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
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
The Border Ballads, for instance, and the Robin Hood Ballads, clearly suppose a state of society which is nothing but a very circumscribed and not very important heroic age. – 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