The revived interest in balladry character istic of the romantic movement in the late 18th century led to the writing of various modern adaptations and imitations, of which one of the most famous is the German poet Burger's bal lad of 'Lenore,' which was translated by Wal ter Scott. Wordsworth and Coleridge also adapted the ballad form to two different types of narrative verse found in their volume of 'Lyrical Ballads' (1798),— types represented respectively by Coleridge's 'Ancient Mariner' and Wordsworth's (Lucy Gray.' Finally, one must note the distinction between these ballads which in one way or another hark back to the old folk poetry and the so-called ballad which is characteristic of the age of printing, and was abundantly produced, in doggerel verse, in the 16th and 17th centuries; these compositions, which are usually destitute of literary value, are sometimes called "broadside ballads," from the most common form of their printing.
The This type may be viewed as an elaboration of the ballad, developing similar material more formally and at greater length, and representing a state of society more highly organized, socially and politically. Frequently a definite racial or national spirit underlies the epic, its subject, as Hegel expressed it, being some action which °includes the whole lite of a nation and the history of an epoch.° Like the primitive ballad, the primitive epic belongs to the period of oral transmission, but is associated with recitation rather than song, and with the art of professional entertainers, such as the German stop and the French jongleur. In some of the more elaborate ballads, notably the expanded ballad called 'A Gest of Robin Hood,' one may see something of the transition to epic elaboration and individual art-composi tion; and certainly when we reach the full epic form, though it is still representative of com munal material and interests, we recognize the skill of highly developed individual workman ship, giving unity and form to great masses of material. It is customary to distinguish between the folk-epic, based originally on ballad tradi tion, and showing comparatively little of the spirit of the individual artist, and the art epic, consciously and imitatively developed by a poet of a literary age. Of the former the conven tional example is the Greek 'Iliad) of Homer, dealing with the hero Achilles and the Trojan War; of the latter, the Roman (2Eneid) of Vir gil. But the distinction cannot be maintained with accuracy, since there is indefinite gradation from the communal to the individual method. Thus the Greek 'Odyssey,' on the wanderings of Ulysses, which is traditionally attributed to the same poet as the shows far less of the national and communal, and more of the in dividual, spirit. Other epics of the more or less primitive type are the of India, based on the mythologic legends of the Hindu people,. the German stories of the 'Nibelungen' and 'Gudrun,' dating from the 13th century; the French chansons de genie, or heroic songs, abundant in the 1 lth and 12th centuries, of which the chief is the of Roland'; the Spanish 'Poem of the Cid,' of the 12th century; and the old English in its present form dating from the beginning of the 8th cen tury, but representing an earlier period and Scandinavian rather than English matter. The old Norse lays of the 'Elder Edda' approximate epic form, but in unity and elaboration the prose 'Saga of the Volsungs' is nearest, for the Scan dinavians, to the true epic. Epics half way, in a sense, between the primitive and the sophisti cated type, are the Indian (Ramayana,) the Per sian 'Shah-Nameh' (made by the court poet Firdausi from primitive epic material), and the Finnish 'Kalevala' (compiled by the modern philologist Lonnrot). To the same hybrid class belong the partly compiled, partly composed Celtic °epics* of James Macpherson, (Fingal) and (Temora) (1762-63), based on more or less genuine materials from the Scottish Highlands, attributed to a traditional bard named Ossian.
The imitative or art epic has been well rep resented in every literature which came under the influence of the classical tradition. For Greece itself there was a considerable number of these poems, commonly called the °epic cycle,' whose authors undertook to complete the epic treatment of national material left un touched by Homer; and, in the Alexandrian age, the of ApoHollins of Rhodes. For Rome, as we have seen, the great example is the ']Enid,' which remains the most successful reproduction by art of the spirit of the folk epic; for Virgil celebrated a theme of national significance at the moment when the national life of the Romans was at its height. Later Roman epics were the (Phar of Lucan and the of Statius. In the medieval period the epic form, like all literary forms, was turned to the service of the Church, and there was a considerable produc tion of Christian epics, beginning with the (Historia Evangelica' of Juvencus, in the 4th century. Highly characteristic, too, of this era are narrative poems of allegorical or symbolic type, having something of the dignity and elaboration of the epic but without its usual themes or methods; one may note examples as different as the great 'Divine Comedy' of Dante and the English poem of Tiers Plow man.' The Renaissance was followed by vari ous experiments in formal epic, such as the of Camoens in Spain (1572) and Tasso's (Gerusallenune liberata' (1581) in Italy. In the 18th century Voltaire attempted to revive the glory of the form in his 'Hen riade' (1723). In Germany the most notable modern epic is Klopstock's biblical (1773): there is also a 19th century version of the Nit,cluugcn epic by Wilhelm Jordan. In England the Renaissance poets were rather less interested in the epic than tlio:,( of the Conti nent, though Spenser doubtles regarded the allegorical narrative of his q.a.ery Queen& (1590-96) as in the epic tradition; and the same thing is true of historical poems like Warner's 'Albion's England' (1586), Daniel's of the Civil Wars' (1595), and Drayton's (Mortimeriados) or 'Barons' (1596, 1598). It was reserved for Milton to make the only really vital application to English poetry of the old epic method, in his Paradise Lost' (1667), a work dealing with the supreme con flict of the whole human race instead of a spe cial branch of it. Cowley had already pro duced a biblical epic in the (1656), and Davenant an historic epic in the 'Gondi bert' (1651),— both highly praised in their time, but now considered unreadable. Equally lacking in vitality were the English epics of the 18th century, such as Blackmore's (1723) ; Glover's 'Leonidas' (1737), and Wil kie's 'Epigoniad) (1757) ; on the other hand the taste of this age for the epic form found expression in Pope's famous translation of Ho mer. In the early 19th century the epic method was revived by Southey in a series designed to represent the great religions of the world: 'Thalaba,' 'Madoc,' 'The Curse of Kehama,) and (Roderick) (1801-14). The taste of the modern period, however, turned very definitely either to romance or realism, both of which found expression in Byron's great satiric-ro mantic-realistic epic of 'Don Juan' (1819-24). Something of the old epic method was again revived by Tennyson for his rather mysteri ously termed 'Idylls of the King) (1859-85), and— with far more regard for the primitive tradition — by William Morris in 'Sigurd the Volsung' (1876). But the finest example in modern poetry of classical epic style is found it. the episodical and Rustum' of Matthew Arnold (1853),— a version of a brief portion of the Persian (Shah-Nameh.> Once more, at the opening of the 20th century, a vig orous effort has been made to revive the na tional epic, in the (Drake> of Alfred Noyes.