Among the mongrel forms of epic should be included the half descriptive,
half lyric poems which were popular among the English, dealing chiefly
with nature, the seasons of the year, etc. There belong also to this
division numerous didactic poems in which a prosaic content is dressed
up in poetic form, such as compendiums of physics, astronomy, and
medicine, and treatises on chess, fishing, hunting, and the conduct of
life. Poems of this sort were most artfully elaborated by the later
Greeks, by the Romans, and, in modern times, especially by the French.
Despite their general epic tone, they lend themselves readily to lyric
treatment.
More poetical, but still without the characteristics necessary for
definite classification, are romances and ballads. Being epic in content
but lyric in treatment, these products of the Middle Ages and of modern
times may be assigned to either class indifferently.
The case of the novel, the modern popular epic, is very different. Here
we find the same wealth and variety of interests, circumstances,
characters, and human relationships, the same world-background, and the
same handling of events, that characterize the true epic. But there is
lacking to it the primitive poetic state of the world, in which the true
epic took its rise. The novel, in the modern acceptation of the term,
presupposes a prosaically ordered reality. But working from the basis of
this reality, and moving within its own circle, the novel, both as
regards picturesqueness of incident and as regards characters and their
fate, retrieves for poetry (so far as the above presupposition permits)
her lost prerogatives.[23]
Thus it happens that the struggle between the poetry of the heart and
the opposing prose of outward circumstances is for the novel one of the
commonest and most suitable conflicts. This struggle may end comically,
or tragically, or in a reconciliation of the opposing forces. In the
last case the characters who at first oppose the ordinary world-order
may, by learning to recognize the true and abiding elements in it,
become reconciled to the existing circumstances, and take an active part
in them; or, on the other hand, they may strip off the prosaic hull from
deed and accomplishment, and thus put in the place of the original prose
a reality which is on intimate and friendly terms with beauty and art.
As far as the range of representation is concerned, the true novel, like
the epic, requires a complete world and a complete view of life, the
many-sided materials and relationships of which exhibit themselves in
the particular action that is the nucleus of the whole. As to details of
conception and development, however, the author must be allowed great
liberty, for it is difficult to bring the prose of real life into the
representation without sticking fast in the prosaic and
commonplace.--Hegel, 'Aesthetik.' 3. Thl., Kap. III. Abt. 3., S.
394-396.