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
art constantly epic form general mean needs process profound society
By the general process of epic poetry, I mean the way this form of art has constantly responded to the profound needs of the society in which it was made.
art poet substitutes
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.
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.
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.
epic exact human recurring series society straight therefore though
But the development of human society does not go straight forward; and the epic process will therefore be a recurring process, the series a recurring series - though not in exact repetition.
adjusting continuous
An epic is not made by piecing together a set of heroic lays, adjusting their discrepancies and making them into a continuous narrative.
determination men epic
With several different kinds of poetry to choose from, a man would decide that he would like best to be an epic poet, and he would set out, in conscious determination, on an epic poem.
destiny men epic
There 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.
important age borders
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.
believe mean sometimes
It seems difficult, sometimes, to believe that there was a time when sentiments now become habitual, sentiments that imply not only the original imperative of conduct, but the original metaphysic of living, were by no means altogether habitual.
individuality age balance
The balance of private good and general welfare is at the bottom of civilized morals but the morals of the Heroic Age are founded on individuality, and on nothing else.
age doe heroic
The reason can only be this: heroic poetry depends on an heroic age, and an age is heroic because of what it is, not because of what it does.
tired would-be stories
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.
expression individuality firsts
For the stage displays the first vigorous expression, as the natural thing and without conspicuous restraint, of private individuality.