Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/279

Rh POETRY 2(51) of course, many causes, some of them traceable and some of them beyond all discovery, causes no doubt akin to those which gave birth to many of the beauties of other epics of growth. Originally Sinfiotli and Sigurd were the same person, and note how vast has been the artistic effect of the separation of the two ! Again, there were several different versions of the story of Brynhild. The sagamen, finding all these versions too interesting and too much beloved to be discarded, adopted them all worked them up into one legend, so that, in the Volsunga, Saga we have a heroine possessing all the charms of goddess, demi- goddess, earthly princess, and amazon a heroine surpass ing perhaps in fascination all other heroines that have ever figured in poetry. It is when we come to consider such imaginative work as this that we are compelled to pause before challenging the Aristotelian doctrine that metrical structure is but an accidental quality of epic ; and it will now be seen why, in the early part of this essay, this doctrine was examined so carefully. In speaking of the Niblung story we do not, of course, speak of the German version, the Nibelungenlied, a fine epic still, though a degradation of the elder form. Between the two the differences are fundamental in the artistic sense, and form an excellent illustration of what has just been said upon the disturbance of motive in epic, and indeed in all poetic art. It is not merely that the endings of the three principal characters Sigurd (Siegfried), Gudrun (Kriemhilt), and Brynhild are entirely different ; it is not merely that the Icelandic version, by missing the blood bath at Fafnir s lair, loses the pathetic situation of Gudrun s becoming afterwards an unwilling instrument of her hus band s death; it is not merely that, on the other hand, the German version, by omitting the early love passages between Brynhild and Sigurd at Hindfell, misses entirely the tragic meaning of her story and the terrible hate that is love resulting from the breaking of the troth ; but the conclusion of each version is so exactly the opposite of that of the other that, while the German story is called (and very properly) &quot; Kriemhilt s Revenge &quot; the story of the Volsunga Saga might, with equal propriety, be called Gudrun s Forgiveness. If it be said that, in both cases, the motive shows the same Titanic temper, that is because the Titanic temper is the special characteristic of the North-Western mind. The temper of revolt against authority seems indeed to belong to that energy which succeeds in the modern development of the great racial struggle for life. Although no epic, Eastern or Western, can exist without a struggle between good and evil and a struggle upon apparently equal terms it must not be supposed that the warring of conflicting forces which is the motive of Eastern epic has much real relation to the warring of conflicting forces which is the motive of Western epic. And, as regards the machinery of epic, there is, we suspect, a deeper significance than is commonly appre hended in the fact that the Satan or Shaitan of the Eastern world becomes in Vondel and Milton a sublime Titan who attracts to himself the admiration which in Eastern poetry belongs entirely to the authority of heaven. In Asia, save perhaps among the pure Arabs of the desert, underlying all religious forms, there is apparent a temper of resignation to the irresistible authority of heaven. And as regards the Aryans it is probable that the Titanic temper the temper of revolt against authority did not begin to show itself till they had moved across the Caucasus. But what concerns us here is the fact that the farther they moved to the north-west the more vigorously this temper asserted itself, the prouder grew man in his attitude towards the gods, till at last in the Scandinavian cycle he became their equal and struggled alongside them, shoulder to shoulder, in the defence of heaven against the assaults of hell. Therefore, as we say, the student of epic poetry must not suppose that there is any real parallel between the attitude of Vishnu (as Rama) towards Ravana and the attitude of Prometheus towards Zeus, or the attitude of the human heroes towards Odin in Scandi navian poetry. Had Ravana been clothed with a properly constituted authority, had he been a legitimate god instead of a demon, the Eastern doctrine of recognition of authority would most likely have come in and the world would have been spared one at least of its enormous epics. Indeed, the Ravana of the Rdmdyana answers somewhat to the Fafnir of the Volsunga Saga ; and to plot against demons is not to rebel against authority. The vast field of Indian epic, however, is quite beyond us here. Nor can we do more than glance at the Kalevala. From one point of view that group of ballads might be taken, no doubt, as a simple record of how the men of Kalevala were skilful in capturing the sisters of the Pojohla men. But from another point of view the universal struggle of the male for the female seems typified in this so-called epic of the Finns by the picture of the &quot;Lady of the Rainbow &quot; sitting upon her glowing arc and weaving her golden threads, while the hero is doing battle with the malevolent forces of nature. But it is in the Niblung story that the temper of Western epic is at its best the temper of the simple fighter whose business it is to fight. The ideal Western fighter was not known in Greece till ages after Homer, when in the pass of Thermopylae the companions of Leonidas combed their long hair in the sun. The business of the fighter in Scandinavian epic is to yield to no power whatsoever, whether of earth or heaven or hell to take a buffet from the Allfather himself, and to return it ; to look Destiny herself in the face, crying out for quarter neither to gods nor demons nor Norns. This is the true temper of pure &quot; heroic poetry &quot; as it has hitherto flourished on this side the Caucasus the temper of the fighter who is invincible because he feels that Fate herself falters when the hero of the true strain defies the fighter who feels that the very Norns themselves must cringe at last before the simple courage of man standing naked and bare of hope against all assaults whether of heaven or hell or doom. The proud heroes of the Volsunya Saga utter no moans and shed no Homeric tears, knowing as they know that the day prophesied is sure when, shoulder to shoulder, gods and men shall stand up to fight the entire brood of night and evil, storming the very gates of Asgard. That this temper is not the highest from the ethical point of view is no doubt true. Against the beautiful resignation of Buddhism it may seem barbaric, and if moral suasion could supplant physical force in epic if Siddartha could take the place of Achilles or Sigurd it might be better for the human race. But it would be difficult even to glance at the countless points of interest that suggest themselves in connexion with epic poetry. Returning now to the general subject of egoistic or lyrical and dramatic imagination, as might be expected, we occasionally meet imagination of a purely dramatic kind in narrative poetry, such for instance as that of Gottfried von Strasburg, of Chaucer, and of the author of the Chanson de Roland. . But we must now give undivided attention to pure fonng of egoistic or lyric imagination. This, as has been said, is poetic art sufficient to vitalize all forms of poetic art save drama and are the the Greek epic. Many of these forms have been or Avill natural be treated in this work under separate heads. of egoistic It would be impossible to discuss adequately here the imagina- Hebrew poets, who have produced a lyric so different in tion.