"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"
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Abercrombie is quietly pushing back against the romantic fantasy of the poet as pure originator. Even the epic poet, that supposedly monumental architect of nations and gods, is less a lone genius than a craftsperson working inside inherited materials. “Tradition of matter” signals the expected subject-kit: war, founding myths, heroism, divine machinery, public fate. “Tradition of style” names the formal toolkit: elevated diction, stock scenes, set-piece speeches, catalogues, a pace and grandeur that feel pre-approved. Epic isn’t just big; it’s bound.
The bite is in the calibration: every poet has tradition “behind him,” but for the epic poet it’s “narrower” and “more strictly compelling.” Epic, in other words, is the genre where deviation reads not as innovation but as disqualification. Lyric poets can fracture form, reinvent the speaking voice, make a private crisis sound like a new music; epic poets are tasked with sounding like “epic” before they can sound like themselves. The constraints are cultural as much as aesthetic. Epic historically functions as public infrastructure, a society’s self-mythologizing in verse, so the audience arrives with a checklist of what counts.
Written in the early 20th century, Abercrombie is also speaking from a moment when modernism is detonating old forms, while “epic” is becoming both an aspiration and a problem. His point isn’t nostalgia for rules; it’s a diagnosis of genre pressure: the bigger the cultural job you claim for a poem, the less freedom you have to invent the terms on which it speaks.
The bite is in the calibration: every poet has tradition “behind him,” but for the epic poet it’s “narrower” and “more strictly compelling.” Epic, in other words, is the genre where deviation reads not as innovation but as disqualification. Lyric poets can fracture form, reinvent the speaking voice, make a private crisis sound like a new music; epic poets are tasked with sounding like “epic” before they can sound like themselves. The constraints are cultural as much as aesthetic. Epic historically functions as public infrastructure, a society’s self-mythologizing in verse, so the audience arrives with a checklist of what counts.
Written in the early 20th century, Abercrombie is also speaking from a moment when modernism is detonating old forms, while “epic” is becoming both an aspiration and a problem. His point isn’t nostalgia for rules; it’s a diagnosis of genre pressure: the bigger the cultural job you claim for a poem, the less freedom you have to invent the terms on which it speaks.
Quote Details
| Topic | Poetry |
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