item: #1 of 10
          id: 10716
      author: Abercrombie, Lascelles
       title: The Epic An Essay
        date: None
       words: 22351
      flesch: 63
     summary: As this essay is disposed to consider epic poetry as a species of literature, and not as a department of sociology or archaeology or ethnology, the reader will not find it anything material to the discussion which may be typified in those very interesting works, Gilbert Murray's The Rise of the Greek Epic and Andrew Lang's The World of Homer. The invention of epic poetry corresponds with a definite and, in the history of the world, often recurring state of society.
    keywords: age; art; development; epic; fact; homer; life; man; material; milton; poem; poetry; poets; purpose; significance; story; subject; tasso; time; virgil; way
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        item: #2 of 10
          id: 13983
      author: Guerber, H. A. (Hélène Adeline)
       title: The Book of the Epic: The World's Great Epics Told in Story
        date: None
       words: 166477
      flesch: 66
     summary: Then Beatrice leads her charge into the fifth heaven, that of Mars, revolved by Virtues and inhabited by transfigured martyrs, confessors, and holy warriors, such as Joshua, the Maccabees, Charlemagne, Orlando, Godfrey of Bouillon, and other men of note. During the brief respite allowed them, Roland informs Oliver that he wishes to notify Charlemagne that France has been widowed of many men.
    keywords: achilles; adam; aeneas; aid; angels; armor; arthur; bade; battle; bear; bids; blood; book; brother; canto; castle; century; charlemagne; christ; cid; city; companions; court; cross; dante; daughter; day; days; dead; death; earth; end; epic; escape; eyes; face; fall; father; fight; fire; foe; forest; god; gods; golden; good; greeks; hagen; hand; head; hearing; heart; heaven; hector; hero; holy; home; husband; john; king; knight; kriemhild; lady; leave; life; like; little; long; love; magic; man; master; means; meantime; men; monster; mother; new; people; place; poem; poet; power; present; prince; queen; quest; rama; reach; red; return; robin; roland; rustem; satan; save; sea; second; set; shall; siegfried; sir; slain; son; spirit; story; sun; sword; thou; time; tree; trojans; ulysses; virgil; wainamoinen; war; way; white; wife; work; world; years
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        item: #3 of 10
          id: 14019
      author: None
       title: The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga With Introductions And Notes
        date: None
       words: 45005
      flesch: 90
     summary: Said Karl, That horn is long of breath. CLXIX See Roland there on his charger swooned, Olivier smitten with his death wound.
    keywords: arms; battle; body; conaire; count; day; death; destruction; emperor; erin; fair; fall; fer; france; franks; ganelon; god; gold; good; hair; hand; hath; head; heathen; high; hostel; house; ingcél; karl; king; long; man; marsil; men; olivier; red; rogain; roland; room; shield; slain; son; sword; thee; thou; thy; tis; unto; white; woe
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        item: #4 of 10
          id: 16506
      author: Wesley, Samuel
       title: Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry (1700) and the Essay on Heroic Poetry (second edition, 1697)
        date: None
       words: 23710
      flesch: 83
     summary: by the prodigious increase of_ Infidelity _and_ Immorality, _nor forbear crying out with some_ Vehemence, _when I am giving Warning to all honest Men to stand up in the_ Defence _of it, when it is in greater and more eminent danger than it wou'd have been formerly, if the_ Spanish Armada _had made a Descent amongst us: I don't speak of these things by distant_ Third_, or will such _Reas'nings_ pass In _Bridewel's_ rigid Court, or save the _Lash_?
    keywords: action; art; dryden; epic; fable; find; friend; genius; good; heav'n; hero; history; homer; judgment; life; nature; new; poem; poetry; rapin; reason; rules; self; sidenote; subject; tho; thoughts; time; tis; verse; virgil; wesley; words; work; world; wou'd
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        item: #5 of 10
          id: 1719
      author: Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
       title: The Ballad of the White Horse
        date: None
       words: 17697
      flesch: 85
     summary: In the island in the river He was broken to his knee: And he read, writ with an iron pen, That God had wearied of Wessex men And given their country, field and fen, To the devils of the sea. The King went gathering Wessex men, As grain out of the chaff The few that were alive to die, Laughing, as littered skulls that lie
    keywords: alfred; colan; death; earth; eyes; fell; god; gods; good; guthrum; heart; horse; king; land; man; men; sea; sky; sword; things; trees; wessex; white; world
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        item: #6 of 10
          id: 17445
      author: Pumpurs, Andrejs
       title: Bearslayer A free translation from the unrhymed Latvian into English heroic verse
        date: None
       words: 41387
      flesch: 86
     summary: Thus Spidala with wonder took good heed, To see what rider thence the path had brought, Who rode into the castle on his steed.- Aizkrauklis too from out the window sought To test of him his measure and his breed, As young Bearslayer reined within the court. Now Kangars spoke: Oh Spidala, you tell Of young Bearslayer in the pit, and show The gods protect him now and guard him well; This makes him even stronger as our foe.
    keywords: baltic; bearslayer; burtnieks; castle; daugava; day; devil; fair; father; fear; folk; gave; gods; good; hand; kangars; kaupa; koknesis; laimdota; land; latvian; life; ligo; long; man; men; night; people; perkons; place; saw; sea; ship; spidala; time; view; way; wind; words
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        item: #7 of 10
          id: 20406
      author: Ker, W. P. (William Paton)
       title: Epic and Romance: Essays on Medieval Literature
        date: None
       words: 124599
      flesch: 66
     summary: Maldon_ poem may show how such a subject could be managed in old English verse, and how the matter of _Waltharius_ may have been expressed in _Waldere_. Finnesburh_ story there is a double climax; first the wrong, then the vengeance.
    keywords: abstract; action; adventures; age; attila; author; ballad; beginning; beowulf; brother; brynhild; case; century; character; chrestien; come; day; death; difference; drama; end; english; epic; father; finnesburh; footnote; form; french; general; german; good; gudrun; gunnar; hand; helgi; heroic; hildebrand; history; homeric; house; iceland; ideas; iliad; imagination; interest; kind; king; kjartan; lay; left; life; literature; love; maldon; manner; matter; medieval; men; middle; mind; narrative; njal; old; order; original; passages; people; place; plot; poems; poetry; prose; right; roland; romance; romantic; sagas; school; sentiment; set; sigurd; simple; son; sort; spirit; stories; story; strength; sturla; style; subject; teutonic; things; thought; time; tradition; tragedy; tragic; variety; verse; waldere; way; work; world
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        item: #8 of 10
          id: 2388
      author: None
       title: The Song Celestial; Or, Bhagavad-Gîtâ (from the Mahâbhârata) Being a discourse between Arjuna, Prince of India, and the Supreme Being under the form of Krishna
        date: None
       words: 2313
      flesch: 86
     summary: Better thine own work is, though done with fault, Than doing others' work, ev'n excellently. Only that man attains Perfect surcease of work whose work was wrought With mind unfettered, soul wholly subdued, Desires for ever dead, results renounced.
    keywords: act; prince; thou; thy; work
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        item: #9 of 10
          id: 58
      author: Milton, John
       title: Paradise Regained
        date: None
       words: 16030
      flesch: 68
     summary: Yet, as being ofttimes noxious where they light 460 On man, beast, plant, wasteful and turbulent, Like turbulencies in the affairs of men, Over whose heads they roar, and seem to point, They oft fore-signify and threaten ill. Thou Spirit, who led'st this glorious Eremite Into the desert, his victorious field Against the spiritual foe, and brought'st him thence 10 By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire, As thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute, And bear through highth or depth of Nature's bounds, With prosperous wing full summed, to tell of deeds Above heroic, though in secret done, And unrecorded left through many an age: Worthy to have not remained so long unsung.
    keywords: earth; end; father; glory; god; hath; heaven; high; king; know; man; men; oft; power; saviour; son; thee; things; thou; throne; thy; time; virtue; way; world
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        item: #10 of 10
          id: 8072
      author: Rabb, Kate Milner
       title: National Epics
        date: None
       words: 133808
      flesch: 76
     summary: My loss was not through them, so their restoration does not grieve me; only that fallen man will be restored and not I. Thou deservest to grieve, tissue of lies that thou art! Charon, about whose eyes were wheels of flame, endeavored to drive the poet and his guide away as they stood among the weary and naked souls that gathered shivering on the margin of Acheron; but as a blast of wind and a burst of crimson light caused a deep sleep to fall on the poet, he was wafted across the river, and awaking he found himself in the Limbo of the Unbaptized, the first of the nine circles of hell, where were the souls of many men, women, and infants, whose only punishment was, without hope, to live on in desire.
    keywords: achilles; aeneas; aid; arms; away; battle; beowulf; blood; body; bow; brother; cid; city; count; dante; daughter; day; days; dead; death; die; divine; earth; epic; eyes; face; fair; fall; father; field; find; fire; forest; form; friend; god; gods; gold; golden; good; greeks; grief; günther; hall; hand; hath; head; heart; heaven; hector; hell; hero; heroes; high; home; king; kriemhild; lay; left; life; literature; little; lord; love; man; men; mother; night; o'er; orlando; paradise; people; place; poem; power; prince; queen; rama; return; rogero; roland; rose; satan; save; sea; set; siegfried; silver; slain; son; song; soul; story; sun; sword; thee; thou; thought; thy; time; translation; tree; troy; ulysses; vol; wainamoinen; war; way; wife; words; world; years; youth
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