legend seem to
have only just missed the final shaping which turns epic material into
epic poetry. For epic material, it must be repeated, is not the same
thing as epic poetry. Epic material is fragmentary, scattered, loosely
related, sometimes contradictory, each piece of comparatively small
size, with no intention beyond hearty narrative. It is a heap of
excellent stones, admirably quarried out of a great rock-face of
stubborn experience. But for this to be worked into some great
structure of epic poetry, the Heroic Age must be capable of producing
individuality of much profounder nature than any of its fighting
champions. Or rather, we should simply say that the production of epic
poetry depends on the occurrence (always an accidental occurrence) of
creative genius. It is quite likely that what Homer had to work on was
nothing superior to the Arthurian legends. But Homer occurred; and the
tales of Troy and Odysseus became incomparable poetry.

An epic is not made by piecing together a set of heroic lays, adjusting
their discrepancies and making them into a continuous narrative. An epic
is not even a re-creation of old things; it is altogether a new
creation, a new creation in terms of old things. And what else is any
other poetry? The epic poet has behind him a tradition of matter and a
tradition of style; and that is what every other poet has behind him
too; only, for the epic poet, tradition is rather narrower, rather more
strictly compelling. This must not be lost sight of. It is what the
poet does with the tradition he falls in which is, artistically, the
important thing. He takes a mass of confused splendours, and he makes
them into something which they certainly were not before; something
which, as we can clearly see by comparing epic poetry with mere epic
material, the latter scarce hinted at. He makes this heap of matter into
a grand design; he forces it to obey a single presiding unity of
artistic purpose. Obviously, something much more potent is required for
this than a fine skill in narrative and poetic ornament. Unity is not
merely an external affair. There is only one thing which can master the
perplexed stuff of epic material into unity; and that is, an ability to
see in particular human experience some significant symbolism of man's
general destiny.

It is natural that, after the epic poet has arrived, the crude epic
material in which he worked should scarcely be heard of. It could only
be handed on