(_ββ_) The essentially new manifestations in the religious belief and actual composition of modern life originate in the principle of the Reformation. The whole tendency of this general change of outlook is, indeed, rather favourable to lyric and dramatic, than epic poetry. But we do find nevertheless, even in the latter sphere, an autumnal blossoming of the religious Epopaea, of which the pre-eminent examples are Milton's "Paradise Lost" and Klopstock's "Messias." In breadth of culture, gained through study of the ancients, and the correct elegance of his language, Milton is no doubt an admirable master of his age. In the profundity of his content, in energy, original invention and execution, and, above all, in the epic objectivity of his presentment, however, he is in every respect inferior to Dante. For not only does the conflict and the catastrophe of "Paradise Lost" take a direction which is contrary to its dramatic character; but, as I have above incidentally observed, it is, in a unique way, supported by a lyrical impulse and ethical or didactic predilections, which lie far enough away from the subject in its original form.[35] I have already, in discussing Klopstock, referred to a similar cleft between the material and the form, which a particular age gives to it in its epic reflection. In the case of Klopstock, moreover, an endeavour is throughout apparent through a rhetoric, which is little more than the caricature of the Sublime, to infuse the reader with that recognition of the worth and solemnity of his subject, which the poet has himself experienced. From a somewhat different point of view we arrive at very much the same conclusion in the case of Voltaire's "Henriade." At any rate here too the poetry is an artificial production, and all the more so, inasmuch as the material, as already observed, is not adapted to the truly primitive Epos. (_γγ_) If we try to discover really epic compositions in our own day we shall find ourselves in an atmosphere totally different from that of the genuine Epopaea. The general condition of the world to-day has assumed a form, which, in its prosaic character, is diametrically opposed to everything which we found indispensable to the genuine Epos, while the revolutions, which have been imposed upon the actual social conditions of states and nations, are still too strongly riveted in our memory as actual experiences that they should be able to receive an epic type of art. Epic poetry has consequently taken refuge from the great national events in the narrow circle of the domestic life of individuals in the country and in the small town, striving to find here the material adapted to epic composition. In this way, more particularly among us Germans, the Epic has become idyllic, after the genuine Idyll, of the sweet sentimentality and wishy-washy type, died out.