In Liberal Epic, Edward Adams examines the liberal
imagination's centuries-long dependence on contradictory, and mutually constitutive,
attitudes toward violent domination. Adams centers his ambitious analysis on a series of major epic
poems, histories, and historical novels, including Dryden's Aeneid,
Pope's Iliad, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire, Byron's Don Juan, Scott's Life of
Napoleon, 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 publishing
events of the past three centuries yet that have seldom received critical attention relative to
their importance. In recovering these neglected works and gathering them together as part of a
self-conscious literary tradition here defined as liberal epic, Adams provides an archaeology
that sheds light on contemporary issues such as the relation of liberalism to war, the tactics for
sanitizing heroism, and the appeal of violence to supposedly humane readers.
Victorian Literature and Culture Series