engaging with
the highest species of his art: the perusal of the Greek tragedians
had given rise to some late translations;[29] the perusal of Homer
seems now to have suggested the idea of an epic poem. The hero whom he
first contemplated was Gustavus Adolphus; he afterwards changed to
Frederick the Great of Prussia.

[Footnote 29: These were a fine version, of Euripides'
_Iphigenia in Aulide_, and a few scenes of his _Phoenissae_.]

Epic poems, since the time of the _Epigoniad_, and _Leonidas_, and
especially since that of some more recent attempts, have with us
become a mighty dull affair. That Schiller aimed at something
infinitely higher than these faint and superannuated imitations, far
higher than even Klopstock has attained, will appear by the following
extract from one of his letters:

'An epic poem in the eighteenth century should be quite a different
thing from such a poem in the childhood of the world. And it is that
very circumstance which attracts me so much towards this project. Our
manners, the finest essence of our philosophies, our politics,
economy, arts, in short, of all we know and do, would require to be
introduced without constraint, and interwoven in such a composition,
to live there in beautiful harmonious freedom, as all the branches of
Greek culture live and are made visible in Homer's _Iliad_. Nor am I
disinclined to invent a species of machinery for this purpose; being
anxious to fulfil, with hairsbreadth accuracy, all the requisitions
that are made of epic poets, even on the side of form. Besides, this
machinery, which, in a subject so modern, in an age so prosaic,
appears to present the greatest difficulty, might exalt the interest
in a high degree, were it suitably adapted to this same modern spirit.
Crowds of confused ideas on this matter are rolling to and fro within
my head; something distinct will come out of them at last.

'As for the sort of metre I would choose, this I think you will hardly
guess: no other than _ottave rime_. All the rest, except iambic, are
become insufferable to me. And how beautifully might the earnest and
the lofty be made to play in these light fetters! What attractions
might the epic _substance_ gain by the soft yielding _form_ of this
fine rhyme! For, the poem must, not in name only, but in very deed, be
capable of being _sung_; as the _Iliad_ was sung by the peasants of
Greece, as the stanzas of _Jerusalem Delivered_ are still sung by the
Veneti