Poetry is the work of poets, not of peoples or communities; artistic creation can never be anything but the production of an individual mind.
Lascelles AbercrombieThe Border Ballads, for instance, and the Robin Hood Ballads, clearly suppose a state of society which is nothing but a very circumscribed and not very important heroic age.
Lascelles AbercrombieThere is only one thing which can master the perplexed stuff of epic material into unity; and that is, an ability to see in particular human experience some significant symbolism of man's general destiny.
Lascelles AbercrombieThe first epics were intended for recitation; the literary epic is meant to be read.
Lascelles Abercrombie