The Epic - Analysis

Introduction and general impression

The poem records a quiet, intimate evening that shifts mood from convivial wassail to reflective melancholy. The tone moves from playful and social to ironic and elegiac as the conversation turns to lost traditions and a poet’s failed epic. There is gentle humor but an undercurrent of disappointment about decline—of Christmas rites, of faith, and of poetic ambition.

Relevant context and authorial stance

Although no detailed historical context is required here, the setting—Christmas-eve company, references to church commissioners, Geology, and schism—places the poem in a Victorian moment of cultural and intellectual change. The speakers express worries about loss of faith and tradition that mirror wider nineteenth-century anxieties about modernity and secularizing knowledge.

Main themes: decline, art, and communal memory

The poem develops a theme of decline—of Christmas customs (“how all the old honour had from Christmas gone”), of religious anchor (“the general decay of faith”), and of poetic greatness. A second theme is the uncertain value of art and ambition: Everard’s epic is burned as worthless despite former collegiate fame (“He burnt / His epic, his King Arthur”), suggesting the poet’s self-doubt or changing standards. Finally, communal memory appears through the wassail scene and Francis’s hoarding of a book as a keepsake, showing how small objects and gatherings preserve continuity.

Imagery and recurring symbols

Vivid images carry symbolic weight. The wassail-bowl and the “sacred bush” symbolize festive tradition and communal ritual. The ice and the speaker’s slipping into “three several stars” conjure fragility and accidental beauty—a fleeting spectacle that parallels the ephemeral nature of old honours. The burnt epic functions as a potent image of creative self-erasure: fire both destroys and purifies, and Francis’s salvaged eleventh book as a “sugar-plum” turns loss into a private relic, hinting at nostalgia and selective preservation.

Tone shifts and narrative voice

The narrative voice is conversational and observant, moving from amused reportage to sympathetic irony. The parson’s sermonizing about faith introduces a sober register, while Everard’s self-deprecation about his “faint Homeric echoes” adds wounded honesty. The final image of the poet reading “mouthing out his hollow oes and aes” leaves an aural impression of emptiness—music without substance—reinforcing the theme of diminished cultural authority.

Conclusion: significance and open question

The poem casts a small social scene as a lens on broader cultural loss: rituals fade, faith weakens, and artistic grandiosity can collapse into self-scrutiny. Its quiet, precise images—ice, fire, wassail—make the abstract idea of decline palpable. One might ask whether the poem mourns the past itself or the community’s inability to reinvent meaning for a changed world.