Epic and Romance | Page 3

imagination to keep Romance under control 33
III
ROMANTIC MYTHOLOGY
Mythology not required in the greatest scenes in Homer 35
Myths and popular fancies may be a hindrance to the epic poet, but he is compelled to make some use of them 36
He criticises and selects, and allows the characters of the gods to be modified in relation to the human characters 37
Early humanism and reflexion on myth--two processes: (1) rejection of the grosser myths; (2) refinement of myth through poetry 40
Two ways of refining myth in poetry--(1) by turning it into mere fancy, and the more ludicrous things into comedy; (2) by finding an imaginative or an ethical meaning in it 40
Instances in Icelandic literature--Lokasenna 41
Snorri Sturluson, his ironical method in the Edda 42
The old gods rescued from clerical persecution 43
Imaginative treatment of the graver myths--the death of Balder; the Doom of the Gods 43
Difficulties in the attainment of poetical self-command 44
Medieval confusion and distraction 45
Premature "culture" 46
Depreciation of native work in comparison with ancient literature and with theology 47
An Icelandic gentleman's library 47
The whalebone casket 48
Epic not wholly stifled by "useful knowledge" 49
IV
THE THREE SCHOOLS--TEUTONIC EPIC--FRENCH EPIC--THE ICELANDIC HISTORIES
Early failure of Epic among the Continental Germans 50
Old English Epic invaded by Romance (Lives of Saints, etc.) 50
Old Northern (Icelandic) poetry full of romantic mythology 51
French Epic and Romance contrasted 51
Feudalism in the old French Epic (Chansons de Geste) not unlike the prefeudal "heroic age" 52
But the Chansons de Geste are in many ways "romantic" 53
Comparison of the English Song of Byrhtnoth (Maldon, A.D. 991) with the Chanson de Roland 54
Severity and restraint of Byrhtnoth 55
Mystery and pathos of Roland 56
Iceland and the German heroic age 57
The Icelandic paradox--old-fashioned politics together with clear understanding 58
Icelandic prose literature--its subject, the anarchy of the heroic age; its methods, clear and positive 59
The Icelandic histories, in prose, complete the development of the early Teutonic Epic poetry 60
CHAPTER II
THE TEUTONIC EPIC
I
THE TRAGIC CONCEPTION
Early German poetry 65
One of the first things certain about it is that it knew the meaning of tragic situations 66
The Death of Ermanaric in Jordanes 66
The story of Alboin in Paulus Diaconus 66
Tragic plots in the extant poems 69
The Death of Ermanaric in the "Poetic Edda" (Hameism��l) 70
Some of the Northern poems show the tragic conception modified by romantic motives, yet without loss of the tragic purport--Helgi and Sigrun 72
Similar harmony of motives in the Waking of Angantyr 73
Whatever may be wanting, the heroic poetry had no want of tragic plots--the "fables" are sound 74
Value of the abstract plot (Aristotle) 74
II
SCALE OF THE POEMS
List of extant poems and fragments in one or other of the older Teutonic languages (German, English, and Northern) in unrhymed alliterative verse 76
Small amount of the extant poetry 78
Supplemented in various ways 79
1. THE WESTERN GROUP (German and English) 79
Amount of story contained in the several poems, and scale of treatment 79
Hildebrand, a short story 80
Finnesburh, (1) the Lambeth fragment (Hickes); and (2) the abstract of the story in Beowulf 81
Finnesburh, a story of (1) wrong and (2) vengeance, like the story of the death of Attila, or of the betrayal of Roland 82
Uncertainty as to the compass of the Finnesburh poem (Lambeth) in its original complete form 84
Waldere, two fragments: the story of Walter of Aquitaine preserved in the Latin Waltharius 84
Plot of Waltharius 84
Place of the Waldere fragments in the story, and probable compass of the whole poem 86
Scale of Maldon 88 and of Beowulf 89
General resemblance in the themes of these poems--unity of action 89
Development of style, and not neglect of unity nor multiplication of contents, accounts for the difference of length between earlier and later poems 91
Progress of Epic in England--unlike the history of Icelandic poetry 92
2. THE NORTHERN GROUP 93
The contents of the so-called "Elder Edda" (i.e. Codex Regius 2365, 4to Havn.) 93 to what extent Epic 93
Notes on the contents of the poems, to show their scale; the Lay of Weland 94
Different plan in the Lays of Thor, Trymskviea and Hymiskviea 95
The Helgi Poems--complications of the text 95
Three separate stories--Helgi Hundingsbane and Sigrun 95
Helgi Hiorvardsson and Swava 98
Helgi and Kara (lost) 99
The story of the Volsungs--the long Lay of Brynhild 100 contains the whole story in abstract 100 giving the chief place to the character of Brynhild 101
The Hell-ride of Brynhild 102
The fragmentary Lay of Brynhild (Brot af Sigurearkvieu) 103
Poems on the death of Attila--the Lay of Attila (Atlakviea), and the Greenland Poem of Attila (Atlam��l) 105
Proportions of the story 105
A third version of the story in the Lament of Oddrun (Oddr��nargr��tr) 107
The Death of Ermanaric (Hameism��l) 109
The Northern idylls of the heroines (Oddrun, Gudrun)--the Old Lay of Gudrun, or Gudrun's story to Theodoric 109
The Lay of Gudrun (Guer��narkviea)--Gudrun's sorrow for Sigurd 111
The refrain 111
Gudrun's Chain of Woe (Tregrof Guer��nar) 111
The Ordeal of Gudrun, an episodic lay 111
Poems in dialogue, without narrative-- (1) Dialogues