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

The epic poet has behind him a tradition of matter and a tradition of style; and that is what every other poet has behind him too; only, for the epic poet, tradition is rather narrower, rather more strictly compelling.

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

How to tell students what to look for without telling them what to see is the dilemma of teaching.

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

The 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.

The world knows of a vast stock of epic material scattered up and down the nations; sometimes its artistic value is as extraordinary as its archaeological interest, but not always.