All Lascelles Abercrombie Quotes
It is more difficult to keep the attention of hearers than of readers.
Lascelles Abercrombie
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With several different kinds of poetry to choose from, a man would decide that he would like best to be an epic poet, and he would set out, in conscious determination, on an epic poem.
Lascelles Abercrombie
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It seems difficult, sometimes, to believe that there was a time when sentiments now become habitual, sentiments that imply not only the original imperative of conduct, but the original metaphysic of living, were by no means altogether habitual.
Lascelles Abercrombie
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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
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If epic poetry is a definite species, the sagas do not fall within it.
Lascelles Abercrombie
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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.
Lascelles Abercrombie
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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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The world knows of a vast stock of epic material scattered up and down the nations; sometimes its artistic value is as extraordinary as its archaeological interest, but not always.
Lascelles Abercrombie
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For the stage displays the first vigorous expression, as the natural thing and without conspicuous restraint, of private individuality.
Lascelles Abercrombie
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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
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There is only one thing which can master the perplexed stuff of epic material into unity; and that is, an ability to see in particular human experience some significant symbolism of man's general destiny.
Lascelles Abercrombie
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The epic poet collaborates with the spirit of his time in the composition of his work. That is, if he is successful; the time may refuse to work with him, but he may not refuse to work with his time.
Lascelles Abercrombie
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But the gravest difficulty, and perhaps the most important, in poetry meant solely for recitation, is the difficulty of achieving verbal beauty, or rather of making verbal beauty tell.
Lascelles Abercrombie
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The epic poet has behind him a tradition of matter and a tradition of style; and that is what every other poet has behind him too; only, for the epic poet, tradition is rather narrower, rather more strictly compelling.
Lascelles Abercrombie
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The first epics were intended for recitation; the literary epic is meant to be read.
Lascelles Abercrombie
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