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* EPIC POETRY. 143 EPIC POETRY. inal Wrath of Achilles ( ulxmt 3400 lines in length), there wen' added in different agesexten- ive expansions and interpolations, as well as short passages by which the transitions from one piece to another of different age were managed; and he presents a tentative scheme of the lines belonging to each of the five strata that he pos- tulates. In regard to the Nibelungenlied, M. Lichtenberger, a sane critic, believes that some nameless redactor put together the ancient lays after they had been adapted to the manners of an age of chivalry; and M. Gaston Paris is inclined to rail the poet of the Chanson de Roland an arrangeur rather than an auteur, although "he is more than an ordinary renouveleur — he has transformed the old poem." It may be noted, too, that in the Mahdbharata, the authorship is attributed to Vyasa, the 'arranger' or 'dia- skeuast.' One of the most important recent contribu- tions to the subject of epic poetry in general, as well as to the character of a particular epic poem, is Signore Comparetti's study of the Fin- nish Kalevala. The poetry of the Finns is entire- ly written in runes; the metre and style are everywhere the same, whatever be the nature of the song. Out of the entire body of the tradi- tional poems of this people, by a process of selec- tion and arrangement and by the insertion of short transitional runes, Dr. Lonnrot constructed a perfect epos; though the popular singers, the lanlajat, not only knew no such poem, but were unable to imagine one'. The first edition was published in 1835, and contained thirty-two cantos and over 12,000 lines. In the last edition of 1849 there are fifty cantos and 22,800 lines. Here, if anywhere, we have the genesis of an epic in accordance with the Wolfian and Lach- mannian theory. Lonnrot, it is true, did not merely stitch together such definitely shaped songs as those into which Lachmann resolved the Xibelungenlied and the Iliad. In working out his conception of this poem, which, as he believed, existed in fragments in the songs of the people, and which he himself was simply reeomposing. he was obliged at tjmes to divide the runes and recombine their parts, and to choose out of the innumerable variants those best fitted for his pur- pose. But in doing this without adding anything essentia] of his own invention, he imposed upon himself a restriction impossible for a genuine laulaja, ami showed herein the point of view and method of procedure, not of the poet, but of the scholar — the heir of the ages, familiar with the Homeric question and with the theory of the epos. Comparetti argues at length that, to sup- pose a Greek of the time of Pisistratus, a jon- gleur, or even the Indian Vyasa capable of work- ing in this way, is to commit a mere anachronism : that the Kalevala has in no sense that unity which is apparent in the Iliad and the Odyssey, in the Chanson d" Roland, and even in the Nibe- lungenUed; and, finally, that "a long poem, creat- ed by the people, does not exist, cannot exist ; epic popular songs, such as could be put together into a true poem, have never been seen, and are not. likely to be seen among any people. Every long poem, without exception, anonymous or not, is the work of an individual — is a work of art." Epic poetry has not been produced by all races nor by all nations. Thus, among the Servians, Russians, and Siberian Tatars, we find epic or epic-lyric songs; but they are never welded to- gether into an epos. The same i trui of the Celts, who, in both the branches "i the i the Gadhelic and the Cymric, developed an abun- dance of epic material, especially in the two great cycles of tradition, Hie Pingalian or anil-, and the Arthurian. The Anglo-Saxon /•'- - wulf is finely epic in substance, but has scarcely the breadth and complexity of a great epos. Spain, too, had her truly heroic figure the Cid, the Poland of his country. Put the ballads and the poem that sing his praises were never worked up into a great national epic. It remains to consider briefly the epics of the second class. Like those of the first, these may deal with the traditions, mythical or historical, of the nation; but. they are in every way tin- cre- ation of an individual mind, from which they receive their atmosphere and color. They stand, therefore, in sharp contrast with the wholly im- personal work of Homer, for instance, in (Greece, and the poets of the fObelungi nlied and dudrun in Germany, and of the Mahabharata and Rama- yana in India — poems which are the natural out come of a fermentation epique, as M. Gaston Paris calls it, and of which it may be truly said that the song dominates the singer rather than the singer the song. Epics of this personal char acter belong to no special period in the history of a people, and their number is still increasing. It must suffice to mention a few of these. In India the renaissance of literary activity in the fifth and sixth centuries a.d. produced those epics which,, as being the work of a single poet ( Ka ri), are called Mahakavya, or great, poems — a name already applied to their model, the Ramayana, as being composed by Valmiki. In Greece, in the centuries immediately following the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey, the so-called Cyclic poets further developed and unified the Trojan cycle of legends. In the Alexandrian period the .1 rgonautica of Apollonius Rhodius may be noted ; and in our own era between the fourth and sixth centuries, Xonnus and Musaeus have some claim to distinction. At Rome national epic poetry was early cultivated by Naevius and Ennius. and comes to its most perfect form in the Augustan age, in the JEneid of Vergil, undoubtedly one of the great epics of the world. Later we find the Pharsalia of Lucan, the Punica of Silius Italicus, the Thebais and Achilleis of Statius. In Persia FirdausI, drawing upon good historical sources, composed the Shah-THamah, or "Book of Kings" — a complete history of Persia, which was at once hailed with enthusiasm as the national epic. Among the great epics of modern times must cer- tainly be reckoned the Lusiad of Camoens, the Orlando Furiosi) of Ariosto, and the Gerusalt < liberata of Tasso, the Paradise Lost of Milton and the Messias of Klopstoek. The epic lias been written also in burlesque form, as, for instance, in the Batrachomyomachia, or "Battle of the Frogs and Mice." The animal epic should also be mentioned, best represented by Reineke Fuchs. Bibliography. Butcher. Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art (2d ed.. London, 1898); Steinthal, "Das Epos," in Zeitschrift fur Volker- psychologie, vol.v. (Berlin,1868) ; Krohn.Dii Ent stehung der einheitlichen Ep<>i (ib., lsiss) ; Bois sier, "Theories nouvelles du poeme epique," in /,'. vue des Deux Mondes, vol. lxvii. (Paris. 1867) ; Chassang and Marcon, Les chefs-d' i de tou !■ s /" uples. Notices et Analyses (Paris,