Epic, Epitome, and the Early Modern Historical Imagination

Focusing on a crucial yet neglected aspect of early modern writing, this new study revaluates the great narrative poems of the English Renaissance in light of the challenges posed by a newly popular type of historical text: the printed epitome. Epitomes-texts promising to abridge or sum up the essence of their sources-took many forms, yet many shared the boast that they could provide readers with key historical knowledge without the bulk, expense, or time commitment demanded by greater volumes. Epic poets in turn included within their great narrative poems pointed allusions to such contemporary modes of historical summation, and the habits of reading that such modes of summation, for better and for worse, engendered. Pairing examples of English epic with popular epitomes ranging from John Stow's painstakingly researched chronicle summaries to pamphlets printed in the heat of civil conflict, Chloe Wheatley investigates the epitome's printed forms and cultural functions, and the impact a changing epitome culture had upon Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Abraham Cowley's Davideis, and John Milton's Paradise Lost. Clearly and elegantly written, this new study presents fresh insights into renaissance texts and contributes to our understanding of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century historical culture.