volume surveys the epic tradition from the eighth century BC to the nineteenth century of our era. Individual chapters focus on: Homer and the oral epic tradition; Homer in his religious context; Herodotus and Homer; Hellenistic epic; Virgil in his literary context; Virgil in his political-cultural context; the Augustan poets and the Aeneid; Statius' Thebaid; Old English and Old Irish epic; Renaissance epic: Tasso and Milton; and the Victorians. The aim of the book is to situate writers of epic in their literary and cultural contexts--an enterprise captured in the term "interaction" in the title. The chapters singly offer insights into some of the foundational poems of the European epic tradition and together take a bold, holistic look at that tradition.

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