Mirabile Dictu covers in six separate chapters the works of Virgil, Dante, Boccaccio, Ariosto, Tasso, and Spenser. Its broad aim is to provide a select cross section of works in the Middle Ages and Renaissance in order to examine and compare for the first time the marvelous in the light of epic genre, in the light of literary and critical theory (both past and present), and in the light of historically and culturally determined representational practices.

Douglas Biow organizes this volume around the literary topos of the bleeding branch through which a metamorphosed person speaks. In each chapter the author takes this "marvelous event" as his starting point for a broad-ranging comparison of the several poets who employed the image; he also investigates the ways in which a period's notion of history underpins its representations of the marvelous.

This method offers a controlled yet flexible framework within which to develop readings that engage a multiplicity of theories and approaches.