For the stage displays the first vigorous
expression, as the natural thing and without conspicuous restraint, of
private individuality.
expression, as the natural thing and without conspicuous restraint, of
private individuality.
Lascelle Abercrombie
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.
But I may not concern myself with this; nor even with the detailed
characteristics, alleged or ascertained, of the Heroic Age of nations.
It is enough for the purpose of this book that the name "Heroic Age" is
a good one for this stage of the business; it is obviously, and on the
whole rightly, descriptive.
For the stage displays the first vigorous
expression, as the natural thing and without conspicuous restraint, of
private individuality. In savagery, thought, sentiment, religion and
social organization may be exceedingly complicated, full of the most
subtle and strange relationships; but they exist as complete and
determined _wholes_, each part absolutely bound up with the rest.
Analysis has never come near them. The savage is blinded to the glaring
incongruities of his tribal ideas not so much by habit or reverence; it
is simply that the mere possibility of such a thing as analysis has
never occurred to him. He thinks, he feels, he lives, all in a whole.
Each person is the tribe in little. This may make everyone an
astoundingly complex character; but it makes strong individuality
impossible in savagery, since everyone accepts the same elaborate
unanalysed whole of tribal existence. That existence, indeed, would find
in the assertion of private individuality a serious danger; and tribal
organization guards against this so efficiently that it is doubtless
impossible, so long as there is no interruption from outside. In some
obscure manner, however, savage existence has been constantly
interrupted; and it seems as if the long-repressed forces of
individuality then burst out into exaggerated vehemence; for the result
(if it is not slavery) is, that a people passes from its savage to its
heroic age, on its way to some permanence of civilization. It must
always have taken a good deal to break up the rigidity of savage
society. It might be the shock of enforced mixture with a totally alien
race, the two kinds of blood, full of independent vigour, compelled to
flow together;[1] or it might be the migration, due to economic stress,
from one tract of country to which the tribal existence was perfectly
adapted to another for which it was quite unsuited, with the added
necessity of conquering the peoples found in possession. Whatever the
cause may have been, the result is obvious: a sudden liberation, a
delighted expansion, of numerous private individualities.
But the various appearances of the Heroic Age cannot, perhaps, be
completely generalized. What has just been written will probably do for
the Heroic Age which produced Homer, and for that which produced the
_Nibelungenlied, Beowulf_, and the Northern Sagas. It may, therefore
stand as the typical case; since Homer and these Northern poems are what
most people have in their minds when they speak of "authentic" epic. But
decidedly Heroic Ages have occurred much later than the latest of these
cases; and they arose out of a state of society which cannot roundly be
called savagery.
"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.
But I may not concern myself with this; nor even with the detailed
characteristics, alleged or ascertained, of the Heroic Age of nations.
It is enough for the purpose of this book that the name "Heroic Age" is
a good one for this stage of the business; it is obviously, and on the
whole rightly, descriptive.
For the stage displays the first vigorous
expression, as the natural thing and without conspicuous restraint, of
private individuality. In savagery, thought, sentiment, religion and
social organization may be exceedingly complicated, full of the most
subtle and strange relationships; but they exist as complete and
determined _wholes_, each part absolutely bound up with the rest.
Analysis has never come near them. The savage is blinded to the glaring
incongruities of his tribal ideas not so much by habit or reverence; it
is simply that the mere possibility of such a thing as analysis has
never occurred to him. He thinks, he feels, he lives, all in a whole.
Each person is the tribe in little. This may make everyone an
astoundingly complex character; but it makes strong individuality
impossible in savagery, since everyone accepts the same elaborate
unanalysed whole of tribal existence. That existence, indeed, would find
in the assertion of private individuality a serious danger; and tribal
organization guards against this so efficiently that it is doubtless
impossible, so long as there is no interruption from outside. In some
obscure manner, however, savage existence has been constantly
interrupted; and it seems as if the long-repressed forces of
individuality then burst out into exaggerated vehemence; for the result
(if it is not slavery) is, that a people passes from its savage to its
heroic age, on its way to some permanence of civilization. It must
always have taken a good deal to break up the rigidity of savage
society. It might be the shock of enforced mixture with a totally alien
race, the two kinds of blood, full of independent vigour, compelled to
flow together;[1] or it might be the migration, due to economic stress,
from one tract of country to which the tribal existence was perfectly
adapted to another for which it was quite unsuited, with the added
necessity of conquering the peoples found in possession. Whatever the
cause may have been, the result is obvious: a sudden liberation, a
delighted expansion, of numerous private individualities.
But the various appearances of the Heroic Age cannot, perhaps, be
completely generalized. What has just been written will probably do for
the Heroic Age which produced Homer, and for that which produced the
_Nibelungenlied, Beowulf_, and the Northern Sagas. It may, therefore
stand as the typical case; since Homer and these Northern poems are what
most people have in their minds when they speak of "authentic" epic. But
decidedly Heroic Ages have occurred much later than the latest of these
cases; and they arose out of a state of society which cannot roundly be
called savagery.
