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.
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