Chapter II
The Teutonic Epic
I
The Tragic Conception
| Early German poetry | 65 |
| One of the first things certain about it is that it knew the meaning of tragic situations | 66 |
| The Death of Ermanaric in Jordanes | 66 |
| The story of Alboin in Paulus Diaconus | 66 |
| Tragic plots in the extant poems | 69 |
| The Death of Ermanaric in the "Poetic Edda" (Hamðismál) | 70 |
| Some of the Northern poems show the tragic conception modified by romantic motives, yet without loss of the tragic purport—Helgi and Sigrun | 72 |
| Similar harmony of motives in the Waking of Angantyr | 73 |
| Whatever may be wanting, the heroic poetry had no want of tragic plots—the "fables" are sound | 74 |
| Value of the abstract plot (Aristotle) | 74 |