As a matter of fact it is as impossible to compare the Nibelungenlied, as it is the Iliad and Odyssey, with this world of romance, which, however dissevered in fragments it maybe, is none the less epic in its fundamental type. For although in the former precious and truly German work we have no lack of a national and substantive content, in respect to family, matrimonial affection, duty of vassalage, loyalty of service, heroism, and, in a word, genuine marrow and substance, yet the entire collision, despite all its epic breadth of vision, is rather one of a dramatic type, than truly epic, and the exposition, with all its detail, neither tends towards the individualization of its abundance, nor to a presentment that is wholly lifelike; and from a further point of view it is frequently squandered in pure harshness, savagery and ferocity, so that the characters, although we find them compactly braced and robust in action, yet in their abstract ruggedness rather resemble coarse images of wood, than are comparable to the humanely evolved, genial individuality of the Homeric heroes and women.
(ββ) A second fundamental source of such literature is to be traced in the religious poems of the Middle Ages, which take as their subject the life of Christ, or those of the Madonna, the Apostles, the saints and martyrs and the Last Judgment. The most essentially complete and rich composition, however, the genuine art-Epic of Catholic Christianity in the Middle Ages, the greatest subject-matter and the greatest poem is in this sphere Dante's Divine Comedy. It is true that we cannot call even this severely, rather I should systematically organized poem, an Epopaea in the ordinary sense of the term. For we have not here one progressive action, individual and exclusive, on the broad basis of the entire poem: what, however, we do get in a conspicuous degree in this Epos is the most secure articulation and consummate finish. Instead of a particular event it has for its subject-matter the eternal event, the absolute end, the Divine Love in its imperishable eventuality, and in its unalterable circles' of relation to the object. Possessing further Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise for its locality, it plunges the living world of human action and suffering or, more closely, that of individual acts and destinies in this changeless existence. Everything single and particular in human interests and aims here vanishes before the absolute greatness of the purpose and end of all things; at the same time, however, what is otherwise most perishable and evanescent in the living world receives here a completely epic form objectively based on its own innermost life, and adjudged in its worth and unworth by the supreme notion of all, that is God. For as individuals were in their life and suffering, their opinions and accomplishment on Earth, so are they here set before us for ever consolidated, as it were, into images of bronze. It is in this way that the poem embraces the totality of the most objective life, that is, the eternal condition of Hell, of Purification, and of Paradise; and it is on these indestructible foundations that the characters of the actual world move in their particular personalities, or rather they have already moved, and are henceforward rendered moveless, together with their action and being, in the everlasting righteousness, and are themselves eternal. The Homeric heroes indeed endure in our memories through the song of the Muse. These characters assert their condition on their own account, and in the cause of their own individuality: they do not so much exist in our imagination; they are themselves essentially eternal. The perpetuation through the Mnemosyne of the poet has here the objective force of the very judgments of God, in whose Name the most dauntless spirit of his time has damned or beatified the entire present and past.
The exposition also must perforce follow the above character of an object, which is received rather than given. It can only be a wandering through a world that is for ever determined; which, although it is discovered, organized, and peopled with the freedom of the imagination wherewith Hesiod and Homer created their gods, nevertheless undertakes to give us a picture and a report of what has actually happened, an account full of energetic movement, yet plastic in the rigidity of its pains; rich in the flashes of its horror, yet mitigated pitifully in Hell through Dante's own sympathy; more gracious in purgatory, but none the less fully and completely elaborated; and, finally, translucent as light in Paradise, and for ever without materia form in the eternal ether of thought.
The ancient world no doubt peers into this world of the Catholic poet, but only as the guiding star and companion of human wisdom and culture; for, where it is a question of doctrine and dogma, it is the scholasticism of Christian theology and love which speaks.
(γγ) A third fundamental subject-matter, which arrests the interest of the poetry of the Middle Ages, is that of chivalry. This interest is not merely limited to its worldly and romantic association with love-adventure and tilting matches, but is occupied with religious objects in virtue of the mysticism of Christian knighthood. The actions and events of such compositions have no relation to national interests; they are matters effected by individuals, which only concern the personal agent as such; they are generally similar to what I have described in my previous reference to romantic chivalry. Individuals are consequently placed in a position of complete freedom and independence. A novel form of heroism is thereby created within a social environment that is not as yet stereotyped to the prosaic mode and temper; a heroism, however, which, on account of interests which in part are due to religious phantasy, and in part—that is from the worldly point of view—are wholly personal and imaginary, eschews that substantive Real, upon the basis of which the Greek heroes are united, or as units contend, are victorious or are vanquished. Despite all the varied epic compositions, which such a course as the above occasions, the adventurous character of the situations, conflicts and plots rather tends, on the one hand, in the direction of a treatment usually met with in romances, where the various examples of adventure are loosely interwoven in no more stringent bond of unity, and on the other to that which, while sharing the general features of such works, is not evolved on the background of a consistently organized civic order and a truly prosaic condition of general life. Moreover the imagination is not content with the mere invention of knightly characters and adventures outside the pale of the ordinary world of things; it furthermore associates the exploits of the same with important legendary centres of interest, pre-eminent historical personages, decisive conflicts of the age, and receives by doing so, if we view its broader lines, at least a foundation such as we found indispensable to epic creation. Such a basis, however, we shall find is as a rule commingled with fantastic elements, and is unable to secure the clarity of objective vision in its elaboration, which above all distinguishes the Homeric Epos. Add to this the fact that on account of the very similar treatment accorded to the same subject-matter by Frenchmen, Englishmen, Germans, and to some extent even Spaniards, we fail to find here relatively at least, and if we contrast it with that of the Hindoo, Persian, Greek, and Celt, the essentially national temper, which in the last-mentioned cases constitutes in its security the epic core of the content and its execution. I must, however, excuse myself here from entering further into the detail of this aspect, either by way of illustration or critical judgment. It will be sufficient if I merely draw attention to the larger circle, within which the most important of these Epopaea of knight-errantry are to be met with if we estimate them relatively to their subject-matter.
As a leading figure in this respect we have first Charles the Great with his peers in the conflict fought against Saracens and pagans. In this Frankish circle of legend feudal chivalry forms a background of prime importance, and branches off into poems of every description, whose most significant material is concerned with the exploits of one of the twelve heroes, such as Roland or Doolin, of Maintz and others. More particularly in France during the reign of Philip Augustus many of such Epopees were composed. We have a further garland of legend with an English source, one which aims at reproducing the exploits of King Arthur and the Round Table. Legendary tale, the chivalry of Normans and Englishmen, service to woman, the fealty of the vassal, are all here involved together in melancholy or fantastic combination with Christian mysticism. The search for the Holy Grail, that chalice containing the sacred blood of Christ, is, indeed, one main object of all knightly exploit, and every description of fantastic adventure originates in this source, until, finally, the entire company takes flight to Abyssinia. The above two subjects of legendary story are worked out with most completeness in Northern France, England, and Germany. And as a last illustration we have a third circle of chivalrous poetry, composed with yet more caprice and less substantive content, which ever tends to emphasize knightly heroism to an excess with ideas of fairyland and fable; this rather points to Portugal or Spain as its original nursery. In this the family of the Amadi are accepted as principal heroes.
The great allegorical poems, so much beloved mainly in Northern France in the thirteenth century, are more nearly prose compositions in their abstract type. I will only mention one example of these, that is, the famous Roman de la Rose. We may compare or rather contrast such with the many anecdotes and still lengthier narratives, the so-called fabliaux and contes, which rather borrow their subject-matter from contemporary life, tales of knights, priests, citizens, and above all amours, lawful and the reverse, retailed to us sometimes in the comic vein, at others in the tragic, now in prose, and again in verse. Such was the type of writing which the clear intellect and trained culture of a Boccaccio carried to its perfection.
There is a final class of such compositions, which, turning to the ancients—with a casual knowledge of the Epic of Homer and Virgil, or ancient legend, celebrates also, in precisely the manner of the Epopaea of chivalry, the exploits of Trojan heroes, the foundation of Rome by Æneas, the conquests of Alexander, and other like subjects.
And this will conclude what I have to say upon the Epic poetry of the Middle Ages.
(γ) In a third principal group of which I have still to speak, the rich and pregnant study of ancient literature marks a point of departure for the purer artistic taste of a new culture, in whose learning, assimilation, and blending of diverse elements, however, we frequently miss that primitive creative power, which we admire in the Hindoos, Arabs, as also in Homer and writers of the Middle Ages. In the many-sided development in which, dating from this age of the re-awakened sciences and their influence on national literatures, the actual conditions of mankind undergo a reform in religion, political condition, morals, and social relations, epic poetry also seizes hold of the most varied content, as also the most manifold forms, the historical course of which I can only direct attention to in its most essential characteristics.