Description
Book SynopsisExplores the political context and meanings of key works in Western literature. This book covers Virgilian epics of conquest and empire that take the victors' side (the "Aeneid" itself, Camoes's "Lusiadas", Tasso's "Gerusalemme liberata") and the countervailing epic of the defeated and of republican liberty.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction3Pt. 1Epic and the Winners191Epic and Empire: Versions of Actium212Repetition and Ideology in the Aeneid50Pt. 2Epic and the Losers973The Epic Curse and Camoes' Adamastor994Epics of the Defeated: The Other Tradition of Lucan, Ercilla, and d'Aubigne131Pt. 3Tasso and Milton2115Political Allegory in the Gerusalemme liberata2136Tasso, Milton, and the Boat of Romance2487Paradise Lost and the Fall of the English Commonwealth2688David's Census: Milton's Politics and Paradise Regained325Pt. 4A Modern Epilogue3419Ossian, Medieval "Epic," and Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky343Notes to the Chapters369Index427
