Jerusalem Delivered.  We may suppose, perhaps, that the poets of “authentic” epic had a somewhat easier task.  There was no need for them to be “long choosing and beginning late.”  The pressure of racial tradition would see that they chose the right sort of subject; would see, too, that they lived right in the heart of their subject.  For the poet of “literary” epic, however, it is his own consciousness that must select the kind of theme which will fulfil the epic intention for his own day; it is his own determination and studious endurance that will draw the theme into the secrets of his being.  If he is not capable of getting close to his subject, we should not for that reason call his work “literary” epic.  It would put him in the class of Milton, the most literary of all poets.  We must simply call his stuff bad epic.  There is plenty of it.  Southey is the great instance.  Southey would decide to write an epic about Spain, or India, or Arabia, or America.  Next he would read up, in several languages, about his proposed subject; that would take him perhaps a year.  Then he would versify as much strange information as he could remember; that might take a few months.  The result is deadly; and because he was never anywhere near his subject.  It is for the same reason that the unspeakable labours of Blackmore, Glover and Wilkie, and Voltaire’s ridiculous Henriade, have gone to pile up the rubbish-heaps of literature.

So far, supposed differences between “authentic” and “literary” epic have resolved themselves into little more than signs of development in epic intention; the change has not been found to produce enough artistic difference between early and later epic to warrant anything like a division into two distinct species.  The epic, whether “literary” or “authentic,” is a single form of art; but it is a form capable of adapting itself to the altering requirements of prevalent consciousness.  In addition, however, to differences in general conception, there are certain mechanical differences which should be just noticed.  The first epics were intended for recitation; the literary epic is meant to be read.  It is more difficult to keep the attention of hearers than of readers.  This in itself would be enough to rule out themes remote from common experience, supposing any such were to suggest themselves to the primitive epic poet.  Perhaps, indeed, we should not be far wrong if we saw a chief reason for the pressure of surrounding tradition on the early epic in this very fact, that it is poetry meant for recitation.  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.  Traditional manner would be equally difficult to avoid; for it is a tradition that plainly embodies the requirements, fixed by experience, of recited poetry.