"Matthew Leporati examines the explosive Romantic revival of epic alongside the contemporary revival of missionary activity. His study contributes to charged political debates around British imperialism. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details"--

Matthew Leporati is Associate Professor of English at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in New York City, where he serves as Writing Specialist. His research interests include British Romanticism, epic poetry, religion and literature, and mindfulness and writing pedagogy. His essays and reviews have appeared in Romanticism, Studies in Romanticism, The CEA Critic, The CEA Forum, Humanities, Modern Language Studies, and European Romantic Review. His chapter on teaching satire in the writing classroom appeared in Isn't It Ironic? Irony in Contemporary Popular Culture (2021). In 2022, Matthew won the Bege Bowers Prize for Best Essay in The CEA Forum for his essay on using William Blake to teach the interrelation of image and text in contemporary communication, including especially the use of emoji.

Introduction: invoking the Epic poem; 1. Epic conversions; 2. The revival of the missionary enterprise; 3. Heroes of conquest and conversion; 4. Ann Yearsley's 'Brutus' as evangelical Epic poem; 5. 'Authority from heaven': anxieties of the mission of empire in Robert Southey's Madoc; 6. 'A particular favourite of heaven': Olaudah Equiano as hybrid Epic hero; 7. 'Mark well my words! they are of your eternal salvation': William Blake's Milton as missionary against empire; 8. Epic evangelism in the prelude and Don Juan; An epilogue in media Res: fragmentation past and future; Appendix I: The missionary: a poem by Thomas Williams (1795); Appendix II: The mission (1796) by Thomas Beck; Bibliography.