If epic poetry is a definite species, the sagas do not fall within it. – Lascelles Abercrombie
But the gravest difficulty, and perhaps the most important, in poetry meant solely for recitation, is the difficulty of achieving verbal beauty, or rather of making verbal beauty tell. – Lascelles Abercrombie
The reason can only be this: heroic poetry depends on an heroic age, and an age is heroic because of what it is, not because of what it does. – Lascelles Abercrombie
But the development of human society does not go straight forward and the epic process will therefore be a recurring process, the series a recurring series – though not in exact repetition. – Lascelles Abercrombie