The World Knows Of A Vast Stock

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.

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.

Poetry Is The Work Of Poets, Not Of Peoples Or Communities; Artistic Creation Can Never Be Anything But The Production Of An Individual Mind.

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.

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.