(ββ) The cyclic poets of an age subsequent to the Homeric poems depart more and more from this genuine type of epic poetry. On the one hand the tendency here is to break up the completeness of the national world-survey into its petty provinces and aspects; and from another point of view, instead of retaining a firm grasp of the poetic unity and distinctive character of an individual action, to insist more exclusively on the completeness of events as an historical series, or on the unity of the personality, and by so doing to assimilate epic poetry with the already emphasized historical impulse of the logographers in their historical compilations.
(γγ) Finally Epic poetry of a still later date after the time of Alexander either turns aside to the more limited province of bucolic poetry, or introduces more learning and artifice than is compatible with the truly poetic Epopaea being at last wholly didactic, a type which increasingly suffers to escape every vestige of the primitive freshness, simplicity and animation.
(β) This characteristic, with which the Epos of the Greeks terminates, is from the first predominant among the Romans. An epic Bible, such as are the Homeric poems, we shall therefore seek for here in vain, however much critics have attempted, even quite recently, to resolve the most ancient Roman history into national Epopaea. On the other hand, even from the earliest times, along with genuine epic art, of which our finest extant example here is the Æneid, the historical Epos and the didactic poem supplies us with a proof that it is the Romans who are mainly responsible for the elaboration of that province of poetry which is already half prose; just as also it was in their hands that the satire received its most perfect form, being also that most congenial to their character.
(c) For this reason epic poetry could only be infused with a fresh breath and spirit through a change in its outlook on the world and in its religious belief, and through the actions and destinies of new nationalities. This is what we have in the case of the Germans, not only as we see them in their primitive paganism, but also after their conversion to Christianity. It may be further illustrated by the Romance nations and all the more strongly, in proportion as their subdivision into groups is more complete, and the principle of the Christian view of life and reality is unfolded in all its various phases. Yet it is precisely this many-sided expansion and subdivision which oppose to a brief survey great difficulties. I will consequently only draw attention to and emphasize fundamental tendencies.
(α) In our first group we may reckon the residue of genuine poetry, which later nationalities have still retained from an age previous to Christianity, for the most part by means of oral tradition, and consequently not wholly unimpaired.
We may include above all among these the poems which are usually ascribed to Ossian. Although English critics of repute, such as Johnson and Shaw, have been blind enough to publish them as the sole composition of Macpherson, it is none the less wholly impossible that a poet of our own time could create from his own resources alone such ancient social conditions and events; consequently we must presuppose here previous poems as the foundation of such a work, although too in their entire atmosphere, and the mode of conception and feeling expressed in them, many changes more in accord with our modern life may have been introduced in the course of so many centuries. It is true their actual date is not established; they may, however, very well have retained a vital form in the mouth of the folk for one thousand or even fifteen hundred years. Taking them as a whole their form appears to be predominantly lyric. Ossian is here presented as the old minstrel and hero, who has lost his sight, and suffers in a retrospect of lament, the days of glory to rise before him. Yet although his songs originate in woe and mourning they nevertheless are in themselves fundamentally epic; for even these lamentations refer to what has been, and depict this world which has now just vanished, with its heroes, its love-adventurers, its exploits, its expeditions aver sea and land, its chance of arms, its destiny and its downfall, in just the same epic and realistic way—although broken here and there with lyrics—as we find in Homer the heroes Achilles, Odysseus, or Diomede, talking of their exploits, expeditions, and mischances. Yet the development of spiritual emotion, and indeed of the entire national existence, despite the fact that here heart and sentiment have a more exacting rôle to play, is not carried so far as in Homer's case. Most of all we miss the assured plastic form of his characterization and the daylight clarity of his presentment. We are, in short, so far as locale is concerned, exiled in the tempestuous mists of the North, with its gloomy sky and heavy clouds, upon which the spirits ride or appear to heroes, raimented in their form. We may add that it is only quite recently that other Gaelic minstrels of olden time have been discovered, rather connected, so Wallis informs us, with England than Scotland or Ireland, minstrelsy having been for a long time continuous in that country, which already must have possessed a considerable literature.
In these poems we have among other things reference to emigrations to America. Mention is also made of Caesar; but the reason here given for his invasion is a private passion for some king's daughter, whom he saw in Gaul and followed to England. As a striking characteristic of their form triads are worthy of attention, which combine in three organic parts three events of similar character, though dating from different periods of time.
Finally, and more famous than these poems, are on the one hand the heroic songs of the more ancient Edda, and on the other the myths with which for the first time in this cycle of song along with the narrative of human destinies we also come across various histories concerning the origin, exploits, and downfall of the gods. I must, however, confess I have been unable to acquire a taste for the empty exuberance of these origins of a natural philosophy of symbolism, which, however, are further attached to the appearance of particular human form and physiognomy, such as Thor with his hammer, the Werewolf, the wild mead-carousals, and in a word, the savagery and troubled confusion of such a mythology. We must admit, of course, that all that intimately concerns this folk of the North lies nearer to ourselves than, say, the poetry of the Persians and Mohammedanism; but to press upon the educated man among us such an admission to the point that it has still at this time of day a claim upon his sympathy, and indeed ought to pass for us as something national—such an assumption, though often ventured, means not merely to overrate conceptions, which are to a great extent misshapen and barbarous, but also to wholly misunderstand the significance and spirit of our own times.
(β) If we, secondly, cast a glance over the poetry of the Christian Middle Ages, what we ought in the first instance and above all to consider are those works which have, without more direct and penetrating influence of the old literature and culture, sprung up from the fresh spirit of the Middle Ages and consolidated Catholicism. Here we find the most multifold elements ready to supply the material and stimulus of epic poetry.
(αα) We may in the first place draw retention to that truly epic subject-matter which comprises in its content interests, exploits, and characters of the period mentioned of a wholly national character. Among these the Cid is pre-eminently worthy of our notice. The significance of this blossom of national heroism in the Middle Ages to the Spanish, this is set before us in epic guise in the poem Cid, and then at a later date with more attractive excellence in a succession of narrative romances, which Herder first brought to the notice of Germany. We have here a string of pearls, every single picture entirely complete in itself, and yet all so admirably in tune with each other that they make a consistent whole; though throughout composed in the spirit of chivalry, yet at the same time Spanish and national; eminently rich in the content of their varied interests, whether these concern love, marriage, honour, or the mastery of kings in wars waged between Christians and Moors. All this material is voiced in so epic and plastic a style, we have set before us the pertinent fact so simply in the purity of its exalted content, and withal with such a wealth of the noblest pictures of human life displayed in a panorama of the most glorious exploit, and all this bound together in a wreath so fair and fascinating, that we moderns may compare it with the most beautiful creations of the ancient world.[34]