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.
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