The Heroic Age

A comparative study analyzes early Teutonic and Greek heroic poetry alongside the social and historical conditions that produced it. The author surveys Teutonic narrative traditions, their distribution, antiquity, modes of performance, and the mixture of historical, mythical, supernatural, and fictional elements they contain. He then examines Greek epic and related minstrelsy, weighing similar features despite scarcer external evidence. A concluding section identifies common characteristics across the two corpora and argues that parallels stem from analogous social conditions during corresponding heroic ages. Final chapters consider implications for society, government, religion, and the antecedent causes of those formative periods.