Lascelles Abercrombie
Lascelles Abercrombie
Lascelles Abercrombie was a British poet and literary critic, one of the "Dymock poets"...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth9 January 1881
epic world artistic
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.
epic firsts recitation
The first epics were intended for recitation; the literary epic is meant to be read.
epic style matter
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.
successful epic may
The epic poet collaborates with the spirit of his time in the composition of his work. That is, if he is successful; the time may refuse to work with him, but he may not refuse to work with his time.
epic needs invention
That is to say, epic poetry has been invented many times and independently; but, as the needs which prompted the invention have been broadly similar, so the invention itself has been.
attention difficult reader
It is more difficult to keep the attention of hearers than of readers.
fall epic poetry-is
If epic poetry is a definite species, the sagas do not fall within it.
community mind artistic-creation
Poetry is the work of poets, not of peoples or communities; artistic creation can never be anything but the production of an individual mind.
important achieve difficulty
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.