INTRODUCTION

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Epic and Romance: the two great orders of medieval narrative	[3]
Epic, of the "heroic age," preceding Romance of the "age of chivalry"	[4]
The heroic age represented in three kinds of literature—Teutonic Epic, French Epic, and the Icelandic Sagas	[6]
Conditions of Life in an "heroic age"	[7]
Homer and the Northern poets	[9]
Homeric passages in Beowulf and in the Song of Maldon	[10] [11]
Progress of poetry in the heroic age	[13]
Growth of Epic, distinct in character, but generally incomplete, among the Teutonic nations	[14]

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]

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]
Premature "culture"	[46]
Depreciation of native work in comparison with ancient literature and with theology	[47]
An Icelandic gentleman's library	[47]
The whalebone casket	[48]
Epic not wholly stifled by "useful knowledge"	[49]

Early failure of Epic among the Continental Germans	[50]
Old English Epic invaded by Romance (Lives of Saints, etc.)	[50]
Old Northern (Icelandic) poetry full of romantic mythology	[51]
French Epic and Romance contrasted	[51]
Feudalism in the old French Epic (Chansons de Geste) not unlike the prefeudal "heroic age"	[52]
But the Chansons de Geste are in many ways "romantic"	[53]
Comparison of the English Song of Byrhtnoth (Maldon, a.d. 991) with the Chanson de Roland	[54]
Severity and restraint of Byrhtnoth	[55]
Mystery and pathos of Roland	[56]
Iceland and the German heroic age	[57]
The Icelandic paradox—old-fashioned politics together with clear understanding	[58]
Icelandic prose literature—its subject, the anarchy of the heroic age; its methods, clear and positive	[59]
The Icelandic histories, in prose, complete the development of the early Teutonic Epic poetry	[60]