rtially, epic, it would be in _Gebir_.

In all these poems, we see an epic intention still combined with a
recognizably epic manner. But what is quite evident is, that in all of
them there is no attempt to carry on the development of epic, to take up
its symbolic power where Milton left it. On the contrary, this seems to
be deliberately avoided. For any tentative advance on Miltonic
significance, even for any real acceptance of it, we must go to poetry
which tries to put epic intention into a new form. Some obvious
peculiarities of epic style are sufficiently definite to be detachable.
Since Theocritus, a perverse kind of pleasure has often been obtained by
putting some of the peculiarities of epic--peculiarities really required
by a very long poem--into the compass of a very short poem. An epic
idyll cannot, of course, contain any considerable epic intention; it is
wrought out of the mere shell of epic, and avoids any semblance of epic
scope. But by devising somehow a connected sequence of idylls, something
of epic scope can be acquired again. As Hugo says, in his preface to _La
Legende des Siecles_: "Comme dans une mosaique, chaque pierre a sa
couleur et sa forme propre; l'ensemble donne une figure. La figure de ce
livre," he goes on, "c'est l'homme." To get an epic design or _figure_
through a sequence of small idylls need not be the result of mere
technical curiosity. It may be a valuable method for the future of epic.
Tennyson attempted this method in _Idylls of the King_; not, as is now
usually admitted, with any great success. The sequence is admirable for
sheer craftsmanship, for astonishing craftsmanship; but it did not
manage to effect anything like a conspicuous symbolism. You have but to
think of _Paradise Lost_ to see what _Idylls of the King_ lacks. Victor
Hugo, however, did better in _La Legende des Siecles_. "La figure, c'est
l'homme"; there, at any rate, is the intention of epic symbolism. And,
however pretentious the poem may be, it undoubtedly does make a
passionate effort to develop the significance which Milton had achieved;
chiefly to enlarge the scope of this significance.[14] Browning's _The
Ring and the Book_ also uses this notion of an idyllic sequence; but
without any semblance of epic purpose, purely for the exhibition of
human character.

It has already been remarked that the ultimate significance of great
drama is the same as that of epic. Since the vital epic purpose--the
kind of epic pur