im,
but are working themselves out in vital consequences; whose thought is
no longer purely speculative, but has begun to give form and shape to
laws, habits, or institutions. It is the revelation of the human
spirit in action which we find in the epic and the drama; the inward
life working itself out in material and social relations; the soul of
the man becoming, so to speak, externalised.

The epic, as illustrated in the "Iliad" and "Odyssey," deals with a
main or central movement in Greek tradition; a series of events which,
by reason of their nature and prominence, imbedded themselves in the
memory of the Greek race. These events are described in narrative
form, with episodes, incidents, and dialogues, which break the long
story and relax the strain of attention from time to time, without
interrupting the progress of the narrative. There are heroes whose
figures stand out in the long story with great distinctness, but we
are interested much more in what they do than in what they are; for in
the epic, character is subordinate to action. In the dramas of
Shakespeare, on the other hand, while action is more constantly
employed and is thrown into bolder relief, our deepest interest
centres in the actors; the action is no longer the matter of first
importance; it is significant mainly because it involves men and women
not only in the chain of external consequences, but also in the order
of spiritual sequences. We are deeply stirred by our perception of the
intimate connection between the possibilities which lie sleeping in
the individual life, and the tragic events which are set in motion
when those possibilities are realised in action. In both epic and
drama men are seen, not in their subjective moods, but in their
objective struggles; not in the detachment of the life of speculation
and imagination, but in vital association and relation with society in
its order and institutions. With many differences, both of spirit and
form, the epic and the drama are at one in portraying men in that
ultimate and decisive stage which determines individual character and
gives history its direction and significance.

And it is from men in action that much of the deepest truth concerning
life and character has come; indeed, it is not until we pass out of
the region of the speculative, the merely potential, that the word
"character" takes on that tremendous meaning with which thousands of
years of actual happenings have invested it. A