Culture through Action.
It is an interesting fact that the four men who have been accepted as
the greatest writers who have yet appeared, used either the epic or
the dramatic form. It can hardly have been accidental that Homer and
Dante gave their greatest work the epic form, and that Shakespeare and
Goethe were in their most fortunate moments dramatists. There must
have been some reason in the nature of things for this choice of two
literary forms which, differing widely in other respects, have this in
common, that they represent life in action. They are very largely
objective; they portray events, conditions, and deeds which have
passed beyond the stage of thought and have involved the thinker in
the actual historical world of vital relationships and dramatic
sequence. The lyric poet may sing, if it pleases him, like a bird in
the recesses of a garden, far from the noise and dust of the highway
and the clamour of men in the competitions of trade and work; but the
epic or dramatic poet must find his theme and his inspiration in the
stir and movement of men in social relations.
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