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.

The first epics were intended for recitation; the literary epic is meant to be read.

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

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.

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

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.

For the stage displays the first vigorous expression, as the natural thing and without conspicuous restraint, of private individuality.