Epic and Empire: Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to Milton by David Quint
Published 1993 · 444 pages · 120,000 words · about 10 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism
How hard is Epic and Empire: Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to Milton to read?
Epic and Empire: Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to Milton scores 64 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 67 out of 100
- Academic literary-critical vocabulary with occasional Latin and Italian quotation.
- Sentence structure: 63 out of 100
- Abstraction: 72 out of 100
- Abstract political and generic argument sustained through close textual reading.
- Information density: 78 out of 100
- Dense with textual analysis, historical context, and theoretical argument.
- Narrative indirection: 15 out of 100
- Direct scholarly argument; the subject is narrative but the method is analytical.
- Symbolic density: 12 out of 100
- Analytical register throughout.
- Ironic distance: 15 out of 100
- Measured academic tone with occasional critical wit.
- Resolution withholding: 15 out of 100
- The argument reaches firm conclusions about generic politics.
- Structural complexity: 45 out of 100
- Organized by poet with overarching theoretical argument threading all chapters.
How Epic and Empire: Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to Milton is regarded
Epic and Empire: Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to Milton holds a literary regard score of 84 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.