Epic and Romance. W. P. Ker
Epic and Romance
| The complex nature of Epic | 16 |
| No kind or aspect of life that may not be included | 16 |
| This freedom due to the dramatic quality of true (e.g. Homeric) Epic as explained by Aristotle | 17 17 |
| Epic does not require a magnificent ideal subject such as those of the artificial epic (Aeneid, Gerusalemme Liberata, Paradise Lost) | 18 18 |
| The Iliad unlike these poems in its treatment of "ideal" motives (patriotism, etc.) | 19 |
| True Epic begins with a dramatic plot and characters | 20 |
| The Epic of the Northern heroic age is sound in its dramatic conception and does not depend on impersonal ideals (with exceptions, in the Chansons de geste) | 20 21 |
| The German heroes in history and epic (Ermanaric, Attila, Theodoric) | 21 |
| Relations of Epic to historical fact | 22 |
| The epic poet is free in the conduct of his story but his story and personages must belong to his own people | 23 26 |
| Nature of Epic brought out by contrast with secondary narrative poems, where the subject is not national | 27 |
| This secondary kind of poem may be excellent, but is always different in character from native Epic | 28 |
| Disputes of academic critics about the "Epic Poem" | 30 |
| Tasso's defence of Romance. Pedantic attempts to restrict the compass of Epic | 30 |
| Bossu on Phaeacia | 31 |
| Epic, as the most comprehensive kind of poetry, includes Romance as one of its elements but needs a strong dramatic imagination to keep Romance under control | 32 33 |
III
| Mythology not required in the greatest scenes in Homer | 35 |
| Myths and popular fancies may be a hindrance to the epic poet, but he is compelled to make some use of them | 36 |
| He criticises and selects, and allows the characters of the gods to be modified in relation to the human characters | 37 |
| Early humanism and reflexion on myth—two processes: (1) rejection of the grosser myths; (2) refinement of myth through poetry | 40 |
| Two ways of refining myth in poetry—(1) by turning it into mere fancy, and the more ludicrous things into comedy; (2) by finding an imaginative or an ethical meaning in it | 40 |
| Instances in Icelandic literature—Lokasenna | 41 |
| Snorri Sturluson, his ironical method in the Edda | 42 |
| The old gods rescued from clerical persecution | 43 |
| Imaginative treatment of the graver myths—the death of Balder; the Doom of the Gods | 43 |
| Difficulties in the attainment of poetical self-command | 44 |
| Medieval confusion and distraction | 45 |
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Premature "culture"
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