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Epic poetry, always associated in the mind of Western man with the two Homeric poems, the 'Iliad' and the 'Odyssey', is both reckoned as the oldest and also ranked highest of the Greek literary types (being the first listed in Aristotle's 'On the Art of Poetry', chap, 1). It is still largely through the 'Poetics', or, 'On the Art of Poetry', that the main poetic 'kinds' are distinguished through all European literatures as Tragedy and Comedy, Epic and Lyric. Aristotle's generic names are today in constant use and their original meanings must be considered in the critical judgement of much later works and also of that of later kinds unknown to Aristotle, such as the medieval verse Romance, - even if only to point the difference in their newer form and character. |
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