In the Encyclopedia of Literary Epics, Jackson not only analyzes the monumental works that are the cornerstones of the Western literary canon - from Vergil's Aeneid, the first of the great literary epics of Europe - to twentieth-century works such as Ezra Pound's The Cantos and The Bridge by Hart Crane. She also brings to light hundreds of less familiar poems from both the Western tradition and cultures around the world, including the Swahili Al-Inkishafi, which describes the passing of the Arab citadels along the East African coast, and Pablo Neruda's Canto General, which American poet Robert Bly labeled "the greatest long poem written on the American continent since Leaves of Grass."