By the time we arrive at the nineteenth century, there exists an epic tradition constituted generally by the classical and Renaissance epics, but more particularly emblematised by Milton's Paradise Lost. The epics of the nineteenth century, beginning with the Romantic age, acknowledge this epic influence in one way or another. But these epics are also implicitly indebted to another tradition, represented more explicitly by Fielding and the Cervantine comic epic tradition, with its interest in matters of selfhood and self-development.