however, the poet must here permit himself a freer play both of conception and execution, and all the more so because he is here less able to avoid the prose of actual life in his descriptions, though this freedom should not make him any more inclined to dwell exclusively in such an atmosphere of prose and ordinary occurrence.
3. THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF EPIC POETRY In looking back upon the course of our previous consideration of the other arts, we find that we reviewed the different stages of the art of _building_ throughout in their historical development as successively in symbolic, classic, and romantic architecture. In the case of sculpture, on the contrary, we accepted the Greek type, by virtue of its complete identity with the notion of this _classic_ art, as the real focal centre, from which we proceeded to develop the specific characteristics of importance, so that here we did not find it necessary to extend so far as in the previous case the range of our historical survey. This contrast is further illustrated in our treatment of the _romantic_ art-character of painting, which, however,[29] not merely in respect to the fundamental notion of its content, but also in that of the mode of its presentation, embraces an equally wide and important range of development in different nations and through different schools, so that in this case it was necessary to make our reference to history more extensive and varied.
The nature of the art of music invited us to historical comparisons of the same kind. Inasmuch, however, as I have neither obtained access to the foreign literature dealing with the history of this art, nor can claim personally to possess the adequate knowledge, I have been forced to restrict myself to the mere outlines of what is required incidentally. With regard to our immediate subject, that is, _epic_ poetry, the course of our enquiry will be very much that followed in the case of sculpture. In other words, though the mode of exposition branches off in several direct or collateral divisions, and embraces many historical periods and peoples, yet we have already recognized in the Epos of Greek literature the genuine type of it in its consummate form and most artistic mode of realization. And the reason of this is that in general the Epos possesses the closest affinity with the plastic of sculpture and its objective presence; and, not merely in respect to its substantive content, but equally so in the form of its presentation as that of phenomenal reality. It is therefore by no means simply an accident that we find epic poetry, no less than the art of sculpture, assert itself pre-eminently among the Greeks in its original and unsurpassed perfection. Stages of development, no doubt, are to be met with on either side of this culminating point, stages which are neither intrinsically subordinate or insignificant, but are necessary conditions of the art's growth, inasmuch as all nations are essentially within the sphere of poetic creation, and it is above all the Epos which brings before us the heart and core of the national life. And for this reason, the historical development of the Epic is of greater importance than was the case with sculpture.
We may then classify the entire compass of epic poetry, or, to express ourselves more accurately, of the Epopaea, in three fundamental stages; and these, speaking generally, constitute the course of the art's evolution.
_Firsts_ we have the Oriental Epos, which makes the symbolic type its focal centre.
_Secondly_, there is the classical Epos of the Greeks, with its imitation in Roman authors.
_Finally,_ we have the abundant and many-sided unfolding of epic-romantic poetry among Christian peoples; which, however, in the first instance appears in Teutonic paganism; and again, from another point of view, that is quite apart from what we may style the chivalrous poetry of the Middle Ages, we find the old classic world active in another province of life as instrumental to the purification of literary taste or style, or still more directly utilized as a model, until finally the modern romance replaces the Epos altogether.
We may now proceed to some review of single epic compositions: in this it will only be possible to emphasize what is of most importance; and, generally speaking, I can only pretend to give a rapid outline of this field in the space at my disposal.
(_a_) In the case of Oriental peoples the art of poetry is, as we have already observed, generally of a more primitive type, inasmuch as it remains more closely related to what we may style the essential[30] mode of envisagement, and the diffusion of the individual consciousness in the sublime Unity of the _One._ And because of this, as a further aspect, and relatively to the specific divisions of poetic composition, it is unable to work out individual personality in the self-subsistency of determinate characterization, with its aims and collisions, an elaboration which is of first importance in the composition of genuine dramatic poetry. The most essential result therefore we meet with here is limited--if we exclude from attention an endearing, sweet-scented, and delicate type of lyric, or one that uplifts itself to the one unutterable God--to poems, which are to be counted of the epic mould.
Nevertheless it is only among the Hindoos and the Persians that we come across the genuine Epopaea; but here at least we do meet it in colossal proportions.
(_α_) The Chinese, on the contrary, possess no national Epos. The prosaic basis of their imaginative vision, which even to the earliest origins of history offers the jejune form of a prosaically organized historical reality, opposes from the first to this the most noble type of epic composition an insuperable obstruction. The religious conceptions of this people, little adapted as they are to artistic configuration, contribute to the same result. We find, however, at a later date and as some compensation, for their elaboration is most profuse, little narratives, and romances spun out to great length, which astound us by the vividness in which situations are realized, the accuracy with which private and public relations are depicted, the variety, fine breeding, or rather I should say frequently the fascinating tenderness they display, more particularly in their female characters, and in short by the art in every respect which succeeds in making works so consummate.
(_β_) A world of great contrast to the above presents itself in the Hindoo Epopaea. We find already in the most primitive compositions, if we may form an opinion from the little made known to the general public up to the present time from the Veda, most fruitful germs for a mythology fitted to epic exposition; and these, associated with the heroic exploits of men many centuries before Christ--for chronological accuracy is still impossible--are elaborated into genuine Epopaea, works, however, which are still composed in part from the wholly religious point of view, and in part from that of unfettered poetry and art. Pre-eminently do the two most famous of these poems, namely the Ramajana and the Maha-Bharata, place before us the entire world-outlook of the Hindoo race in all its splendour and glory, its confusion, fantastical absurdity and dissolution, and withal, from the reverse point of view, in the exuberant loveliness and the here and there fine traits of heart and emotion, which characterize the profuse vegetation of its spiritual growth. Mythical exploits of men are expanded into the actions of incarnate gods, whose deed hovers vaguely between the divine and human nature, and the determinate outlines of personality and exploit are dissolved in an infinitude of extension. The substantive bases of the whole are of a type such as our Western world-outlook, assuming that it does not choose to surrender the higher claims of freedom and morality, is neither able to find itself truly at home in or to sympathize with. The unity of the particular parts is of an extremely unstable kind; and layers upon layers of episodical matter, consisting of tales of the gods, narratives of ascetic penances, and the powers they create, tediously long expositions of philosophical doctrines and systems, so entirely impair the collective unity that we are forced to regard many of them as later accretions. But, however this may be, the spirit from which these stupendous poems have originated bears constant witness to an imagination, which is not only anterior to all prosaic culture, but as a rule is wholly incompatible with the faculty of ordinary common sense, and is capable in fact of endowing the fundamental tendencies of this national consciousness, in its essentially unique and collective conception of the universe, with an original artistic form. The later Epics, on the contrary, which are called _Puranas_, in the more restricted sense of the term, that is, poems of the Past, appear rather to be compiled in the prosaic and dull style similar to that adopted by post-Homeric cyclic poets, and pursue their downward course at great length from the creation of the gods and the universe to the genealogies of human heroes and princes. Finally the epic care of the old myths dissolves into vapour and artificial elegance of a purely external poetic form and diction, while on the one hand the phantasy, which exhausted itself in a dreamy wonderland, becomes the wisdom of fables whose most important function is to instruct us in morality and worldly wisdom.
(_γ_) We may compare side by side in a _third_ division of epic Oriental poetry that respectively belonging to Hebrews, Arabs, and Persians.
(_αα_) The sublimity of the Jewish imagination no doubt in its conception of the Creation, in the histories of the Patriarchs, the wandering in the wilderness, _the_ conquest of Canaan, and in the further historical course of national event, full as such a vision is of sterling content and natural truth, possesses many elements of primitive epic poetry; the religious interest is here, however, so predominant, that, instead of being genuine Epopaea, they merely approximate either to religious myths in the guise of poetry, or to religious narratives which are wholly didactic.
(_ββ_) The Arabs have always possessed a poetic nature, and from very early days we find genuine poets among them. Even their heroic songs of lyric narrative, styled the moallakat, which in part originate in the century immediately previous to Mahomet, depict either with a few bold and detached strokes and vehement ostentation, or at other times with more tranquil self-possession, or a melting softness, the original conditions of the still pagan Arabs. Here we find the honour of the clan, the passion of revenge, the rights of hospitality, love, delight in adventure, benevolence, sorrow, and yearning, in undiminished strength, and in traits which remind us of the romantic character of Spanish chivalry. Here, too, we meet with in the East for the first time a real poetry, without fantastic elements, or prose, without mythology, without gods, demons, fairies, genii, and everything else of the kind common to the East, but rather with solid and self-sufficient characters and, however unique and marvellous in the play of its images and similes, yet for all that humanly real and self-contained. We have the vision of a similar pagan world also set before us by a later age in the collected poems of Hamasa, as also in the not yet edited "Divans of the Hudsilites." After the extensive and successful conquests of the Mohammedan Arabs this primitive heroic character gradually disappears; and, in the course of the centuries, the province of Epic poetry is replaced in part by the instructive fable and the witty proverb, in part by the fairy-like narratives, of which the "Thousand and One Nights" is an example, or in those tales of adventures which Rückert, through a translation which reproduces for us the equally witty and artistically elaborate Macamen of the Hariri in their metre, rhymes, and articulate meaning, has unveiled in a manner deserving thoughtful attention.
(_γγ_) In some contrast to this the efflorescence of Persian poetry falls in the period of that reconstructed culture effected by the change of language and nationality under the influence of Mohammedanism. We, however, come across, in the very first opening of this lonely springtime, an epic poem which, at least in its material, takes us back to the remotest Past of ancient Persian saga and myth, and carries forward its narrative through the heroic age right down to the last days of the Sussanides. This comprehensive work is the Shahnameh of Firdusi, the son of the gardener of Tus, a work the origins of which are traceable to the Bastanameh.[31] We are, however, unable to call even this poem a genuine Epopaea, because it does not make any specific and individual line of action its focal centre. On account of the lapse of centuries we lose our hold of the costume appropriate to an age or a locality, and in particular the most ancient mythical figures and gloomy intricate traditions hover in a world of the phantasy, among the indefinite outlines of which we are often at a loss to know whether we are face to face with persons or entire clans; and then again we are often suddenly confronted with really historical characters. As a Mohammedan the poet was no doubt able to handle his subject-matter more freely; but it is just in this type of freedom that we fail to meet with the stability in definite characterization, as it was present in the design of the primitive heroic songs; and, on account of the great gulf which separates him from that long-buried world of saga, the freshness and breath of its immediate life vanish, though absolutely necessary to the national Epos.
In its further course the epic art of the Persians expands into Love-epopees of excessive softness and sweetness, as an author of which Risami is pre-eminently distinguished. It further makes use of its rich stores of life-experience in the interest of the teacher. In this sphere the far-travelled Saadi was master. Finally, it plunges into that pantheistic Mysticism, which Dschelaleddin Rumi recommends and teaches in tales and legendary narrative.
I must, I fear, restrict myself to the above sketch.
(_b_) In the poetry of _Greece_ and _Rome_ we find ourselves for the first time in the genuine sphere of epic art.
(_α_) Among these above all are included of course the _Homeric_ poems, which we have already noted as the culminating point of all.
(_αα_) Either of these poems, despite all that may be advanced to the contrary, is essentially self-complete, so definite and sensitive to its construction as a whole, that in my own opinion the very view which regards the present form of both as merely that in which they were sung and handed down to posterity by rhapsodists, simply amounts to little more than the just eulogy of such works in virtue of the fact that they are, with regard to the entire atmosphere of their content, national and realistic, and even in their particular parts are so consummately finished, that all and each of them may be taken as a whole in itself. Whereas in the East what is substantive[32] and universal in the poet's survey still impairs the individuality of character, and its aims and exploits by its symbolism or deliberate instruction, and thereby injures the definite articulation and unity of the whole. Here for the first time in these poems[33]we find a world beautifully suspended as it were between the general life-conditions of morality in family, state and religious belief, and the individuality of distinctive character, and in this fair balance between the claims of spirit and Nature, intentional action and objective event, between a national basis of enterprise and particular aims and deeds, even though individual heroes appear as the predominant feature in their free and animated movement, yet this too is so mediated by the distinctiveness of the aims proposed and the severe presence of destiny, that the entire exposition can only remain even for ourselves the _ne plus ultra_ of all attainment that we can either enjoy or admire in epic composition. For we find no difficulty here in recognizing the real significance of even the gods who withstand or assist these primitive masculine heroes in their bravery, their straightforward and noble actions: nor can we fail to return the merry smiles of an art which depicts them as we see them here in all the _naïveté_ of their very human, if also godlike impersonations.
(_ββ_) The _cyclic_ poets of an age subsequent to the Homeric poems depart more and more from this genuine type of epic poetry. On the one hand the tendency here is to break up the completeness of the national world-survey into its petty provinces and aspects; and from another point of view, instead of retaining a firm grasp of the poetic unity and distinctive character of an individual action, to insist more exclusively on the completeness of events as an historical series, or on the unity of the personality, and by so doing to assimilate epic poetry with the already emphasized historical impulse of the logographers in their historical compilations.
(_γγ_) Finally Epic poetry of a still later date after the time of Alexander either turns aside to the more limited province of bucolic poetry, or introduces more learning and artifice than is compatible with the truly poetic Epopaea being at last wholly didactic, a type which increasingly suffers to escape every vestige of the primitive freshness, simplicity and animation.
(_β_) This characteristic, with which the Epos of the Greeks terminates, is from the first predominant among the _Romans._ An epic Bible, such as are the Homeric poems, we shall therefore seek for here in vain, however much critics have attempted, even quite recently, to resolve the most ancient Roman history into national Epopaea. On the other hand, even from the earliest times, along with genuine epic art, of which our finest extant example here is the Æneid, the historical Epos and the didactic poem supplies us with a proof that it is the Romans who are mainly responsible for the elaboration of that province of poetry which is already half prose; just as also it was in their hands that the _satire_ received its most perfect form, being also that most congenial to their character.
(_c_) For this reason epic poetry could only be infused with a fresh breath and spirit through a change in its outlook on the world and in its religious belief, and through the actions and destinies of new nationalities. This is what we have in the case of the _Germans_, not only as we see them in their primitive paganism, but also after their conversion to Christianity. It may be further illustrated by the Romance nations and all the more strongly, in proportion as their subdivision into groups is more complete, and the principle of the Christian view of life and reality is unfolded in all its various phases. Yet it is precisely this many-sided expansion and subdivision which oppose to a brief survey great difficulties. I will consequently only draw attention to and emphasize fundamental tendencies.
(_α_) In our _first_ group we may reckon the residue of genuine poetry, which later nationalities have still retained from an age previous to Christianity, for the most part by means of oral tradition, and consequently not wholly unimpaired.
We may include above all among these the poems which are usually ascribed to _Ossian._ Although English critics of repute, such as Johnson and Shaw, have been blind enough to publish them as the sole composition of Macpherson, it is none the less wholly impossible that a poet of our own time could create from his own resources alone such ancient social conditions and events; consequently we must presuppose here previous poems as the foundation of such a work, although too in their entire atmosphere, and the mode of conception and feeling expressed in them, many changes more in accord with our modern life may have been introduced in the course of so many centuries. It is true their actual date is not established; they may, however, very well have retained a vital form in the mouth of the folk for one thousand or even fifteen hundred years. Taking them as a whole their form appears to be predominantly lyric. Ossian is here presented as the old minstrel and hero, who has lost his sight, and suffers in a retrospect of lament, the days of glory to rise before him. Yet although his songs originate in woe and mourning they nevertheless are in themselves fundamentally epic; for even these lamentations refer to what has been, and depict this world which has now just vanished, with its heroes, its love-adventurers, its exploits, its expeditions aver sea and land, its chance of arms, its destiny and its downfall, in just the same epic and realistic way--although broken here and there with lyrics--as we find in Homer the heroes Achilles, Odysseus, or Diomede, talking of their exploits, expeditions, and mischances. Yet the development of spiritual emotion, and indeed of the entire national existence, despite the fact that here heart and sentiment have a more exacting rôle to play, is not carried so far as in Homer's case. Most of all we miss the assured plastic form of his characterization and the daylight clarity of his presentment. We are, in short, so far as _locale_ is concerned, exiled in the tempestuous mists of the North, with its gloomy sky and heavy clouds, upon which the spirits ride or appear to heroes, raimented in their form. We may add that it is only quite recently that other Gaelic minstrels of olden time have been discovered, rather connected, so Wallis informs us, with England than Scotland or Ireland, minstrelsy having been for a long time continuous in that country, which already must have possessed a considerable literature.
In these poems we have among other things reference to emigrations to America. Mention is also made of Caesar; but the reason here given for his invasion is a private passion for some king's daughter, whom he saw in Gaul and followed to England. As a striking characteristic of their form triads are worthy of attention, which combine in three organic parts three events of similar character, though dating from different periods of time.
Finally, and more famous than these poems, are on the one hand the heroic songs of the more ancient Edda, and on the other the myths with which for the first time in this cycle of song along with the narrative of human destinies we also come across various histories concerning the origin, exploits, and downfall of the gods. I must, however, confess I have been unable to acquire a taste for the empty exuberance of these origins of a natural philosophy of symbolism, which, however, are further attached to the appearance of particular human form and physiognomy, such as Thor with his hammer, the Werewolf, the wild mead-carousals, and in a word, the savagery and troubled confusion of such a mythology. We must admit, of course, that all that intimately concerns this folk of the North lies nearer to ourselves than, say, the poetry of the Persians and Mohammedanism; but to press upon the educated man among us such an admission to the point that it has still at this time of day a claim upon his sympathy, and indeed ought to pass for us as something national--such an assumption, though often ventured, means not merely to overrate conceptions, which are to a great extent misshapen and barbarous, but also to wholly misunderstand the significance and spirit of our own times.
(_β_) If we, _secondly_, cast a glance over the poetry of the Christian Middle Ages, what we ought in the first instance and above all to consider are those works which have, without more direct and penetrating influence of the old literature and culture, sprung up from the fresh spirit of the Middle Ages and consolidated Catholicism. Here we find the most multifold elements ready to supply the material and stimulus of epic poetry.
(_αα_) We may in the _first_ place draw retention to that truly epic subject-matter which comprises in its content interests, exploits, and characters of the period mentioned of a wholly _national_ character.
Among these the Cid is pre-eminently worthy of our notice. The significance of this blossom of national heroism in the Middle Ages to the Spanish, this is set before us in epic guise in the poem Cid, and then at a later date with more attractive excellence in a succession of narrative romances, which Herder first brought to the notice of Germany. We have here a string of pearls, every single picture entirely complete in itself, and yet all so admirably in tune with each other that they make a consistent whole; though throughout composed in the spirit of chivalry, yet at the same time Spanish and national; eminently rich in the content of their varied interests, whether these concern love, marriage, honour, or the mastery of kings in wars waged between Christians and Moors. All this material is voiced in so epic and plastic a style, we have set before us the pertinent fact so simply in the purity of its exalted content, and withal with such a wealth of the noblest pictures of human life displayed in a panorama of the most glorious exploit, and all this bound together in a wreath so fair and fascinating, that we moderns may compare it with the most beautiful creations of the ancient world.[34] As a matter of fact it is as impossible to compare the Nibelungenlied, as it is the Iliad and Odyssey, with this world of romance, which, however dissevered in fragments it maybe, is none the less epic in its fundamental type. For although in the former precious and truly German work we have no lack of a national and substantive content, in respect to family, matrimonial affection, duty of vassalage, loyalty of service, heroism, and, in a word, genuine marrow and substance, yet the entire collision, despite all its epic breadth of vision, is rather one of a dramatic type, than truly epic, and the exposition, with all its detail, neither tends towards the individualization of its abundance, nor to a presentment that is wholly lifelike; and from a further point of view it is frequently squandered in pure harshness, savagery and ferocity, so that the characters, although we find them compactly braced and robust in action, yet in their abstract ruggedness rather resemble coarse images of wood, than are comparable to the humanely evolved, genial individuality of the Homeric heroes and women.
(_ββ_) A second fundamental source of such literature is to be traced in the religious poems of the Middle Ages, which take as their subject the life of Christ, or those of the Madonna, the Apostles, the saints and martyrs and the Last Judgment. The most essentially complete and rich composition, however, the genuine art-Epic of Catholic Christianity in the Middle Ages, the greatest subject-matter and the greatest poem is in this sphere Dante's Divine Comedy. It is true that we cannot call even this severely, rather I should systematically organized poem, an Epopaea in the ordinary sense of the term. For we have not here one progressive action, individual and exclusive, on the broad basis of the entire poem: what, however, we do get in a conspicuous degree in this Epos is the most secure articulation and consummate finish. Instead of a particular event it has for its subject-matter the eternal event, the absolute end, the Divine Love in its imperishable eventuality, and in its unalterable circles' of relation to the object. Possessing further Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise for its locality, it plunges the living world of human action and suffering or, more closely, that of individual acts and destinies in this changeless existence. Everything single and particular in human interests and aims here vanishes before the absolute greatness of the purpose and end of all things; at the same time, however, what is otherwise most perishable and evanescent in the living world receives here a completely epic form objectively based on its own innermost life, and adjudged in its worth and unworth by the supreme notion of all, that is God. For as individuals were in their life and suffering, their opinions and accomplishment on Earth, so are they here set before us for ever consolidated, as it were, into images of bronze. It is in this way that the poem embraces the totality of the most objective life, that is, the eternal condition of Hell, of Purification, and of Paradise; and it is on these indestructible foundations that the characters of the actual world move in their particular personalities, or rather they _have_ already moved, and are henceforward rendered moveless, together with their action and being, in the everlasting righteousness, and are themselves eternal. The Homeric heroes indeed endure in _our_ memories through the song of the Muse. These characters assert their condition on their own account, and in the cause of their own individuality: they do not so much exist in our imagination; they are _themselves_ essentially eternal. The perpetuation through the Mnemosyne of the poet has here the objective force of the very judgments of God, in whose Name the most dauntless spirit of his time has damned or beatified the entire present and past.
The exposition also must perforce follow the above character of an object, which is received rather than given. It can only be a wandering through a world that is for ever determined; which, although it is discovered, organized, and peopled with the freedom of the imagination wherewith Hesiod and Homer created their gods, nevertheless undertakes to give us a picture and a report of what has actually happened, an account full of energetic movement, yet plastic in the rigidity of its pains; rich in the flashes of its horror, yet mitigated pitifully in Hell through Dante's own sympathy; more gracious in purgatory, but none the less fully and completely elaborated; and, finally, translucent as light in Paradise, and for ever without materia form in the eternal ether of thought.
The ancient world no doubt peers into this world of the Catholic poet, but only as the guiding star and companion of human wisdom and culture; for, where it is a question of doctrine and dogma, it is the scholasticism of Christian theology and love which speaks.
(_γγ_) A _third_ fundamental subject-matter, which arrests the interest of the poetry of the Middle Ages, is that of _chivalry._ This interest is not merely limited to its worldly and romantic association with love-adventure and tilting matches, but is occupied with religious objects in virtue of the mysticism of Christian knighthood. The actions and events of such compositions have no relation to national interests; they are matters effected by individuals, which only concern the personal agent as such; they are generally similar to what I have described in my previous reference to romantic chivalry.
Individuals are consequently placed in a position of complete freedom and independence. A novel form of heroism is thereby created within a social environment that is not as yet stereotyped to the prosaic mode and temper; a heroism, however, which, on account of interests which in part are due to religious phantasy, and in part--that is from the worldly point of view--are wholly personal and imaginary, eschews that substantive Real, upon the basis of which the Greek heroes are united, or as units contend, are victorious or are vanquished. Despite all the varied epic compositions, which such a course as the above occasions, the adventurous character of the situations, conflicts and plots rather tends, on the one hand, in the direction of a treatment usually met with in romances, where the various examples of adventure are loosely interwoven in no more stringent bond of unity, and on the other to that which, while sharing the general features of such works, is not evolved on the background of a consistently organized civic order and a truly prosaic condition of general life. Moreover the imagination is not content with the mere invention of knightly characters and adventures outside the pale of the ordinary world of things; it furthermore associates the exploits of the same with important legendary centres of interest, pre-eminent historical personages, decisive conflicts of the age, and receives by doing so, if we view its broader lines, at least a foundation such as we found indispensable to epic creation. Such a basis, however, we shall find is as a rule commingled with fantastic elements, and is unable to secure the clarity of objective vision in its elaboration, which above all distinguishes the Homeric Epos. Add to this the fact that on account of the very similar treatment accorded to the same subject-matter by Frenchmen, Englishmen, Germans, and to some extent even Spaniards, we fail to find here relatively at least, and if we contrast it with that of the Hindoo, Persian, Greek, and Celt, the essentially national temper, which in the last-mentioned cases constitutes in its security the epic core of the content and its execution. I must, however, excuse myself here from entering further into the detail of this aspect, either by way of illustration or critical judgment. It will be sufficient if I merely draw attention to the larger circle, within which the most important of these Epopaea of knight-errantry are to be met with if we estimate them relatively to their subject-matter.
As a _leading_ figure in this respect we have first Charles the Great with his peers in the conflict fought against Saracens and pagans. In this Frankish circle of legend feudal chivalry forms a background of prime importance, and branches off into poems of every description, whose most significant material is concerned with the exploits of one of the twelve heroes, such as Roland or Doolin, of Maintz and others.
More particularly in France during the reign of Philip Augustus many of such Epopees were composed. We have a _further_ garland of legend with an English source, one which aims at reproducing the exploits of King Arthur and the Round Table. Legendary tale, the chivalry of Normans and Englishmen, service to woman, the fealty of the vassal, are all here involved together in melancholy or fantastic combination with Christian mysticism. The search for the Holy Grail, that chalice containing the sacred blood of Christ, is, indeed, one main object of all knightly exploit, and every description of fantastic adventure originates in this source, until, finally, the entire company takes flight to Abyssinia. The above two subjects of legendary story are worked out with most completeness in Northern France, England, and Germany. And as a last illustration we have a _third_ circle of chivalrous poetry, composed with yet more caprice and less substantive content, which ever tends to emphasize knightly heroism to an excess with ideas of fairyland and fable; this rather points to Portugal or Spain as its original nursery. In this the family of the Amadi are accepted as principal heroes.
The great allegorical poems, so much beloved mainly in Northern France