is only by returning to them, by constant remembrance that
they drain a vast region of vital human experience, that the
origin and early direction of that literature can be
recalled."--Hamilton Wright Mabie.




FOREWORD


Derived from the Greek _epos_, a saying or oracle, the term "epic" is
generally given to some form of heroic narrative wherein tragedy,
comedy, lyric, dirge, and idyl are skilfully blended to form an
immortal work.

"Mythology, which was the interpretation of nature, and legend, which
is the idealization of history," are the main elements of the epic.
Being the "living history of the people," an epic should have "the
breadth and volume of a river." All epics have therefore generally
been "the first-fruits of the earliest experience of nature and life
on the part of imaginative races"; and the real poet has been, as a
rule, the race itself.

There are almost as many definitions of an epic and rules for its
composition as there are nations and poets. For that reason, instead
of selecting only such works as in the writer's opinion can justly
claim the title of epic, each nation's verdict has been accepted,
without question, in regard to its national work of this class, be it
in verse or prose.