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.
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