Word: epics
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Dates: during 1880-1889
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...chivalry, and the troublous times of the French revolution. The migration of the Germanic tribes brought about a great increase of race feeling; and a corresponding decrease of moral sentiment; it is a time of rapid expansion, and of unscrupulous accumulation. Out of such experiences the great epic traditions of a nation were born. These epics are not left intact. The Germans in the midst of this period adopted the Christian religion, and abandoned their own religious ideas; with the religious ideas went the poetic ideas, too. But the Icelanders preserved the old traditions better, and Professor Francke analyzed...
...papacy and the empire men as men did not exist; there was no such thing as individual liberty; a man existed only as a member of a body. And yet it was through these institutions that the nations breathed their sincerest faith and highest aspirations. The great epic of this period is the Nioelungen Leid, and it is as characteristic of this epoch as is the Elder Edda of the first...
...made by such records when taken in connection with the art remains is that of enormous power and enterprise. The politics of western Asia pass before us like a mighty panorama. The products of the imagination are partly mythical and partly legendary. The great poem known as the Izdubar epic seems to be a solar myth and contains as an episode a deluge story practically the same as in the book of Genesis. There are also tablets recording the adventures of the goddess of love, the story of creation and the wars of the god. From the religion...
...extremely difficult by the fact that there was no curtain, limited the Greek dramatists to one place. These conditions also rendered the unity of time necessary, as the events must follow in consecutive order. Aristotle remarks that this unity is only a characteristic of dramatic art, distinguishing it from epic poetry, which had no such limit...
...Semetic races seem incapable of epic or dramatic poetry. Their creations are subjective, and the poets cannot sing on subjects unconnected with themselves. It is in story telling, like that of the "Thousand and OneNights" that the epic impulses of the Semites find their scope. These tales are constantly undergoing invention and amplification at the present day. The stories themselves probably came from India through Persian translations, but they have been adapted to Arabian surroundings by numberless delicate and graceful touches...