"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"
About this Quote
Epic sprawl is easy; epic meaning is rare. Abercrombie’s line is a quiet rebuke to the idea that you can assemble greatness by piling up battles, gods, journeys, and genealogy. “Perplexed stuff” is the tell: epic material arrives as a gorgeous mess, a warehouse of episodes that can just as easily read like pageantry as purpose. What “masters” it into unity isn’t technique in the narrow sense, but a kind of interpretive vision: the poet’s capacity to recognize, inside a stubbornly local and bodily human experience, a symbol that points beyond itself.
The intent here is almost anti-bombastic. Abercrombie is writing from the early 20th-century moment when old forms were being questioned and modernity was shredding inherited narratives of progress and providence. In that context, epic can’t simply be “about” national glory or cosmic order; it needs a principle of coherence that survives disbelief. His solution is not abstraction but compression: the universal must be earned through the particular.
The subtext also polices the poet’s ego. “Significant symbolism” isn’t decorative allegory; it’s an ethical demand that the writer not confuse personal obsession with shared fate. Epic unity comes from a disciplined empathy: the ability to treat one life, one choice, one wound as a lens on “man’s general destiny.” The phrase is grand, even slightly Victorian, but the mechanism is modern: meaning emerges when experience is framed so it resonates across scale, turning narrative accumulation into inevitability.
The intent here is almost anti-bombastic. Abercrombie is writing from the early 20th-century moment when old forms were being questioned and modernity was shredding inherited narratives of progress and providence. In that context, epic can’t simply be “about” national glory or cosmic order; it needs a principle of coherence that survives disbelief. His solution is not abstraction but compression: the universal must be earned through the particular.
The subtext also polices the poet’s ego. “Significant symbolism” isn’t decorative allegory; it’s an ethical demand that the writer not confuse personal obsession with shared fate. Epic unity comes from a disciplined empathy: the ability to treat one life, one choice, one wound as a lens on “man’s general destiny.” The phrase is grand, even slightly Victorian, but the mechanism is modern: meaning emerges when experience is framed so it resonates across scale, turning narrative accumulation into inevitability.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
|---|
More Quotes by Lascelles
Add to List
