This project examines the representation of translation in Renaissance epic. Focusing on texts from Virgil to Milton, the book analyzes passages that figure translation in material terms, and it argues that these passages reveal evidence of a counter-strain of Renaissance humanist thought. While traditional humanist theory sees linguistic and philological study as tools that enable communication between the past and present, the epic writers covered in this book suggest a bleaker view in which true translation is ultimately possible. The book traces this examined tradition of intellectual thought about translation through individual chapters on Virgil, Ariosto, Spenser, Marlowe, Harington, Villagra, Milton, and Behn.