No poet will ever take the written word as a substitute for the spoken word; he knows that it is on the spoken word, and the spoken word only, that his art is founded.
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