In looking back upon the course of our previous consideration of
the other arts, we find that we reviewed the different stages of
the art of _building_ throughout in their historical development as
successively in symbolic, classic, and romantic architecture. In the
case of sculpture, on the contrary, we accepted the Greek type, by
virtue of its complete identity with the notion of this _classic_
art, as the real focal centre, from which we proceeded to develop
the specific characteristics of importance, so that here we did not
find it necessary to extend so far as in the previous case the range
of our historical survey. This contrast is further illustrated in
our treatment of the _romantic_ art-character of painting, which,
however,[29] not merely in respect to the fundamental notion of its
content, but also in that of the mode of its presentation, embraces
an equally wide and important range of development in different
nations and through different schools, so that in this case it was
necessary to make our reference to history more extensive and varied.
The nature of the art of music invited us to historical comparisons of
the same kind. Inasmuch, however, as I have neither obtained access
to the foreign literature dealing with the history of this art, nor
can claim personally to possess the adequate knowledge, I have been
forced to restrict myself to the mere outlines of what is required
incidentally. With regard to our immediate subject, that is, _epic_
poetry, the course of our enquiry will be very much that followed in
the case of sculpture. In other words, though the mode of exposition
branches off in several direct or collateral divisions, and embraces
many historical periods and peoples, yet we have already recognized in
the Epos of Greek literature the genuine type of it in its consummate
form and most artistic mode of realization. And the reason of this
is that in general the Epos possesses the closest affinity with the
plastic of sculpture and its objective presence; and, not merely in
respect to its substantive content, but equally so in the form of its
presentation as that of phenomenal reality. It is therefore by no means
simply an accident that we find epic poetry, no less than the art of
sculpture, assert itself pre-eminently among the Greeks in its original
and unsurpassed perfection. Stages of development, no doubt, are to be
met with on either side of this culminating point, stages which are
neither intrinsically subordinate or insignificant, but are necessary
conditions of the art's growth, inasmuch as all nations are essentially
within the sphere of poetic creation, and it is above all the Epos
which brings before us the heart and core of the national life. And
for this reason, the historical development of the Epic is of greater
importance than was the case with sculpture.
We may then classify the entire compass of epic poetry, or, to express
ourselves more accurately, of the Epopaea, in three fundamental stages;
and these, speaking generally, constitute the course of the art's
evolution.
_Firsts_ we have the Oriental Epos, which makes the symbolic type its
focal centre.
_Secondly_, there is the classical Epos of the Greeks, with its
imitation in Roman authors.
_Finally,_ we have the abundant and many-sided unfolding of
epic-romantic poetry among Christian peoples; which, however, in
the first instance appears in Teutonic paganism; and again, from
another point of view, that is quite apart from what we may style the
chivalrous poetry of the Middle Ages, we find the old classic world
active in another province of life as instrumental to the purification
of literary taste or style, or still more directly utilized as a model,
until finally the modern romance replaces the Epos altogether.
We may now proceed to some review of single epic compositions: in this
it will only be possible to emphasize what is of most importance; and,
generally speaking, I can only pretend to give a rapid outline of this
field in the space at my disposal.
(_a_) In the case of Oriental peoples the art of poetry is, as we have
already observed, generally of a more primitive type, inasmuch as it
remains more closely related to what we may style the essential[30]
mode of envisagement, and the diffusion of the individual consciousness
in the sublime Unity of the _One._ And because of this, as a further
aspect, and relatively to the specific divisions of poetic composition,
it is unable to work out individual personality in the self-subsistency
of determinate characterization, with its aims and collisions, an
elaboration which is of first importance in the composition of genuine
dramatic poetry. The most essential result therefore we meet with here
is limited--if we exclude from attention an endearing, sweet-scented,
and delicate type of lyric, or one that uplifts itself to the one
unutterable God--to poems, which are to be counted of the epic mould.
Nevertheless it is only among the Hindoos and the Persians that we come
across the genuine Epopaea; but here at least we do meet it in colossal
proportions.
(_α_) The Chinese, on the contrary, possess no national Epos. The
prosaic basis of their imaginative vision, which even to the earliest
origins of history offers the jejune form of a prosaically organized
historical reality, opposes from the first to this the most noble
type of epic composition an insuperable obstruction. The religious
conceptions of this people, little adapted as they are to artistic
configuration, contribute to the same result. We find, however, at a
later date and as some compensation, for their elaboration is most
profuse, little narratives, and romances spun out to great length,
which astound us by the vividness in which situations are realized,
the accuracy with which private and public relations are depicted,
the variety, fine breeding, or rather I should say frequently the
fascinating tenderness they display, more particularly in their female
characters, and in short by the art in every respect which succeeds in
making works so consummate.
(_β_) A world of great contrast to the above presents itself in the
Hindoo Epopaea. We find already in the most primitive compositions,
if we may form an opinion from the little made known to the general
public up to the present time from the Veda, most fruitful germs for
a mythology fitted to epic exposition; and these, associated with the
heroic exploits of men many centuries before Christ--for chronological
accuracy is still impossible--are elaborated into genuine Epopaea,
works, however, which are still composed in part from the wholly
religious point of view, and in part from that of unfettered poetry and
art. Pre-eminently do the two most famous of these poems, namely the
Ramajana and the Maha-Bharata, place before us the entire world-outlook
of the Hindoo race in all its splendour and glory, its confusion,
fantastical absurdity and dissolution, and withal, from the reverse
point of view, in the exuberant loveliness and the here and there fine
traits of heart and emotion, which characterize the profuse vegetation
of its spiritual growth. Mythical exploits of men are expanded into the
actions of incarnate gods, whose deed hovers vaguely between the divine
and human nature, and the determinate outlines of personality and
exploit are dissolved in an infinitude of extension. The substantive
bases of the whole are of a type such as our Western world-outlook,
assuming that it does not choose to surrender the higher claims of
freedom and morality, is neither able to find itself truly at home
in or to sympathize with. The unity of the particular parts is of an
extremely unstable kind; and layers upon layers of episodical matter,
consisting of tales of the gods, narratives of ascetic penances, and
the powers they create, tediously long expositions of philosophical
doctrines and systems, so entirely impair the collective unity that we
are forced to regard many of them as later accretions. But, however
this may be, the spirit from which these stupendous poems have
originated bears constant witness to an imagination, which is not only
anterior to all prosaic culture, but as a rule is wholly incompatible
with the faculty of ordinary common sense, and is capable in fact of
endowing the fundamental tendencies of this national consciousness, in
its essentially unique and collective conception of the universe, with
an original artistic form. The later Epics, on the contrary, which are
called _Puranas_, in the more restricted sense of the term, that is,
poems of the Past, appear rather to be compiled in the prosaic and dull
style similar to that adopted by post-Homeric cyclic poets, and pursue
their downward course at great length from the creation of the gods and
the universe to the genealogies of human heroes and princes. Finally
the epic care of the old myths dissolves into vapour and artificial
elegance of a purely external poetic form and diction, while on the
one hand the phantasy, which exhausted itself in a dreamy wonderland,
becomes the wisdom of fables whose most important function is to
instruct us in morality and worldly wisdom.
(_γ_) We may compare side by side in a _third_ division of epic
Oriental poetry that respectively belonging to Hebrews, Arabs, and
Persians.
(_αα_) The sublimity of the Jewish imagination no doubt in its
conception of the Creation, in the histories of the Patriarchs, the
wandering in the wilderness, _the_ conquest of Canaan, and in the
further historical course of national event, full as such a vision
is of sterling content and natural truth, possesses many elements
of primitive epic poetry; the religious interest is here, however,
so predominant, that, instead of being genuine Epopaea, they merely
approximate either to religious myths in the guise of poetry, or to
religious narratives which are wholly didactic.
(_ββ_) The Arabs have always possessed a poetic nature, and from very
early days we find genuine poets among them. Even their heroic songs
of lyric narrative, styled the moallakat, which in part originate in
the century immediately previous to Mahomet, depict either with a few
bold and detached strokes and vehement ostentation, or at other times
with more tranquil self-possession, or a melting softness, the original
conditions of the still pagan Arabs. Here we find the honour of the
clan, the passion of revenge, the rights of hospitality, love, delight
in adventure, benevolence, sorrow, and yearning, in undiminished
strength, and in traits which remind us of the romantic character of
Spanish chivalry. Here, too, we meet with in the East for the first
time a real poetry, without fantastic elements, or prose, without
mythology, without gods, demons, fairies, genii, and everything else of
the kind common to the East, but rather with solid and self-sufficient
characters and, however unique and marvellous in the play of its images
and similes, yet for all that humanly real and self-contained. We have
the vision of a similar pagan world also set before us by a later age
in the collected poems of Hamasa, as also in the not yet edited "Divans
of the Hudsilites." After the extensive and successful conquests of the
Mohammedan Arabs this primitive heroic character gradually disappears;
and, in the course of the centuries, the province of Epic poetry is
replaced in part by the instructive fable and the witty proverb, in
part by the fairy-like narratives, of which the "Thousand and One
Nights" is an example, or in those tales of adventures which Rückert,
through a translation which reproduces for us the equally witty and
artistically elaborate Macamen of the Hariri in their metre, rhymes,
and articulate meaning, has unveiled in a manner deserving thoughtful
attention.
(_γγ_) In some contrast to this the efflorescence of Persian
poetry falls in the period of that reconstructed culture effected
by the change of language and nationality under the influence of
Mohammedanism. We, however, come across, in the very first opening of
this lonely springtime, an epic poem which, at least in its material,
takes us back to the remotest Past of ancient Persian saga and myth,
and carries forward its narrative through the heroic age right down
to the last days of the Sussanides. This comprehensive work is the
Shahnameh of Firdusi, the son of the gardener of Tus, a work the
origins of which are traceable to the Bastanameh.[31] We are, however,
unable to call even this poem a genuine Epopaea, because it does not
make any specific and individual line of action its focal centre. On
account of the lapse of centuries we lose our hold of the costume
appropriate to an age or a locality, and in particular the most ancient
mythical figures and gloomy intricate traditions hover in a world of
the phantasy, among the indefinite outlines of which we are often at a
loss to know whether we are face to face with persons or entire clans;
and then again we are often suddenly confronted with really historical
characters. As a Mohammedan the poet was no doubt able to handle his
subject-matter more freely; but it is just in this type of freedom
that we fail to meet with the stability in definite characterization,
as it was present in the design of the primitive heroic songs; and, on
account of the great gulf which separates him from that long-buried
world of saga, the freshness and breath of its immediate life vanish,
though absolutely necessary to the national Epos.
In its further course the epic art of the Persians expands into
Love-epopees of excessive softness and sweetness, as an author of which
Risami is pre-eminently distinguished. It further makes use of its
rich stores of life-experience in the interest of the teacher. In this
sphere the far-travelled Saadi was master. Finally, it plunges into
that pantheistic Mysticism, which Dschelaleddin Rumi recommends and
teaches in tales and legendary narrative.