But it, too, has an epic interest; one dominant personality overtops all others in this second of venturesome westward migrations into the wilderness.
The pantheistic element which was implicit in the Vedic phase of Indian religion becomes explicit in Brahmanism, and in particular in the so-called Indian systems of philosophy and in the great Indian epic poems.
Genung, Epic of the Inner Life, 20--Job speaks out his character like one of Robert Browning's heroes.
While the romantic epic lent itself thus easily to parody, another form of humorous poetry took root and flourished on the mass of Latin literature produced by the Revival.
This part of theepic is a close copy of the chivalrous romances in their more fantastic details.
He had made a profound study of the Poetics and believed that Aristotle's analyses of the epic and the drama might be used as recipes for manufacturing similar masterpieces in a modern tongue.
Thus, besides innovating in the minor matter of orthography, he set himself to supply the deficiencies of Italian literature by producing anepic in the heroic style and a tragedy that should compete with those of Athens.
Dante designed his epic in accordance with the fixed outlines of Thomistic theology.
The Roman epic was literary; based on antecedent models, and confined within the sphere of polished imitation.
History, under the influence of this conception, is rapidly ceasing to be the record of external incidents, of isolated moments, or of brilliant episodes in the epic of humanity.
His pupil raised her to the dignity of Clio and composed an epic in twenty-five books.
In these forms the genius of the Renaissance found fittest literary expression; for the epic and the drama lay beyond the scope of the Italians at this period.
His epic failed precisely through the qualities for which he prized it.
His epic ends with a Rabelaisian peal of laughter, in which we can detect a growl of discontent and anger.
Without lowering his epic tone, Folengo fills five books with whimsical adventures, painting the manners of the country in their coarsest colors, and introducing passages of stinging satire on the monks he hated.
Long after the epical impulse had ceased and the British epic of Arthur had passed into the sphere of literature, the ballad minstrels continued to work with dramatic energy upon the substance of contemporary incidents.
The nation was to possess a continuous epic of Orlando, complete in all its parts and uniformly pure in style.
In the epic of Firdousi Khazar is the representative name for all the northern foes of Persia, and legendary invasions long before the Christian era are vaguely attributed to them.
But he contributed to Aurora ballads, epigrams, short epic pieces, and, best of all, his comic stories.
The Song of Roland alone is an admirable sample of epic poesy in France, and the only monument of poetical genius in the middle ages which can have a claim to national appreciation in the nineteenth century.
It was published by his executors, and immediately took its place as the great national Epic of the Roman people.
Hence it was only natural that when Virgil essayed the task of writing the nationalEpic of his country, he should be studious to embody in his work all that was best in Greek Epic poetry.
The Children of the Poor--Dublin University Magazine The Epic of the Lion--Edwin Arnold, C.
Until the poet, in whose verse alone Exists a world--can make their actions known, And in eternal epic measures, show They are not yet forgotten here below.
Under the patronage of the Royal House of Stewart, epic and lyric poetry flourished in Scotland.
The epic poet has to do with the exercise of energies, which produce deeds that are decided, together with the operation of passions and feelings which are borne into excess.
The appearance of this new epic of spiritual love came at exactly the right moment--came when a new century was about to dawn which will throw off the trammels of old modes of thought.
Of epic poetry he declared emphatically that it produces its imitations either by mere articulate words or by metre superadded.
But in 'Waverley' Scott had not yet begun to use the dramatic method so freely as to sacrifice the very different qualities imported into the novel by Fielding, whose method was epic rather than dramatic.
It was too sacred for that--drama and epicin the Aryan sense were alike unknown.
It is entirely in accord with this that in the great flood epic no reason is given for the destruction of mankind save the caprice of Bel.
Sayce maintains that the Assyrian epic attributes the flood to the moral guilt of men.
To take, she says, the best possible view of it, the heroicepic of love is there transformed into the pastoral of marriage.
His admiration of Shakespeare's Pericles and Winter's Tale and Calderon's lyrical and musical interludes betrayed him into a lyric-epic formlessness unequalled in the history of literature.
He even essayed an epic poem on Constantine the Great, but it was never completed.
The events of an epic narrative should all be of a broad, clear, and palpable description; and the difficulties and embarrassments of the characters, of a nature to be easily comprehended and entered into by readers of all descriptions.
Besides this, they have little of the economy of dramatic writing, but are profusely descriptive, and most people are timid of an epic of description.
The Danciad without footnotes is one of the obscurest poems in existence: with footnotes it becomes a perfect epic of literary entomology.
History resolves itself with him into a disgracefulepic of a governing class which despoiled Pope and King with the right hand, and the people with the left.
He was capable, had he been a poet, of writing an epic made up of incidents chosen from the gossip of an old maid in the upper middle classes.
The English had stepped from acceptance to adventure, and the epic of their ships had begun.
The very hour of his death, the very name of his ship, are touched with that epic completeness which critics call the long arm of coincidence and prophets the hand of God.
They take an epic motto or subject, and conclude that the spirit is implied as a thing of course.
One of the persons who had rendered themselves obnoxious to Government and been included in a charge for high treason in the year 1794, had retired soon after into Wales to write an epic poem and enjoy the luxuries of a rural life.
It would be just as reasonable to condemn a comedy for not having the pathos of a tragedy or the stateliness of an epic poem.
Accordingly we find that Dryden had no other way of satisfying himself of the pretensions of Milton in the epic style but by translating his anomalous work into rhyme and dramatic dialogue.
Why does not some enthusiastic political economist write an epicon "The Consecration of Cannibalism"?
As the child grows towards womanhood, tragedy will take the place of the epic poem and ballad, and will lead, it may be unconsciously, to a deepening of the sense of responsibility.
I doubt very seriously whether it is possible at the present time, and in America, to write a fairy story which shall have the true ring in it, any more than it would be possible for any one to write a genuine epic poem.
