's longer poems. These might
+resemble the "lays" out of which some people imagine "authentic" epic to
+have been made. But the lays are not the epic. Scott's poems have not
+the depth nor the definiteness of symbolic intention--what is sometimes
+called the epic unity--and this is what we can always discover in any
+poetry which gives us the peculiar experience we must associate with the
+word epic, if it is to have any precision of meaning. What applies to
+Scott, will apply still more to Byron's poems; Byron is one of the
+greatest of modern poets, but that does not make him an epic poet. We
+must keep our minds on epic intention. Shelley's _Revolt of Islam_ has
+something of it, but too vaguely and too fantastically; the generality
+of human experience had little to do with this glittering poem. Keats's
+_Hyperion_ is wonderful; but it does not go far enough to let us form
+any judgment of it appropriate to the present purpose.[13] Our search
+will not take us far before we notice something very remarkable; poems
+which look superficially like epic turn out to have scarce anything of
+real epic intention; whereas epic intention is apt to appear in poems
+that do not look like epic at all. In fact, it seems as if epic manner
+and epic content were trying for a divorce. If this be so, the
+traditional epic manner will scarcely survive the separation. Epic
+content, however, may very well be looking out for a match with a new
+manner; though so far it does not seem to have found an altogether
+satisfactory partner.
+
+But there are one or two poems in which the old union seems still happy.
+Most noteworthy is Goethe's _Hermann und Dorothea_. You may say that it
+does not much matter whether such poetry should be called epic or, as
+some hold, idyllic. But it is interesting to note, first, that the poem
+is deliberately written with epic style and epic intention; and, second,
+that, though singularly beautiful, it makes no attempt to add anything
+to epic development. It is interesting, too, to see epic poetry trying
+to get away from its heroes, and trying to use material the poetic
+importance of which seems to depend solely on the treatment, not on
+itself. This was a natural and, for some things, a laudable reaction.
+But it inevitably meant that epic must renounce the triumphs which
+Milton had won for it. William Morris saw no reason for abandoning
+either the heroes or anything else of the epic tradition. The chief
+personages of _Sigurd the Volsung_ are admittedly more than human, the
+events frankly marvellous. The poem is an impressive one, and in one way
+or another fulfils all the main qualifications of epic. But perhaps no
+great poem ever had so many faults. These have nothing to do with its
+management of supernaturalism; those who object to this simply show
+ignorance of the fundamental necessities of epic poetry. The first book
+is magnificent; everything that epic narrative should be; but after this
+the poem grows long-winded, and that is the last thing epic poetry
+should be. It is written with a running pen; so long as the verse keeps
+going on, Morris seems satisfied, though it is very often going on
+about unimportant things, and in an uninteresting manner. After the
+first book, indeed, as far as Morris's epic manner is concerned, Virgil
+and Milton might never have lived. It attempts to be the grand manner by
+means of vagueness. In an altogether extraordinary way, the poem slurs
+over the crucial incidents (as in the inept lines describing the death
+of Fafnir, and those, equally hollow, describing the death of
+Guttorm--two noble opportunities simply not perceived) and tirelessly
+expatiates on the mere surroundings of the story. Yet there is no
+attempt to make anything there credible: Morris seems to have mixed up
+the effects of epic with the effects of a fairy-tale. The poem lacks
+intellect; it has no clear-cut thought. And it lacks sensuous images; it
+is full of the sentiment, not of the sense of things, which is the wrong
+way round. Hence the protracted conversations are as a rule amazingly
+windy and pointless, as the protracted descriptions are amazingly
+useless and tedious. And the superhuman virtues of the characters are
+not shown in the poem so much as energetically asserted. It says much
+for the genius of Morris that _Sigurd the Volsung_, with all these
+faults, is not to be condemned; that, on the contrary, to read it is
+rather a great than a tiresome experience; and not only because the
+faults are relieved, here and there, by exquisite beauties and
+dignities, indeed by incomparable lines, but because the poem as a whole
+does, as it goes on, accumulate an immense pressure of significance. All
+the great epics of the world have, however, perfectly clearly a
+significance in close relation with the spirit of their time; the
+intense desire to symbolize the consciousness of man as far as it has
+attained, is what vitally inspires an epic poet, and the ardour of this
+infects his whole style. Morris, in this sense, was not vitally
+inspired. _Sigurd the Volsung_ is a kind of set exercise in epic poetry.
+It is great, but it is not _needed_. It is, in fact, an attempt to write
+epic poetry as it might have been written, and to make epic poetry mean
+what it might have meant, in the days when the tale of Sigurd and the
+Niblungs was newly come among men's minds. Mr. Doughty, in his
+surprising poem _The Dawn in Britain_, also seems trying to compose an
+epic exercise, rather than to be obeying a vital necessity of
+inspiration. For all that, it is a great poem, full of irresistible
+vision and memorable diction. But it is written in a revolutionary
+syntax, which, like most revolutions of this kind, achieves nothing
+beyond the fact of being revolutionary; and Mr. Doughty often uses the
+unexpected effects of his queer syntax instead of the unexpected effects
+of poetry, which makes the poem even longer psychologically than it is
+physically. Lander's _Gebir_ has much that can truly be called epic in
+it; and it has learned the lessons in manner which Virgil and Milton so
+nobly taught. It has perhaps learned them too well; never were
+concision, and the loading of each word with heavy duties, so thoroughly
+practised. The action is so compressed that it is difficult to make out
+exactly what is going on; we no sooner realize that an incident has
+begun than we find ourselves in the midst of another. Apart from these
+idiosyncrasies, the poetry of _Gebir_ is a curious mixture of splendour
+and commonplace. If fiction could ever be wholly, and not only
+partially, epic, it would be in _Gebir_.
+
+In all these poems, we see an epic intention still combined with a
+recognizably epic manner. But what is quite evident is, that in all of
+them there is no attempt to carry on the development of epic, to take up
+its symbolic power where Milton left it. On the contrary, this seems to
+be deliberately avoided. For any tentative advance on Miltonic
+significance, even for any real acceptance of it, we must go to poetry
+which tries to put epic intention into a new form. Some obvious
+peculiarities of epic style are sufficiently definite to be detachable.
+Since Theocritus, a perverse kind of pleasure has often been obtained by
+putting some of the peculiarities of epic--peculiarities really required
+by a very long poem--into the compass of a very short poem. An epic
+idyll cannot, of course, contain any considerable epic intention; it is
+wrought out of the mere shell of epic, and avoids any semblance of epic
+scope. But by devising somehow a connected sequence of idylls, something
+of epic scope can be acquired again. As Hugo says, in his preface to _La
+Legende des Siecles_: "Comme dans une mosaique, chaque pierre a sa
+couleur et sa forme propre; l'ensemble donne une figure. La figure de ce
+livre," he goes on, "c'est l'homme." To get an epic design or _figure_
+through a sequence of small idylls need not be the result of mere
+technical curiosity. It may be a valuable method for the future of epic.
+Tennyson attempted this method in _Idylls of the King_; not, as is now
+usually admitted, with any great success. The sequence is admirable for
+sheer craftsmanship, for astonishing craftsmanship; but it did not
+manage to effect anything like a conspicuous symbolism. You have but to
+think of _Paradise Lost_ to see what _Idylls of the King_ lacks. Victor
+Hugo, however, did better in _La Legende des Siecles_. "La figure, c'est
+l'homme"; there, at any rate, is the intention of epic symbolism. And,
+however pretentious the poem may be, it undoubtedly does make a
+passionate effort to develop the significance which Milton had achieved;
+chiefly to enlarge the scope of this significance.[14] Browning's _The
+Ring and the Book_ also uses this notion of an idyllic sequence; but
+without any semblance of epic purpose, purely for the exhibition of
+human character.
+
+It has already been remarked that the ultimate significance of great
+drama is the same as that of epic. Since the vital epic purpose--the
+kind of epic purpose which answers to the spirit of the time--is
+evidently looking for some new form to inhabit, it is not surprising,
+then, that it should have occasionally tried on dramatic form. And,
+unquestionably, for great poetic symbolism of the depths of modern
+consciousness, for such symbolism as Milton's, we must go to two such
+invasions of epic purpose into dramatic manner--to Goethe's _Faust_ and
+Hardy's _The Dynasts_. But dramatic significance and epic significance
+have been admitted to be broadly the same; to take but one instance,
+Aeschylus's Prometheus is closely related to Milton's Satan (though I
+think Prometheus really represents a monism of consciousness--that which
+is destined--as Satan represents a dualism--at once the destined and the
+destiny). How then can we speak of epic purpose invading drama? Surely
+in this way. Drama seeks to present its significance with narrowed
+intensity, but epic in a large dilatation: the one contracts, the other
+expatiates. When, therefore, we find drama setting out its significance
+in such a way as to become epically dilated, we may say that dramatic
+has grown into epic purpose. Or, even more positively, we may say that
+epic has taken over drama and adapted it to its peculiar needs. In any
+case, with one exception to be mentioned presently, it is only in
+_Faust_ and _The Dynasts_ that we find any great development of Miltonic
+significance. These are the poems that give us immense and shapely
+symbols of the spirit of man, conscious not only of the sense of his
+own destined being, but also of some sense of that which destines. In
+fact, these two are the poems that develop and elaborate, in their own
+way, the Miltonic significance, as all the epics in between Homer and
+Milton develop and elaborate Homeric significance. And yet, in spite of
+_Faust_ and _The Dynasts_, it may be doubted whether the union of epic
+and drama is likely to be permanent. The peculiar effects which epic
+intention, in whatever manner, must aim at, seem to be as much hindered
+as helped by dramatic form; and possibly it is because the detail is
+necessarily too much enforced for the broad perfection of epic effect.
+
+The real truth seems to be, that there is an inevitable and profound
+difficulty in carrying on the Miltonic significance in anything like a
+story. Regular epic having reached its climax in _Paradise Lost_, the
+epic purpose must find some other way of going on. Hugo saw this, when
+he strung his huge epic sequence together not on a connected story but
+on a single idea: "la figure, c'est l'homme." If we are to have, as we
+must have, direct symbolism of the way man is conscious of his being
+nowadays, which means direct symbolism both of man's spirit and of the
+(philosophical) opponent of this, the universal fate of things--if we
+are to have all this, it is hard to see how any story can be adequate to
+such symbolic requirements, unless it is a story which moves in some
+large region of imagined supernaturalism. And it seems questionable
+whether we have enough _formal_ "belief" nowadays to allow of such a
+story appearing as solid and as vividly credible as epic poetry needs.
+It is a decided disadvantage, from the purely epic point of view, that
+those admirable "Intelligences" in Hardy's _The Dynasts_ are so
+obviously abstract ideas disguised. The supernaturalism of epic, however
+incredible it may be in the poem, must be worked up out of the material
+of some generally accepted belief. I think it would be agreed, that what
+was possible for Milton would scarcely be possible to-day; and even more
+impossible would be the naivete of Homer and the quite different but
+equally impracticable naivete of Tasso and Camoens. The conclusion seems
+to be, that the epic purpose will have to abandon the necessity of
+telling a story.
+
+Hugo's way may prove to be the right one. But there may be another; and
+what has happened in the past may suggest what may happen in the future.
+Epic poetry in the regular epic form has before now seemed unlikely. It
+seemed unlikely after the Alexandrians had made such poor attempts at
+standing upright under the immensity of Homer; it seemed so, until,
+after several efforts, Latin poetry became triumphantly epic in Virgil.
+And again, when the mystical prestige of Virgil was domineering
+everything, regular epic seemed unlikely; until, after the doubtful
+attempts of Boiardo and Ariosto, Tasso arrived. But in each case, while
+the occurrence of regular epic was seeming so improbable, it
+nevertheless happened that poetry was written which was certainly
+nothing like epic in form, but which was strongly charged with a
+profound pressure of purpose closely akin to epic purpose; and _De Rerum
+Natura_ and _La Divina Commedia_ are very suggestive to speculation now.
+Of course, the fact that, in both these cases, regular epic did
+eventually occur, must warn us that in artistic development anything may
+happen; but it does seem as if there were a deeper improbability for
+the occurrence of regular epic now than in the times just before Virgil
+and Tasso--of regular epic, that is, inspired by some vital import, not
+simply, like _Sigurd the Volsung_, by archaeological import. Lucretius is
+a good deal more suggestive than Dante; for Dante's form is too exactly
+suited to his own peculiar genius and his own peculiar time to be
+adaptable. But the method of Lucretius is eminently adaptable. That
+amazing image of the sublime mind of Lucretius is exactly the kind of
+lofty symbolism that the continuation of epic purpose now seems to
+require--a subjective symbolism. I believe Wordsworth felt this, when he
+planned his great symbolic poem, and partly executed it in _The Prelude_
+and _The Excursion_: for there, more profoundly than anywhere out of
+Milton himself, Milton's spiritual legacy is employed. It may be, then,
+that Lucretius and Wordsworth will preside over the change from
+objective to subjective symbolism which Milton has, perhaps, made
+necessary for the continued development of the epic purpose: after
+Milton, it seems likely that there is nothing more to be done with
+objective epic. But Hugo's method, of a connected sequence of separate
+poems, instead of one continuous poem, may come in here. The
+determination to keep up a continuous form brought both Lucretius and
+Wordsworth at times perilously near to the odious state of didactic
+poetry; it was at least responsible for some tedium. Epic poetry will
+certainly never be didactic. What we may imagine--who knows how vainly
+imagine?--is, then, a sequence of odes expressing, in the image of some
+fortunate and lofty mind, as much of the spiritual significance which
+the epic purpose must continue from Milton, as is possible, in the style
+of Lucretius and Wordsworth, for subjective symbolism. A pregnant
+experiment towards something like this has already been seen--in George
+Meredith's magnificent set of _Odes in Contribution to the Song of the
+French History_. The subject is ostensibly concrete; but France in her
+agonies and triumphs has been personified into a superb symbol of
+Meredith's own reading of human fate. The series builds up a decidedly
+epic significance, and its manner is extraordinarily suggestive of a new
+epic method. Nevertheless, something more Lucretian in central
+imagination, something less bound to concrete and particular event,
+seems required for the complete development of epic purpose.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 13: In the greatest poetry, all the elements of human nature
+are burning in a single flame. The artifice of criticism is to detect
+what peculiar radiance each element contributes to the whole light; but
+this no more affects the singleness of the compounded energy in poetry
+than the spectroscopic examination of fire affects the single nature of
+actual flame. For the purposes of this book, it has been necessary to
+look chiefly at the contribution of intellect to epic poetry; for it is
+in that contribution that the development of poetry, so far as there is
+any development at all, really consists. This being so, it might be
+thought that Keats could hardly have done anything for the real progress
+of epic. But Keats's apparent (it is only apparent) rejection of
+intellect in his poetry was the result of youthful theory; his letters
+show that, in fact, intellect was a thing unusually vigorous in his
+nature. If the Keats of the letters be added to the Keats of the poems,
+a personality appears that seems more likely than any of his
+contemporaries, or than anyone who has come after him, for the work of
+carrying Miltonic epic forward without forsaking Miltonic form.]
+
+[Footnote 14: For all I know, Hugo may never have read Milton; judging
+by some silly remarks of his, I should hope not. But Hugo could feel the
+things in the spirit of man that Milton felt; not only because they were
+still there, but because the secret influence of Milton has intensified
+the consciousness of them in thousands who think they know nothing of
+_Paradise Lost_. Modern literary history will not be properly understood
+until it is realized that Milton is one of the dominating minds of
+Europe, whether Europe know it or not. There are scarcely half a dozen
+figures that can be compared with Milton for irresistible
+influence--quite apart from his unapproachable supremacy in the
+technique of poetry. When Addison remarked that _Paradise Lost_ is
+universally and perpetually interesting, he said what is not to be
+questioned; though he did not perceive the real reason for his
+assertion. Darwin no more injured the significance of _Paradise Lost_
+than air-planes have injured Homer.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Epic, by Lascelles Abercrombie
+
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