Traditional matter must be glorified, since it would be easier to listen to the re-creation of familiar stories than to quite new and unexpected things; the listeners, we must remember, needed poetry chiefly as the re-creation of tired hours.

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

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

Epic poetry exhibits life in some great symbolic attitude. It cannot strictly be said to symbolize life itself, but always some manner of life.

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

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.

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