Traditional matter must be glorified, since it would be easier to listen to the re-creation of familiar stories than to quite new and unexpected things the listeners, we must remember, needed poetry chiefly as the re-creation of tired hours. – Lascelles Abercrombie

Poetry is the work of poets, not of peoples or communities artistic creation can never be anything but the production of an individual mind. – Lascelles Abercrombie

By the general process of epic poetry, I mean the way this form of art has constantly responded to the profound needs of the society in which it was made. – Lascelles Abercrombie