Although the Renaissance epic was the principal literary means of representing war in its time, modern readers of the epic often lack a basic understanding of the history of warfare. Many students of literature are reluctant to delve too deeply into war and military narratives, while students of the history of warfare are often unaware of the epic's historical importance.

Michael Murrin here offers the first analysis to bring an understanding of both the history of literature and the history of warfare to the study of the epic.

Analyzing English, Italian, and Iberian epics published between 1483 and 1610, Murrin focuses on particular aspects of warfare (cavalry clashes, old and new style sieges, the tactical use of the gun, naval warfare) and the responses to them by authors from Malory and Boiardo in the late fifteenth century to Milton in the middle seventeenth. Throughout, Murrin traces a parallel development in the art of war and in the epic as it emerged from the romance.

As heroic poetry became more and more historical, the involvement in the details of military practice grew. At the same time, poets took as their subjects not just wars which happened in the remote past but recent and finally contemporary fighting.

While the poets were trying to represent battles and skirmishes more realistically, however, the art of war was changing fundamentally, as heavy cavalry lost its importance, the medieval knight gave way to the modern officer, and the gun altered the way one fought.