Cecil Maurice Bowra Heroic
Poetry 1952
Panorama of Heroic Poetry
by Michael Thwaites
The Age December 1952
comparative literature
Συγκριτική
Γραμματολογία
ΠΟΙΗΣΗ
ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΚΗ ΣΚΕΨΗ
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The Age, Melbourne, (Australia), Saturday,
December 13, 1952, [Literary Section, p.12]
( o τίτλος της εφημερίδος )
Από το εκδοθέν βιβλίο
( πηγή:
Internet Archives)
Cecil Maurice Bowra
“ Heroic Poetry ”
MacMillan, January 1, 1952, pp. 560.
( το
εσώφυλλο )
( αφιέρωση:
to Isaiah Berlin)
Preface
THIS book is
a development of some work which I did twenty five years ago when I was
studying the Homeric poems. It seemed to me then that many vexed questions
might be clarified by a comparative study of other poems of the same kind. This
belief was greatly strengthened when, in 1932, H. M. and N. K. Chadwick published
the first volume of their great work The
Growth of Literature. To it, and its two subsequent volumes, I owe more
than I can say, and its influence may be discerned in most parts of my book.
Though heroic poetry is only one of several subjects treated by the Chadwicks,
their analytical examination of it shows what it is in a number of countries
and establishes some of its main characteristics. This present book aims
largely at continuing the subject where they stop, first by using material
which was not available to them at the time of writing, secondly by trying to
make a closer synthesis than they attempted, and thirdly by giving attention to
many points on which they did not have time to touch. The result will, I hope,
provide a kind of anatomy of heroic poetry and show that there is a general
type which persists through many variations. The variations are of course as
important as the main type, and I have given considerable space to them. The
work is therefore one of comparative literature in the sense that by comparing
many examples and aspects of a poetical form it tries to illuminate the nature
of that form and the ways in which it works.
Where so much
material is available, I have naturally had to limit my choice from it. I have
excluded any literature which is not strictly heroic in the sense which I have
given to the word. That is why nothing is said about the old-Indian epics, in
which a truly heroic foundation is overlaid with much literary and theological
matter, or about Celtic, either Irish or Welsh, since neither presents many
examples of heroic narrative in verse, or about Persian, in which much genuine
material has been transformed by later literary poets. I have also excluded
from consideration anything written in languages unknown to me, of which I have
found no translations available. Thus the reader will find nothing about
Albanian or Buryat, though heroic poems have been published in both. For quite
different reasons I have confined my study of French heroic poetry to the Chanson de Roland and have neglected the
whole mass of other chansons de gesie.
My reason for this is partly that the Chanson
de Roland seems to me the best example of its kind, partly that a close
analysis and examination of the other texts would not only take many years but
upset the balance of this book.
The texts
which I have studied fall into three classes. First, with Greek, whether
ancient or modern, French, Spanish, German, and the Slavonic languages I have
used the original texts and usually translated them myself, though I am
grateful to help from C. K. Scott-Moncrieff's Roland, W. A. Morison's versions from the Serb, and Mrs. N. K.
Chadwick's from the Russian. Secondly, since I do not know either Anglo-Saxon
or Norse, I have used respectively the versions of C. K. Scott-Moncrieff and H.
A. Bellows, though I have not entirely confined myself to them. Thirdly, for
Asiatic texts, of which no English versions exist, I have used versions in
other languages, usually Russian, which I have translated into English. In the
exceptional case of Gilgamish I have
made my own version from the Russian of N. Gumilev and the English of R.
Campbell Thompson. In some cases, where no texts have been available, I have
used information about them from books of learning, though I have not often
done this, and then only when I have had full confidence in the trustworthiness
of the author. I fully realise that this is by no means a perfect method. It
would certainly have been better to work only with original texts in every case
and not to use translations at all. But a work of this kind would require a
knowledge of nearly thirty languages, and not only am I myself unlikely ever to
acquire such a knowledge, but I do not know of anyone interested in the subject
who has it. So I must ask indulgence for a defect which seems to be inevitable
if such a work is to be attempted at all.
I am also
conscious of other faults in handling this mass of disparate material. The
transliteration of unusual names is, I fear, too often inconsistent or
incorrect. It has been impossible to avoid a certain amount of repetition,
since the same passages illustrate different points in different contexts. The
mass of material may discourage some readers by its unfamiliarity, but I have
done my best to make it intelligible. Above all, the difficulty of getting
books from eastern Europe has prevented me from being as detailed as I should
wish on certain points.
I owe thanks
to many people for help generously given; to Mr. A. B. Lord for introducing me
to the unique collection of Jugoslav poems recorded by Milman Parry and now in
the Widener Library of Harvard University; to Mr. F. W. Deakin for the
invaluable gift of Karadzic's Srpske
Narodne Pjesme; to Professor H. T. Wade-Gery for much helpful criticism; to
Mrs. N. K. Chadwick for the generous gift of a book otherwise unobtainable; to
Professors J. E. Finley, O. Maenchen, and R. M. Dawkins, Dr. G. Katkov, Dr. J.
H. Thomas, Mr. A. Andrewes, Mr. J. B. Barnborough, Dr. J. K. Bostock, Mr. W. A.
C. H. Dobson, who have given time and trouble to helping me; and finally to
authors and publishers for leave to quote extracts from books — the American
Scandinavian Foundation, New York, for H. A. Bellows, The Poetic Edda; Mrs. N. K. Chadwick and the Cambridge University
Press for Russian Heroic Poetry; Mr.
W. A. Morison and the Cambridge University Press for The Revolt of the Serbs against the Turks; Professor W. J.
Entwistle and the Clarendon Press for European
Balladry; to the executor of the late C. K. Scott-Moncrieff and Messrs.
Chapman & Hall for The Song of Roland
and Beowulf; to Mr. Arthur Waley and
Messrs. Constable & Co., for 170
Chinese Poems; Messrs. George Allen & Unwin for The Book of Songs; and the proprietors of Botteghe Oscure for Kutune
Shirka. Finally, I owe a great debt to Miss G. Feith for compiling the
Index and to Mr. R. H. Dundas for his careful scrutiny of my proofs. For such
errors as remain I alone am responsible.
Τα Περιεχόμενα του
βιβλίου
Chapter
1
The Heroic Poem
(αποσπάσματα)
IN their
attempts to classify mankind in different types the early Greek philosophers
gave a special place to those men who live for action and for the honour which
comes from it. Such, they believed, are moved by an important element in the
human soul, the self-assertive principle, which is to be distinguished equally
from the appetites and from the reason and realises itself in brave doings.
They held that the life of action is superior to the pursuit of profit or the gratification
of the senses, that the man who seeks honour is himself an honourable figure;
and when Pythagoras likened human beings to the different types to be seen at
the Olympic Games, he paid the lovers of honour the compliment of comparing
them with the competing athletes. The Greeks of the sixth and fifth centuries
B.C. regarded the men whom Homer had called heroes — ήρωες
— as a generation of superior beings who sought and deserved honour. They
believed that Greek history had contained a heroic age, when the dominant type
was of this kind, and they could point to the testimony of Hesiod, who, in his
analysis of the ages of humanity, places between the ages of bronze and of iron
an age of heroes who fought at Thebes and at Troy :
Again on the bountiful earth by heaven was sent
A worthier race ; on righteous deeds they were bent,
Divine, heroic — as demigods they are known,
And the boundless earth had their race before our own.
Some of them met grim war and its battle-fates :
In the land of Kadmos at Thebes with seven gates
They fought for Oedipus' flocks disastrously,
Or were drawn to cross the gulf of mighty sea
For sake of Helen tossing her beautiful hair,
And death was the sudden shroud that wrapped them
there.
(Hesiod, Works
and Days, 156-65. )
/ - p. 1
Archaeology
and legend suggest that Hesiod was not entirely at fault and that there was
once such a time as he outlines. It left memories and traces in Greek epic
poetry, and the later Greeks looked back to it with delighted admiration. Homer
makes no attempt to conceal its superiority to his own time [IL. i, 272 ; v,
304 ; xii, 383, 449 ; xx, 287. ], and even the critical Heraclitus concedes
that such an existence is impressive in its pursuit of honour : for "they
choose one thing above all others, immortal glory among mortals" [Fr. 29,
Diels]. It is significant that even in the fourth century B.C. Aristotle
regarded honour not only as "the prize appointed for the noblest
deeds" but as "the greatest of external goods" [Nic. Eth. 11233
20.]. In Greece the conception of the heroic life began early and lasted long,
and from it, more than from anything else, our own conceptions of heroes and
heroism are derived.
The Greeks,
however, were not alone in their respect for a superior class of men who lived
for honour. The chevalier of
mediaeval French epic is in every way as heroic as a Greek hero, and acts from
similar motives. To the same family belong the Spanish caballero, the Anglo-Saxon cempa,
the Russian bogatyr, the Old German held, the Norse jarl, the Tatar batyr,
the Serb yunak, the Albanian trim, and the Uzbek pavlan.
Sometimes
heroic qualities are attributed to a special class of persons who exist
otherwise in their own right. For instance, the Jugoslavs regard with peculiar
respect the haiduks, who led the
revolt against the Turks in 1804-13; the modern Greeks have since the sixteenth
century celebrated the klephts of
Epirus, who may have been, as their name suggests, no better than brigands, but
were also national champions against the Turks; the Ossetes of the Caucasus
have a large number of stories, often shared with the Chechens and the
Cherkesses, about the Narts, who
belong to an undated past and have no known origin but are regarded as heroes
beyond comparison; the Ukrainians devote much attention to the Cossacks and their long struggles
against the Turks, until the name of cossack, kozak, has become a synonym for a great warrior; in not dissimilar
conditions the Bulgars attribute many virtues to enterprising brigands called yunatsi.
/ - p. 2
The
conception of the hero and of heroic prowess is widely spread, and despite its
different settings and manifestations shows the same main characteristics,
which agree with what the Greeks say of their heroes. An age which believes in
the pursuit of honour will naturally wish to express its admiration in a poetry
of action and adventure, of bold endeavours and noble examples. Heroic poetry
still exists in many parts of the world and has existed in many others, because
it answers a real need of the human spirit.
This poetry
may be divided into two classes, ancient and modern. To the first belong those
poems which have by some whim of chance survived from the past. Such are the
Greek Iliad and Odyssey, the Asiatic Gilgamish,
preserved fragmentarily in Old Babylonian, Hittite, Assyrian, and New
Babylonian, the remains of the Canaanite (Ugaritic) Aqhat and Keret, the Old
German Hildebrand, the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf, Maldon, Brunanburh and
fragments of Finnsburh and Waldhere, the Norse poems of the Elder Edda and other pieces, some French
epics of which the most remarkable is the Song
of Roland, and the Spanish Poema del
Cid and fragments of other poems. The last hundred and fifty years have
added a large second class of modern heroic poems, taken down from living
bards. In Europe, the art is still flourishing, or was till recently, in
Russia, especially in remote regions like Lake Onega and the White Sea; in
Jugoslavia, both among Christians and Mohammedans; in Bulgaria; in the Ukraine;
in Greece; in Esthonia; in Albania. In Asia, it is to be found in the Caucasus
among the Armenians and the Ossetes; in the Caspian basin among the Kalmucks;
among some Turkic peoples, notably the Uzbeks of what was once Bactria, and the
Kara-Kirghiz of the Tien-Shan mountains; among the Yakuts of the river Lena in
northern Siberia; the Achins of western Sumatra; the Ainus of the northern
Japanese island of Hokkaido, and some tribes of the Arabian peninsula. In
Africa it seems to be much less common, but there are traces of it in the
Sudan. This list is by no means complete and could easily be increased. There
are, no doubt, also regions in which the art exists but has not been recorded
by European scholars. There are equally other regions where it once existed but
has passed out of currency before the impact of new ideas and ways of life.
None the less, the present evidence shows that it is widely spread and that,
wherever it occurs, it follows certain easily observed rules. It is therefore a
fit subject for study, though any such study must take as much notice of
variations as of underlying principles.
/ - p. 3
This poetry
is inspired by the belief that the honour which men pay to some of their
fellows is owed to a real superiority in natural endowments. But of course it
is not enough for a man to possess superior qualities; he must realise them in
action. In the ordeals of the heroic life his full worth is tested and
revealed. It is not even necessary that he should be rewarded by success: the
hero who dies in battle after doing his utmost is in some ways more admirable
than he who lives. In either case he is honoured because he has made a final
effort in courage and endurance, and no more can be asked of him. He gives
dignity to the human race by showing of what feats it is capable; he extends
the bounds of experience for others and enhances their appreciation of life by
the example of his abundant vitality. However much ordinary men feel themselves
to fall short of such an ideal, they none the less respect it because it opens
up possibilities of adventure and excitement and glory which appeal even to the
most modest and most humble. The admiration for great doings lies deep in the
human heart, and comforts and cheers even when it does not stir to emulation.
Heroes are the champions of man's ambition to pass beyond the oppressive limits
of human frailty to a fuller and more vivid life, to win as far as possible a self-sufficient
manhood, which refuses to admit that anything is too difficult for it, and is
content even in failure, provided that it has made every effort of which it is
capable. Since the ideal of action appeals to a vast number of men and opens
new chapters of enthralling experience, it becomes matter for poetry of a
special kind.
Heroic poetry
is essentially narrative and is nearly always remarkable for its objective
character. It creates its own world of the imagination in which men act on
easily understood principles, and, though it celebrates great doings because of
their greatness, it does so not overtly by praise but indirectly by making them
speak for themselves and appeal to us in their own right. It wins interest and
admiration for its heroes by showing what they are and what they do. This
degree of independence and objectivity is due to the pleasure which most men
take in a well told tale and their dislike of having it spoiled by moralising
or instruction. Indeed heroic poetry is far from unique in this respect. It has
much in common with other kinds of narrative, whether in prose or in verse,
whose main purpose is to tell a story in an agreeable and absorbing way.
What
differentiates heroic poetry is largely its outlook. It works in conditions
determined by special conceptions of manhood and honour. It cannot exist unless
men believe that human beings are in themselves sufficient objects of interest
and that their chief claim is the pursuit of honour through risk. Since these
assumptions are not to be found in all countries at all times, heroic poetry
does not flourish everywhere. It presupposes a view of existence in which man
plays a central part and exerts his powers in a distinctive way. Thus, although
it bears many resemblances to other primitive narrative poetry, it is not the
same and may well be a development from it.
/ - p. 4
There is a
narrative poetry which tells for their own sake stories which are not in any
real sense heroic. With this, heroic poetry has so much in common that it is
impossible to make an absolute distinction between the two kinds. The
differences are of quality and degree, but they are none the less fundamental.
In certain parts of the world there is still a flourishing art of telling tales
in verse, often at considerable length, about the marvellous doings of men.
What counts in them is precisely this element of the marvellous. It is far more
important than any heroic or even human qualities which may have an incidental
part. This art embodies not a heroic outlook, which admires man for doing his
utmost with his actual, human gifts, but a more primitive outlook which admires
any attempt to pass beyond man's proper state by magical, non-human means. In
different ways this poetry exists among the Finns, the Altai and Abakan Tatars,
the Khalka Mongols, the Tibetans, and the Sea Dyaks of Borneo. It presupposes a
view of the world in which man is not the centre of creation but caught between
many unseen powers and influences, and his special interest lies in his supposed
ability to master these and then to do what cannot be done by the exercise of
specifically human gifts. In such societies the great man is not he who makes
the most of his natural qualities but he who is somehow able to enlist
supernatural powers on his behalf. Of course even the most obviously heroic
heroes in Homer and Beowulf, still more in the less sophisticated poetry of the
Kara-Kirghiz or the Uzbeks or the Ossetes or the Kalmucks or the Yakuts, may at
times do something of the kind, but it is usually exceptional, and their
ability to do it is not their first claim. In more primitive societies this is
what really matters, and it presupposes a different view of manhood and of its
possibilities and place in the universe.
/ - p. 5
The difference between shamanistic poetry
and heroic poetry proper may be illustrated by a comparison between two
examples, in each of which both elements exist but in degrees so different that
we can confidently call one shamanistic and the other heroic. The Tibetan poems
about King Kesar of Ling are concerned with a great warrior, who may have a
historical origin, and is regarded as all that a hero should be. He has indeed
many heroic qualities. His portentous birth and boyhood, his destruction of his
enemies, his strength and wealth and intelligence, his wars and victories make
him look like a hero, but in fact his success comes almost entirely by magic.
He is able not only to assume whatever shape he likes, whether human or animal,
but to create phantoms which look like living men and frighten his foes into surrender.
In every crisis he uses magic, and his real place is not with human beings,
since he is the incarnation of a god and helped by four divine spirits who
succour him in every need. On the other hand the Yakut poems have on the
surface many magical elements. Sometimes the heroes themselves are actually
shamans; they are usually able to perform magical acts. But when it comes to
war, they rely not on magic but on strength of arm, and that makes all the
difference. In the last resort the Yakut poems are heroic and the Tibetan are
shamanistic because they presuppose different views of human worth and
capacity. In the poems about Kesar what counts is his supernatural power, but
in the Yakut poems the main interest is in physical and mental capacity, which
may indeed be unusual but is still recognisably human. The difference between
shamanistic and heroic poetry is largely one of emphasis, but no poem can be
regarded as truly heroic unless the major successes of the hero are achieved by
more or less human means.
/ - p 7-8.
[ Panegyrics and Laments ]
Panegyrics and laments resemble heroic
poetry in their taste for the nobler human qualities. The great man wins a
victory in battle or the games; he is a famous huntsman, a father of his
people, a generous host, a loyal friend, notable alike for courage and wisdom.
In such poems honour is assumed to be the right end of life, and a man wins it
through great achievements. Both panegyric and lament celebrate an individual's
fame at some special crisis, and in so doing endorse a heroic outlook.
Panegyric honours the great man in his
presence for something that he has done and is usually composed soon after the
event. For instance, one of the oldest relics of Hebrew poetry, the Song of
Deborah, composed about 1200 B.C., breathes a heroic spirit in its joy over the
rout of a formidable enemy. Though it tells its story with brilliant realism
and a fine sense of adventure, it remains a panegyric. If Deborah and Barak
really sang it, and it is quite possible that they did, their proclaimed
purpose was to praise Jael, the slayer of Sisera :
Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Hebcr the
Kenite be,
Blessed shall she be above all women in the tent.
Panegyrics of
this kind are widely spread over the world. They exist not merely among peoples
who have a heroic poetry, like the Greeks, the Germanic and Slavonic peoples,
the Asiatic Tatars, and some peoples of the Caucasus, but among others who seem
never to have had such a poetry, like the Polynesians, the Zulus, the
Abyssinians, the Tuareg, and the Galla. Panegyric does not often attain any
length and certainly does not compare in scale with long heroic poems. It
represents an outlook which is close to the heroic, but it lacks the
independence and objectivity of a heroic poem.
/ - p. 9.
Lament is closely allied to panegyric in
that it dwells on a great man's achievements, though it does so with sorrow and
regret after his death.
The lament reflects the spirit of a heroic
society not with dramatic objectivity but with personal intimacy. It shows what
men feel when their lives are touched by loss. The poet is too close to the
actual event to present it with the artistic detachment of heroic narrative.
None the less
the resemblances between panegyric or lament and heroic poetry are so close
that there must be a relation between them. Historical priority probably
belongs to panegyric and lament, not merely because they are simpler and less
objective, but because they exist in some societies where heroic poetry is
lacking. The reasons for this lack are several. First, it may be simply an
inability to rise beyond a single occasion to the conception of a detached art.
This may be the case with some African peoples, who delight to honour
victorious achievements but address their poems to single real persons and
compose especially for them.
/ - p. 10
The full
fruit of heroic poetry is of course to be found in the Homeric poems, but there
are indications that they were preceded by poetry of a different kind. The
Greeks attributed their first poetry to Musaeus and Orpheus. They may never
have existed, and certainly nothing of their work survives, but the legends
about them reveal an early view of a poet's nature and functions. In the first
place, he was a magician. Both Herodotus and Plato [Rep. 364; Prot, 3i6d ] attribute
magical powers to Musaeus, and Euripides does to Orpheus [Alc. 968, Cycl. 646.].
In the second place the early poet possessed a very special knowledge, not
merely of all things on earth but of the past and the future as well. The words
which Homer uses of the prophet Calchas, that "he knew what is and what
will be and what was before" [IL.
i, 70 ], are applied in a slightly different form by Hesiod to himself when he
tells how the Muses appeared to him on Mount Helicon and gave him the gift of
song [Theogony, 32.]. If Hesiod claims the powers of a prophet or magician, he
shows his affinity not merely to Musaeus and Orpheus but to modern shamans who
claim a knowledge no less extensive.
/ - p. 19
Greek legend records that there was once a
contest between the seers, Calchas and Mopsos, about the number of figs on a
tree, in which Mopsos won [Hesiod, fr. 16]. This shamanistic element seems to
lurk in the background of Greek poetry, and though there is no trace of it in
Homer, it makes an appearance later with Aristeas of Proconnesus, who was said
to be able to survey the whole earth by freeing his soul from his body [Maximus
Tyrius, x, 3]. The Greeks, with their love of fact and reason, disowned the old
magical claims, but they lay somewhere in the background and were connected by
tradition with their first poetry.
On the other hand the Greeks also had
panegyrics and laments and shared the outlook which these represent. Both may
be found in Homer.
When Achilles kills Hector, he turns to his
followers and says :
" Now let us lift up a song of triumph, young
men, Achaeans,
Unto our hollow ships let us go and take him with us
there.
Great is the fame we have won ; we have killed great
Hector,
the god-like,
Unto whom, as a god, the Trojans prayed in their
city."
[ IL. xxii,
391-4.]
This is a simple panegyric, which the hero,
not entirely out of character, sings with his companions to his own honour. So
too when Thetis hears of Patroclus' death, she leads the lamentation and her
Nereids join in it [IL, xviii, 50-5].
Again, when Patroclus' body is brought to him, Achilles laments in a similar
way [IL. xviii, 315]; and when Hector's body is brought back to Troy, the
Trojan women lament him [IL, xxiv, 720-22.].
Homer knew both panegyrics and laments, and
adapted them skilfully to his heroic poem. Of course he is far from any
shamanistic claims or practice, but his forerunners who fashioned the mighty
measures of Greek heroic poetry may at some early date have found that the
respect for human achievement which is reflected in panegyrics and laments
opened up new prospects for narrative, and so abandoned the old magical
associations.
Heroic poetry
lives side by side with panegyric and lament and fulfils its own different
function. While they are intended primarily for special persons and special
occasions, it is intended for public gatherings and may be performed whenever
it is asked for. But there is inevitably some interaction between the two
kinds. The same style and metres may be used indiscriminately in both ; the
heroic outlook and sometimes heroic themes pass from one to the other. The
result is that each influences the other, and it is not always easy to decide
to which kind some poems belong.
/ - p 20.
A similar
interaction between heroic poetry and lament can be seen in the Greek Death of
the Emperor Constantine Dragazis, which must have been composed soon after the
capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 and laments both the fall of the
city and the death in battle of the last Byzantine Emperor. That it is really a
lament is clear from the opening lines :
O Christian men of East and West, make oh make
lamentation, Bewail and shed your tears upon the greatness of this ruin.
Having begun
like this, it becomes factual and objective. It gives the exact date of the
capture, Thursday, May 29th, 1453, and then describes how the conquerors tear
down images, break crosses, ride on horseback into churches, kill priests, and
rape virgins. This too is perhaps suitable for a lament. But from this the poet
passes to what is very like heroic narrative, and tells of the death of the
emperor :
And when Constantine Dragazis, king of Constantinople,
Heard news of what had come to pass, of hard and heavy
matters,
He made lament, was red with grief, could find no
consolation.
His lance he took up in his hand, his sword he girt
around him,
And then he mounted on his mare, his mare with the
white fetlocks, And struck with blows the impious dogs, the Turks, the sons of
Hagar.
Sixty janissaries he killed, he also killed ten
pashas,
But his sword was broken in his hand, and his great
lance was
shattered ;
Alone, alone he waited there, and no one came to help
him ;
He lifted up his eyes towards heaven and spoke a
prayer :
" O God and Lord omnipotent, who hast the world
created,
Take pity on Thy people and take pity on this city !
"
Then a Turk struck him heavily, upon his head he
struck him,
And from his charger to the ground fell Constantine
the luckless, And on the ground he lay outstretched, with blood and dust upon
him.
From his body they cut the head, and on a pike they
fixed it,
And underneath a laurel-tree made burial for his body.
[Legrand, p. 75 ff. For
other versions of the same story cf. Garratt, p. 278 IT. ; Passow, no. cxciv.]
The poem begins like a
lament and ends like a heroic lay, but, if it must be classified, it is
undeniably a lament.
/ - p. 21
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Cecil Maurice Bowra Heroic Poetry 1952
Panorama of Heroic Poetry
by Michael Thwaites
The Age December 1952
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