Liberal Epic

In Liberal Epic, Edward Adams examines the liberalimagination's centuries-long dependence on contradictory, and mutually constitutive,attitudes toward violent domination. Adams centers his ambitious analysis on a series of major epicpoems, histories, and historical novels, including Dryden's Aeneid,Pope's Iliad, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the RomanEmpire, Byron's Don Juan, Scott's Life ofNapoleon, Napier's History of the War in the Peninsula,Macaulay's History of England, Hardy's Dynasts,and Churchill's military histories-works that rank among the most important publishingevents of the past three centuries yet that have seldom received critical attention relative totheir importance. In recovering these neglected works and gathering them together as part of aself-conscious literary tradition here defined as liberal epic, Adams provides an archaeologythat sheds light on contemporary issues such as the relation of liberalism to war, the tactics forsanitizing heroism, and the appeal of violence to supposedly humane readers.Victorian Literature and Culture Series