and display this in a concrete but only ostensible subject. Then in craftsmanship, the two kinds of epic are equally deliberate, equally concerned with careful art; but "literary" epic has been able to take such advantage of the habit of reading that, with the single exception of Homer, it has achieved a diction much more answerable to the greatness of epic matter than the "authentic" poems. We may, then, in a general survey, regard epic poetry as being in all ages essentially the same kind of art, fulfilling always a similar, though constantly developing, intention. Whatever sort of society he lives in, whether he be surrounded by illiterate heroism or placid culture, the epic poet has a definite function to perform. We see him accepting, and with his genius transfiguring, the general circumstance of his time; we see him symbolizing, in some appropriate form, whatever sense of the significance of life he feels acting as the accepted unconscious metaphysic of his age. To do this, he takes some great story which has been absorbed into the prevailing consciousness of his people. As a rule, though not quite invariably, the story will be of things which are, or seem, so far back in the past, that anything may credibly happen in it; so imagination has its freedom, and so significance is displayed. But quite invariably, the materials of the story will have an unmistakable air of actuality; that is, they come profoundly out of human experience, whether they declare legendary heroism, as in Homer and Virgil, or myth, as in Beowulf and Paradise Lost, or actual history, as in Lucan and Camoens and Tasso. And he sets out this story and its significance in poetry as lofty and as elaborate as he can compass. That, roughly, is what we see the epic poets doing, whether they be "literary" or "authentic"; and if this can be agreed on, we should now have come tolerably close to a definition of epic poetry.