The Book of the Epic: The World's Great Epics Told in Story

by H. A. Guerber

It was toward the end of the twelfth century that Arthur reached the height of his renown as romantic hero, the "matter of Britain" having become international property, and having been greatly enriched by poets of many climes. By this time Arthur had ceased to be a king of Britain, to become king of a fairy-land and chief exponent of chivalric ideals and aims.

To name all the poets who had a share in developing the Arthurian Legend would prove an impossible task, but Nennius, Gildas, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace, Layamon, Benoit de St. Maur, Chrestien de Troyes, Marie de France, Hartmann von der Aue, and Wolfram von Eschenbach have, in English, French, and German, helped to develop the "matter of Britain," and have managed to connect it with "the matter of France."

During the age of metrical romances (1200 to 1500), all the already extant cycles were remodelled and extended. Besides, not only were Greek and Latin epics translated so as to be within reach of all, but one country freely borrowed from another. Thus, the French romances of Huon de Bordeaux and of the Four Sons of Aymon found many admirers in England, where the former later supplied Shakespeare with some of the characters for a Midsummer Night's Dream. It was to offset the very popular romance of Alexander, that some patriotic poet evolved the romance of Richard Coeur de Lion, explaining how this king earned his well-known nickname by wrenching the heart out of a lion!

Some of these romances, such as Flores and Blancheflour, have "the voluptuous qualities of the East," make great use of magic of all kinds, and show the idyllic side of love. The tragedy of love is depicted in the romance of Tristram and Iseult, where a love-potion plays a prominent part. But, although knightly love and valor are the stock topics, we occasionally come across a theme of Christian humility, like Sir Isumbras, or of democracy, as in the Squire of Low Degree and in the Ballads of Robin Hood.

With the advent of Chaucer a new poet, a new language, and new themes appear. Many of his Canterbury tales are miniature epics, borrowed in general from other writers, but retold with a charm all his own. The Knight's Tale, or story of the rivalry in love of Palamon and Arcite, the tale of Gamelyn, and that of Troilus and Cressida, all contain admirable epic passages.

Spenser, our next epic poet, left us the unfinished Faerie Queene, an allegorical epic which shows the influence of Ariosto and other Italian poets, and contains exquisitely beautiful passages descriptive of nature, etc. His allegorical plot affords every facility for the display of his graceful verse, and is outlined in another chapter.

There are two curious but little-known English epics, William Warner's chronicle epic entitled "Albion's England" (1586), and Samuel Daniel's "Civil Wars." The first, beginning with the flood, carries the reader through Greek mythology to the Trojan War, and hence by means of Brut to the beginnings of English history, which is then continued to the execution of Mary Stuart. The second (1595) is an epic, in eight books, on the Wars of the Roses. Drayton also wrote, on the theme of the Civil Wars, an epic entitled "The Barons' Wars," and undertook a descriptive and patriotic epic in "Polyolbion," wherein he makes a tour of England relating innumerable local legends.

Abraham Cowley composed an epic entitled "Davideis," or the troubles of David. He begins this work in four books with a description of two councils held in Heaven and hell in regard to the life of this worthy.

Dryden was not only a translator of the classic epics, but projected an epic of his own about Arthur. Almost at the same time Pope was planning to write one on Brut, but he too failed to carry out his intentions, and is best known as the translator of the Iliad, although some authorities claim the "Rape of the Lock" is a unique sample of the épopée galante.

The poet Keats, whose life was so short, left us a complete mythological epic in "Endymion," a fragment of one in "Hyperion," and a reproduction of one of the old romances in "Isabella, or a Pot of Basil."