Author: Lascelles Abercrombie

Quotes

Poetry is the work of poets, not of peoples or communities; artistic creation can never be anything but the production of an individual mind.

Poetry is the work of poets, not of peoples or communities; artistic creation can never be anything but the production of an individual mind.

- Lascelles Abercrombie

The reason can only be this: heroic poetry depends on an heroic age, and an age is heroic because of what it is, not because of what it does.

The reason can only be this: heroic poetry depends on an heroic age, and an age is heroic because of what it is, not because of what it does.

- Lascelles Abercrombie

If epic poetry is a definite species, the sagas do not fall within it.

If epic poetry is a definite species, the sagas do not fall within it.

- Lascelles Abercrombie

By the general process of epic poetry, I mean the way this form of art has constantly responded to the profound needs of the society in which it was made.

By the general process of epic poetry, I mean the way this form of art has constantly responded to the profound needs of the society in which it was made.

- Lascelles Abercrombie

No poet will ever take the written word as a substitute for the spoken word; he knows that it is on the spoken word, and the spoken word only, that his art is founded.

No poet will ever take the written word as a substitute for the spoken word; he knows that it is on the spoken word, and the spoken word only, that his art is founded.

- Lascelles Abercrombie

Epic poetry exhibits life in some great symbolic attitude. It cannot strictly be said to symbolize life itself, but always some manner of life.

Epic poetry exhibits life in some great symbolic attitude. It cannot strictly be said to symbolize life itself, but always some manner of life.

- Lascelles Abercrombie

The Border Ballads, for instance, and the Robin Hood Ballads, clearly suppose a state of society which is nothing but a very circumscribed and not very important heroic age.

The Border Ballads, for instance, and the Robin Hood Ballads, clearly suppose a state of society which is nothing but a very circumscribed and not very important heroic age.

- Lascelles Abercrombie

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