If epic poetry is a definite species, the sagas do not fall within it.

If epic poetry is a definite species, the sagas do not fall within it.

Poetry is the work of poets, not of peoples or communities; artistic creation can never be anything but the production of an individual mind.

It is more difficult to keep the attention of hearers than of readers.

With several different kinds of poetry to choose from, a man would decide that he would like best to be an epic poet, and he would set out, in conscious determination, on an epic poem.

The reason can only be this: heroic poetry depends on an heroic age, and an age is heroic because of what it is, not because of what it does.

But the gravest difficulty, and perhaps the most important, in poetry meant solely for recitation, is the difficulty of achieving verbal beauty, or rather of making verbal beauty tell.