EPIC AND HISTORY HAVE BEEN closely interwoven from the start. History provided the chronological framework in which the events of the hero's life could unfold; epic gave to history the tools and patterns for organizing and assembling a coherent narrative. This bonding presented serious challenges to later epic poets. As history continued to unfold, each successive poet had more, and more complicated, historical events to incorporate. Simply stitching on a summary of what had happened since the last precursor's work was impossible, not only because of the constraints of length and form but because historical change remorselessly altered the readers' world view. The understanding of what history was and what the forces driving change were continued to evolve. Milton, for example, could hardly have expected his readers to believe in the gods who ruled in the Aeneid.

As David Quint has shown so lucidly, the fate of epic came to depend on the fate of empire. The eighteenth century did not bode well for either. The evident decline and likely collapse of the Holy Roman Empire was an overriding concern for Goethe throughout his life, both as poet and as subject. In Faust he depicted the contemporary crisis — notably in “Auerbachs Keller” — and analyzed its causes. The diachronic analysis developed in the engagement with the system of epic, beginning with Torquato Tasso and then moving back through Ariosto and Dante to Vergil and Homer.