Poetry
‹ 7 · Outline · 9 ›
8.Epic poetry
8a.The pre-eminence of the heroic poem
See also: Virtue and Vice 11c
Sir Philip Sidney, The Defense of PoesyVol. 27
- p. 28Defends heroical poetry as the best and most accomplished kind, answering poet-haters and citing Aeneas, Achilles and Cyrus as exemplars.read · scan
John Dryden, Dedication of the AeneisVol. 13
- p. 5Dryden holds the heroic poem the greatest human work, requiring unity of action, a consistent lofty epic style, and episodes serving the main design.read · scan
- p. 6Compares tragedy and epic; argues epic has greater lasting moral effect than tragedy's swift purging of passions.read · scan
- p. 6–9Epic hero's character and Achilles' flaws; epic serves manners, tragedy the passions; both useful for their proper ends.read · scan
- p. 9–10Defends the epic's preeminence over tragedy; modern stage tragedies are fustian, some epic marvels cannot be staged; praises Essay of Poetry.read · scan
- p. 12–13Few true heroic poets exist: Homer, Virgil, Tasso; epic and tragedy are both masterpieces of human wit; Horace's epistolary method.read · scan
- p. 13Ranks Italian, French, and English epic poets below the three greats; epic style more lofty and metaphorical than the drama's plain dialogue.read · scan
John Dryden, Preface to Fables, Ancient and ModernVol. 39
- p. 171–172Praises Palamon and Arcite as epic rivaling Iliad and Aeneid; Aristotle on duration of action; Chaucer's beautifying of the story.read · scan
Edgar Allan Poe, The Poetic PrincipleVol. 28
- p. 371–372Poe holds a poem is defined by elevating excitement, which cannot be sustained, so a long poem is a contradiction; Paradise Lost is a series of minor poems.read · scan
- p. 372Poe attacks the long epic, doubts the Iliad's epic intention, and rejects judging poems by length or sustained effort rather than effect.read · scan
Walter Bagehot, John MiltonVol. 28
- p. 197–198Bagehot treats Paradise Lost as Milton's poetic picture of his creed.read · scan
8b.Dryden's defence of Virgil
See also: Time 8a · Race and Nationality 2b
John Dryden, Dedication of the AeneisVol. 13
- p. 14–15Dryden defends Virgil's moral and hero against critics, comparing it to Homer's moral in the Iliad.read · scan
- p. 15Homer's moral of unity is nobler than Virgil's, which was fitted to Virgil's Roman times.read · scan
- p. 17The moral of Virgil's poem is to secure obedience and happiness by honoring the prince and the Romans' Trojan descent.read · scan
- p. 17–19Virgil's Aeneid honored Augustus and Roman families; poets take poetical revenge, a irritable race; epic heroes reflect national origins.read · scan
- p. 19Virgil's groundwork of one empire destroyed and another raised is a parallel with Augustus, shadowed in Aeneas.read · scan
- p. 21–22Dryden defends Virgil's hero against critics, following Segrais, and compares French criticism with English poetry.read · scan
- p. 22–23Poet's choice of hero's chief quality; Dryden praises Segrais's criticism and a lord's verse; poet need not make hero virtuous.read · scan
- p. 24–25Virgil endowed Aeneas with Augustus's qualities, citing Diomede's testimony to Aeneas's strength.read · scan
- p. 25Virgil refines on Homer and is compared with Achilles' armor, Ariosto, Tasso and Spenser, who copied Homer.read · scan
- p. 25–27Virgil excels Homer in the comparison of lamenting heroes and shapes the tale to win Dido.read · scan
- p. 27–28Dryden defends Virgil's portrayal of his hero against critics.read · scan
- p. 31Defends Virgil's use of the machine (Mercury) in heroic poetry and the unfinished Aeneid; Plato's banishment of poets.read · scan
- p. 34Defends Virgil's anachronism of Dido and Aeneas; a great poet makes poetry's laws and is not slave to chronology; compared with Ovid.read · scan
- p. 34–35Aristotle: only what is against the art is a poetic fault; fiction against time is permissible, drawing truth from fiction with beauty.read · scan
- p. 35–36Virgil's Dido episode is the most read part of the poem; Ovid's defense compared.read · scan
- p. 36–37Answers the charge of want of invention: a poet is a maker; common materials come from nature; the action and disposition distinguish originals.read · scan
- p. 37Dryden defends Virgil's invention against the charge of copying Homer, distinguishing servile copying from imitation and defending the epic poet's originality.read · scan
- p. 37Compares Virgil and Homer through painters Apelles and Raphael; Virgil excels Homer in Dido's passion and in the descent to hell.read · scan
- p. 37–41Imitating a master's invention without servile copying; answers the critic's objection that Virgil's similitudes interrupt the heat of action.read · scan
- p. 41–42Defends Virgil's similitudes: unsuited to tragedy, apt in heroic poetry to raise admiration, placed as action declines; the Neptune simile illustrates.read · scan
- p. 42–43A simile in the storm would have been ill-timed ornament; Virgil defers it. Dryden also notes critics' disputes over the epic action's duration.read · scan
- p. 43–44Critical dispute over the chronology of Virgil's epic action.read · scan
- p. 44–45Seasonal description in the poem is used as evidence for the epic's chronology.read · scan
- p. 45–46Segrais's criticism of Virgil's chronology is commended.read · scan
- p. 46–47Virgil imitates but does not copy Homer's divine machines, inventing his own occasions and using them for things possibly done without gods.read · scan
- p. 47Assesses Virgil's divine machines as ornaments or necessities, noting Horace's rule applies to the theater and the poet's unrevised faults.read · scan
- p. 48–49Horace's rule on gods applies to the stage, not epic; Dryden defends the Dira and the balance machine against charges against Aeneas' courage, comparing Milton.read · scan
- p. 49–50Dryden argues the balance and Dira are merely ornamental, and that Turnus's dejection already shows the duel's outcome; Milton's borrowing is discussed.read · scan
- p. 50–51Dryden defends Virgil's Aeneid against critic Ruarus on the duel of Aeneas and Turnus, and praises Virgil and Horace for propriety of thought, elegant words and harmony.read · scan
- p. 67–68Virgil avoided technical professional terms since he wrote for general readers; Dryden critiques the disputed opening lines as unVirgilian, obscure and mere fillers.read · scan
- p. 68–69Dryden judges the disputed lines unVirgilian by comparison of quality, and confesses he has not done Virgil justice in translating him.read · scan
John Dryden, Preface to Fables, Ancient and ModernVol. 39
- p. 157Dryden compares Homer and Virgil: Homer fiery and inventive, Virgil sedate and proper; Virgil's epic imitates Homer's.read · scan
- p. 157Design, manners and thoughts precede diction in an epic; invention is the first virtue; poem defined as imitation of human life; Homer over Virgil.read · scan
- p. 158Dryden prefers Homer's vehement, fiery action to Virgil's gradual warming, and finds translating him pleasing but taxing.read · scan
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1013–1014Tennyson's ode to Virgil praises his language, landscape verse, epic themes and stately measureread · scan
Walter Bagehot, John MiltonVol. 28
- p. 198Milton's artistic instinct makes Satan the hero of Paradise Lost, contrary to his intent; Shelley's reading is rejected.read · scan
- p. 199Satan's character is the most interesting in Paradise Lost, compared to Napoleon; a defect by Milton's own stern view.read · scan
8c.Epic invocation, subject and convention
See also: Angel 7b · Chivalry 8c
Homer, The OdysseyVol. 22
- p. 9Invocation of the Muse to sing of the much-enduring hero; epic opening announcing the theme of Odysseus' wanderings and return.read · scan
- p. 317–318Recapitulation of the epic's adventures in narrative summary.read · scan
The Bhagavad-Gita; or, Song CelestialVol. 45
- p. 785–786Epic opening: the narrative frame of Dhritirashtra and Sanjaya and catalogue of warriors.read · scan
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Letters of CiceroVol. 9
- p. 117Cicero plans a marvellous episode for his poem, Apollo in the council of the gods on the two commanders' fates.read · scan
Virgil, The AeneidVol. 13
- p. 73Epic opening invokes the Muse and states the theme of the poem.read · scan
- p. 152Epic simile of the wounded hind dramatizes Dido's suffering.read · scan
- p. 239The poet invokes the Muse Erato to inspire him to tell the tale of Latium.read · scan
- p. 239The poet announces his theme of battles, rage and rivalry, a larger, greater work.read · scan
- p. 260The poet invokes the Muses to sing the chiefs, since only they know what fame conveys darkly.read · scan
- p. 305The poet invokes Calliope and the Muses to help sing Turnus's slaughter.read · scan
Pliny the Younger, Letters of PlinyVol. 9
- p. 266Writer's duty is to keep to his subject; Homer, Virgil and Aratus are not prolix because they stay within their design.read · scan
The Story of the Volsungs and NiblungsVol. 49
- p. 255–256The poet invokes English hearers to hearken to how song bloomed in the North from a tale of woe.read · scan
Dante Alighieri, HellVol. 20
- p. 8–9Poets customarily open their works with an invocation.read · scan
- p. 57–58Dante addresses readers and tells how he will relate what he saw.read · scan
- p. 81Virgil refers to his own tragic strain, the Aeneid, in majestic measure.read · scan
- p. 106Virgil invokes his own lofty verse as claim on the Greeks' attention.read · scan
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales; The Nun's Priest's TaleVol. 40
- p. 48Mock-heroic epic allusion to Virgil's Aeneid and classical laments.read · scan
Edmund Spenser, Prefatory Letter to Sir Walter Raleigh on the Faerie QueeneVol. 39
- p. 61A poet historical begins in the middle and recounts past and future, unlike a historiographer who orders events chronologically.read · scan
- p. 63–64Spenser recounts the narrative frame of the poem: the Faery Queene's feast and the twelve adventures undertaken by knights.read · scan
- p. 64–65Spenser concludes his outline of the poem's adventures, intended to guide understanding of the whole conceit.read · scan
John Milton, Poems Written at School and at College, 1624-1632Vol. 4
- p. 20Poet wishes for graver poetic subjects, gods, nature's origin and heroes like Demodocus's songs, and reflects on his craft.read · scan
John Milton, Paradise LostVol. 4
- p. 87Argument outlines epic plot; poem hastes into the midst of things.read · scan
- p. 88Invocation of the Heavenly Muse; the poet's aim to soar above prior song and justify God's ways.read · scan
- p. 90Epic similes comparing Satan to Titans and Leviathan, and Hell to Etna.read · scan
- p. 90Epic similes of autumn leaves, locusts of Egypt and northern barbarian hosts.read · scan
- p. 90Muse invoked to name the fallen chiefs in epic catalogue.read · scan
- p. 90Continuing epic catalogue of the fallen angels' names.read · scan
- p. 90Allusions to fable and romance of Arthur, Charlemagne and Troy set the host against literary heroes.read · scan
- p. 136Milton invokes Heavenly Light and the Muses, recalls his song of Chaos, and names blind poets and prophets as his peers.read · scan
- p. 155Paradise is compared with classical mythic gardens of Enna, Daphne and Nysa.read · scan
- p. 180Epic argument summarizing the narrative of the book.read · scan
- p. 227Milton invokes Urania, the heavenly muse, to guide his song, fearing to fall like Bellerophon, and asks for fit audience though few.read · scan
- p. 261Milton invokes his heavenly Muse and claims a higher heroic argument than wars, tournaments and knightly trappings; patience and martyrdom deserve song.read · scan
- p. 319Epic comparison of the prayers to Deucalion and Pyrrha at Themis's shrine.read · scan
- p. 319Classical allusions to Janus, Argus, Hermes and Leucothea adorn the description.read · scan
John Milton, Paradise RegainedVol. 4
- p. 359Poet invokes the Spirit to inspire his song of deeds above heroic, left unsung for ages.read · scan
- p. 405Epic similes compare Satan's fall to Antaeus and the Sphinx.read · scan
Walter Savage Landor, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 902–903Dramatic narrative poem retelling Greek myth of Iphigenia.read · scan
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1318–1320The poet invokes the Muse and compares his narrative to following a streamlet's course, seen only at intervals.read · scan
Walter Bagehot, John MiltonVol. 28
- p. 190–191Milton's invocation of Urania: song inspired by heavenly muse, not classical Muses; he sings on evil days and seeks fit audience though few.read · scan
- p. 200–201Epic rules of supernatural machinery from Homer influenced Milton; Satan's oratory is excellent.read · scan
‹ 7 · Outline · 9 ›