period survive to give us even a general idea of the history of
the earliest epic, and we are therefore thrown back upon the
evidence of analogy from other forms of literature and of
inference from the two great epics which have come down to us.
So reconstructed, the earliest period appears to us as a time of
slow development in which the characteristic epic metre, diction,
and structure grew up slowly from crude elements and were
improved until the verge of maturity was reached.

The second period, which produced the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey",
needs no description here: but it is very important to observe
the effect of these poems on the course of post-Homeric epic. As
the supreme perfection and universality of the "Iliad" and the
"Odyssey" cast into oblivion whatever pre-Homeric poets had
essayed, so these same qualities exercised a paralysing influence
over the successors of Homer. If they continued to sing like
their great predecessor of romantic themes, they were drawn as by
a kind of magnetic attraction into the Homeric style and manner
of treatment, and became mere echoes of the Homeric voice: in a
word, Homer had so completely exhausted the epic genre, that
after him further efforts were doomed to be merely conventional.
Only the rare and exceptional genius of Vergil and Milton could
use the Homeric medium without loss of individuality: and this
quality none of the later epic poets seem to have possessed.
Freedom from the domination of the great tradition could only be
found by seeking new subjects, and such freedom was really only
illusionary, since romantic subjects alone are suitable for epic
treatment.

In its third period, therefore, epic poetry shows two divergent