| Torquato Tasso | |
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| Occupation | Poet, Novelist, Author |
| Genres | Historical novel |
Influences | |
Torquato Tasso (March 11, 1544 – April 25, 1595) was an Italian poet of the 16th century, best known for his poem La Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered) (1580), in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the siege of Jerusalem. Employment is a Contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. A literary genre is a category of literary composition Genres may be determined by Literary technique, tone, Content, or even (as in the case of fiction Francesco Petrarca ( July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374) known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar Events 1425 BC - Thutmose III, Pharaoh of Egypt, dies (according to the Low Chronology of the 18th Dynasty Events 1607 - Eighty Years' War: The Dutch fleet destroys the anchored Spanish fleet at Gibraltar. Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest A poet is a person who writes Poetry. Etymology From the Ancient greek: ποιέω, poieō: "I make or compose" Jerusalem Delivered ( La Gerusalemme liberata) (first published 1581 is an Epic poem by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso which tells A Muslim (مسلم pronounced Muslim, not Muzlim) is an adherent of the Religion The First Crusade was launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II with the dual goals of conquering the sacred city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land and freeing The Siege of Jerusalem took place from June 7 to July 15, 1099 during the First Crusade.
Contents |
Biography
Early life
Born in Sorrento, he was the son of Bernardo Tasso, a nobleman of Bergamo, and his wife Porzia de Rossi. Sorrento is a small city in Campania, Italy, with some 16500 inhabitants Bernardo Tasso ( November 11, 1493 &ndash September 5, 1569) born in Bergamo, was an Italian Courtier and Bergamo ( Bèrghem in Lombard, antiquated Wälsch-Bergen in German) is a town in Lombardy, Italy, about
His father had for many years been secretary in the service of Ferrante Sanseverino, prince of Salerno, and his mother was closely connected with the most illustrious Neapolitan families. Ferdinando (Ferrante Sanseverino, prince of Salerno ( January 18 1507 - 1572 was an Italian Condottiero. Naples ( Napoli, Neapolitan: Nàpule) is a historic City in southern Italy, the Capital of the The prince of Salerno came into collision with the Spanish government of Naples, was outlawed, and was deprived of his hereditary fiefs. Tasso's father shared in this disaster of his patron. He was proclaimed a rebel to the state, together with his son Torquato, and his patrimony was sequestered. These things happened during the boy's childhood. In 1552 he was living with his mother and his only sister Cornelia at Naples, pursuing his education under the Jesuits, who had recently opened a school there. The Society of Jesus ( Latin: Societas Iesu, SJ and SI or SJ, SI) is a Catholic religious order The precocity of intellect and the religious fervour of the boy attracted general admiration. At the age of eight he was already famous.
Soon after this date he joined his father, who then resided in great poverty, an exile and without occupation, in Rome. Rome ( Roma ˈroma Roma is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city with more than 2 News reached them in 1556 that Porzia Tasso had died suddenly and mysteriously at Naples. Her husband was firmly convinced that she had been poisoned by her brother with the object of getting control over her property. As it subsequently happened, Porzia's estate never descended to her son; and the daughter Cornelia married below her birth, at the instigation of her maternal relatives. Tasso's father was a poet by predilection and a professional courtier. Therefore, when an opening at the court of Urbino was offered in 1557, Bernardo Tasso gladly accepted it. Urbino is a walled city in the Marche region in Italy, south-west of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical The young Torquato, a handsome and brilliant lad, became the companion in sports and studies of Francesco Maria della Rovere, heir to the duke of Urbino. At Urbino a society of cultivated men pursued the aesthetical and literary studies which were then in vogue. Bernardo Tasso read cantos of his Amadigi to the duchess and her ladies, or discussed the merits of Homer and Virgil, Trissino and Ariosto, with the duke's librarians and secretaries. Amadigi di Gaula is an opera with music by George Frideric Handel. Homer ( Ancient Greek:, Homēros) is a legendary ancient Greek epic Poet, traditionally said to be the author of the epic poems the Publius Vergilius Maro ( October 15, 70 BCE &ndash September 21, 19 BCE later called Virgilius, and known in English as Virgil or Gian Giorgio Trissino ( July 8, 1478 - December 8, 1550) was an Italian Renaissance humanist, poet dramatist Torquato grew up in an atmosphere of refined luxury and somewhat pedantic criticism, both of which gave a permanent tone to his character.
At Venice, where his father went to superintend the printing of the Amadigi (1560), these influences continued. Venice ( Italian: Venezia, Venetian: Venesia or Venexia) is a city in Northern Italy, the capital of the He found himself the pet and prodigy of a distinguished literary circle. But Bernardo had suffered in his own career so seriously from dependence on the Muses and the nobility that he now determined on a lucrative profession for his son. Torquato was sent to study law at Padua. Padua ( Padova 'padova Latin: Patavium, Padoa) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy. Instead of applying himself to law, the young man bestowed all his attention upon philosophy and poetry. Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language Before the end of 1562, he had produced a narrative poem called Rinaldo, which was meant to combine the regularity of the Virgilian with the attractions of the romantic epic. An epic is a lengthy Narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation In the attainment of this object, and in all the minor qualities of style and handling, Rinaldo showed such marked originality that its author was proclaimed the most promising poet of his time. The flattered father allowed it to be printed; and, after a short period of study at Bologna, he consented to his sons entering the service of Cardinal Luigi d'Este. Bologna (boloɲa from Latin Bononia, Bulåggna in Bolognese dialect is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy
France and Ferrara
In 1565, Tasso for the first time set foot in that castle at Ferrara which was destined for him to be the scene of so many glories, and such cruel sufferings. Ferrara is a city in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. After the publication of Rinaldo he had expressed his views upon the epic in some Discourses on the Art of Poetry, which committed him to a distinct theory and gained for him the additional celebrity of a philosophical critic. The age was nothing if not critical; but it may be esteemed a misfortune for the future author of the Gerusalemme that he should have started with pronounced opinions upon art. Essentially a poet of impulse and instinct, he was hampered in production by his own rules.
The five years between 1565 and 1570 seem to have been the happiest of Tasso's life, although his father's death in 1569 caused his affectionate nature profound pain. Young, handsome, accomplished in all the exercises of a well-bred gentleman, accustomed to the society of the great and learned, illustrious by his published works in verse and prose, he became the idol of the most brilliant court in Italy. The princesses Lucrezia and Leonora d'Este, both unmarried, both his seniors by about ten years, took him under their protection. He was admitted to their familiarity. He owed much to the constant kindness of both sisters. In 1570 he travelled to Paris with the cardinal. Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city
Frankness of speech and a certain habitual want of tact caused a disagreement with his worldly patron. He left France next year, and took service under Duke Alfonso II of Ferrara. Alfonso II d'Este ( November 22, 1533 - October 27 1597) was Duke of Ferrara from 1559 to 1597 The most important events in Tasso's biography during the following four years are the publication of Aminta in 1573 and the completion of Gerusalemme Liberata in 1574. Aminta is a play written by Torquato Tasso in 1573, represented during a garden party at the court of Ferrara. Jerusalem Delivered ( La Gerusalemme liberata) (first published 1581 is an Epic poem by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso which tells Aminta is a pastoral drama of very simple plot, but of exquisite lyrical charm. It appeared at the moment when music, under Palestrina's impulse, was becoming the main art of Italy. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (between 3 February 1525 and 2 February 1526 - 2 February 1594 was an Italian Composer of the Renaissance. The honeyed melodies and sensuous melancholy of Aminta exactly suited and interpreted the spirit of its age. Its influence, in opera and cantata, was felt through two successive centuries. Opera is an art form in which Singers and Musicians perform a Dramatic work (called an opera which combines a text (called a Libretto A cantata (derived from the Italian word 'cantare' meaning 'to sing' is a vocal composition with an instrumental Accompaniment and often
The Gerusalemme Liberata
The Gerusalemme Liberata occupies a larger space in the history of European literature, and is a more considerable work. Jerusalem Delivered ( La Gerusalemme liberata) (first published 1581 is an Epic poem by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso which tells Yet the commanding qualities of this epic poem, those which revealed Tasso's individuality, and which made it immediately pass into the rank of classics, beloved by the people no less than by persons of culture, are akin to the lyrical graces of Aminta. Aminta is a play written by Torquato Tasso in 1573, represented during a garden party at the court of Ferrara. It was finished in Tasso's thirty-first year; and when the manuscripts lay before him the best part of his life was over, his best work had been already accomplished. Troubles immediately began to gather round him. Instead of having the courage to obey his own instinct, and to publish the Gerusalemme as he had conceived it, he yielded to the critical scrupulosity which formed a secondary feature of his character. The poem was sent in manuscript to several literary men of eminence, Tasso expressing his willingness to hear their strictures and to adopt their suggestions unless he could convert them to his own views. The result was that each of these candid friends, while expressing in general high admiration for the epic, took some exception to its plot, its title, its moral tone, its episodes or its diction, in detail. One wished it to be more regularly classical; another wanted more romance. One hinted that the inquisition would not tolerate its supernatural machinery; another demanded the excision of its most charming passages, the loves of Armida, Clorinda and Erminia. Tasso had to defend himself against all these ineptitudes and pedantries, and to accommodate his practice to the theories he had rashly expressed.
As in the Rinaldo, so also in the Jerusalem Delivered, he aimed at ennobling the Italian epic style by preserving strict unity of plot and heightening poetic diction. He chose Virgil for his model, took the first crusade for subject, infused the fervour of religion into his conception of the hero Godfrey. The First Crusade was launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II with the dual goals of conquering the sacred city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land and freeing But his natural bias was for romance. In spite of the poet's ingenuity and industry the stately main theme evinced less spontaneity of genius than the romantic episodes with which he adorned it, as he had done in Rinaldo. Godfrey, a mixture of pious Aeneas and Tridentine Catholicism, is not the real hero of the Gerusalemme. This article is about the Roman hero For other uses see Aeneas (disambiguation. Fiery and passionate Rinaldo, Ruggiero, melancholy impulsive Tancredi, and the chivalrous Saracens with whom they clash in love and war, divide our interest and divert it from Goffredo. Saracen was a term used by Europeans in the Middle Ages for Fatimids at first then later for all who professed the religion of Islam. The action of the epic turns on Armida, the beautiful witch, sent forth by the infernal senate to sow discord in the Christian camp. Armida is a beautiful enchantress in Torquato Tasso 's Jerusalem Delivered, who bewitched Rinaldo one of the Crusaders by her charms as Circe She is converted to the true faith by her adoration for a crusading knight, and quits the scene with a phrase of the Virgin Mary on her lips. Brave Clorinda, dons armour like Marfisa, fighting in a duel with her devoted lover and receiving baptism from his hands at the time of her pathetic death; Erminia seeks refuge in the shepherds' hut. Marfisa is a character in the Italian romantic epics Orlando innamorato by Matteo Maria Boiardo and Orlando furioso by These lovely pagan women, so touching in their sorrows, so romantic in their adventures, so tender in their emotions, rivet our attention, while we skip the battles, religious ceremonies, conclaves and stratagems of the campaign. The truth is that Tasso's great invention as an artist was the poetry of sentiment. Sentiment, not sentimentality, gives value to what is immortal in the Gerusalemme. It was a new thing in the 16th century, something concordant with a growing feeling for woman and with the ascendant art of music. This sentiment, refined, noble, natural, steeped in melancholy, exquisitely graceful, pathetically touching, breathes throughout the episodes of the Gerusalemme, finds metrical expression in the languishing cadence of its mellifluous verse, and sustains the ideal life of those seductive heroines whose names were familiar as household words to all Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. In Poetry, the meter or metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse. As a means of recording the passage of Time, the 17th Century was that Century which lasted from 1601 - 1700 in the Gregorian calendar The 18th century lasted from 1701 to 1800 in the Gregorian calendar, in accordance with the Anno Domini / Common Era numbering system
Tasso's self-chosen critics were not men to admit what the public has since accepted as incontrovertible. They vaguely felt that a great and beautiful romantic poem was imbedded in a dull and not very correct epic. In their uneasiness they suggested every course but the right one, which was to publish the Gerusalemme without further dispute. Tasso, already overworked by his precocious studies, by exciting court-life and exhausting literary industry, now grew almost mad with worry. His health began to fail him. He complained of headache, suffered from malarious fevers, and wished to leave Ferrara. Malaria is a vector -borne Infectious disease caused by Protozoan Parasites It is widespread in tropical and subtropical regions including The Gerusalemme was laid in manuscript upon a shelf. He opened negotiations with the court of Florence for an exchange of service. Florence ( Italian: Firenze Florentia and Fiorenza) is the Capital City of the Italian region of Tuscany This irritated the duke of Ferrara. Alfonso hated nothing more than to see courtiers leave him for a rival duchy.
Difficult relationships in the Court of Ferrara
Alfonso thought, moreover, that, if Tasso were allowed to go, the Medici would get the coveted dedication of that already famous epic. Therefore he bore with the poet's humours, and so contrived that the latter should have no excuse for quitting Ferrara. Meanwhile, through the years 1575, 1576 and 1577, Tasso's health grew worse. Jealousy inspired the courtiers to malign and insult him. His irritable and suspicious temper, vain and sensitive to slights, rendered him only too easy a prey to their malevolence. He became the subject of delusions, thought that his servants betrayed his confidence, fancied he had been denounced to the Inquisition, expected daily to be poisoned. The term Inquisition can refer to any one of several institutions charged with trying and convicting heretics within the Roman Catholic Church and In the autumn of 1576 he quarrelled with a Ferrarese gentleman, Maddalo, who had talked too freely about some same-sex love affair : the same year he wrote a letter to his homosexual friend Luca Scalabrino dealing with his own love for a twenty-one year old boy Orazio Ariosto; in the summer of 1577 he drew his knife upon a servant in the presence of Lucrezia d'Este, duchess of Urbino. Urbino is a walled city in the Marche region in Italy, south-west of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical For this excess he was arrested; but the duke released him, and took him for a change of air to his country seat of Belriguardo. What happened there is not known. Some biographers have surmised that a compromising liaison with Leonora d'Este came to light, and that Tasso agreed to feign madness in order to cover her honor. But of this there is no proof. It is only certain that from Belriguardo he returned to a Franciscan convent at Ferrara, for the express purpose of attending to his health. There the dread of being murdered by the duke took firm hold on his mind. He escaped at the end of July, disguised himself as a peasant, and went on foot to his sister at Sorrento.
The truth seems to be that Tasso, after the beginning of 1575, became the victim of a mental malady, which, without amounting to actual insanity, rendered him fantastical and insupportable, a cause of anxiety to his patrons. There is no evidence whatsoever that this state of things was due to an overwhelming passion for Leonora. The duke, contrary to his image as a tyrant, showed considerable forbearance. He was a rigid and not sympathetic man, as egotistical as a princeling of that age was wont to be. But to Tasso he was never cruel; unintelligent perhaps, but far from being that monster of ferocity which has been painted. The subsequent history of his connection with the poet, over which we may pass rapidly, will corroborate this view. While at Sorrento, Tasso yearned for Ferrara. The court-made man could not breathe freely outside its charmed circle. He wrote humbly requesting to be taken back. Alfonso consented, provided Tasso would agree to undergo a medical course of treatment for his melancholy. When he returned, which he did with alacrity under those conditions, he was well received by the ducal family. All might have gone well if his old maladies had not revived. Scene followed scene of irritability, moodiness, suspicion, wounded vanity and violent outbursts.
In the madhouse of St. Anna
In the summer of 1578 he ran away again; travelled through Mantua, Padua, Venice, Urbino, Lombardy. Mantua (Màntova in the local dialect of Lombard language Mantua is a city in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the Lombardy (Lombardia Latin: Langobardia, Western Lombard: Lumbardìa, Eastern Lombard: Lombardia) is one of the In September be reached the gates of Turin on foot, and was courteously entertained by Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy. Emmanuel Philibert (in Italian Emanuele Filiberto; 8 July 1528 &ndash 30 August 1580) was Duke of Savoy Wherever he went, wandering like the world's rejected guest, he met with the honour due to his illustrious name. Great folk opened their houses to him gladly, partly in compassion, partly in admiration of his genius. But he soon wearied of their society, and wore their kindness thin by his querulous peevishness. It seemed, moreover, that life was intolerable to him outside Ferrara. Accordingly he once more opened negotiations with the duke; and in February 1579 he again set foot in the castle. Alfonso was about to contract his third marriage, this time with a princess of the house of Mantua. Mantua (Màntova in the local dialect of Lombard language Mantua is a city in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the He had no children, and unless he got an heir, there was a probability that his state would fall, as it did subsequently, to the Holy See. The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, commonly known as the Pope, and is the preeminent Episcopal see of the Roman Catholic The nuptial festivals, on the eve of which Tasso arrived, were not therefore an occasion of great rejoicing for the elderly bridegroom. As a forlorn hope he had to wed a third wife; but his heart was not engaged and his expectations were far from sanguine. Tasso, preoccupied as always with his own sorrows and his own sense of dignity, made no allowance for the troubles of his master. Rooms below his rank, he thought, had been assigned him ; the Duke was engaged. Without exercising common patience, or giving his old friends the benefit of a doubt, he broke into terms of open abuse, behaved like a lunatic, and was sent off without ceremony to the madhouse of St. Anna. This happened in March 1579; and there he remained until July 1586. Duke Alfonso's long-sufferance at last had given way. He firmly believed that Tasso was insane, and he felt that if he were so St. Anna was the safest place for him. Tasso had put himself in the wrong by his intemperate conduct, but far more by that incomprehensible yearning after the Ferrarese court which made him return to it again and yet again.
It was no doubt very irksome for a man of Tasso's pleasure-loving, restless and self-conscious spirit to be kept for more than seven years in confinement. Yet we must weigh the facts of the case rather than the fancies which have been indulged regarding them. After the first few months of his incarceration he obtained spacious apartments, received the visits of friends, went abroad attended by responsible persons of his acquaintance, and corresponded freely with whomsoever he chose to address. The letters written from St. Anna to the princes and cities of Italy, to warm well-wishers, and to men of the highest reputation in the world of art and learning, form our most valuable source of information, not only on his then condition, but also on his temperament at large. It is singular that he spoke always respectfully, even affectionately, of the Duke. Some critics have attempted to make it appear that he was hypocritically kissing the hand which had chastised him, with the view of being released from prison. But no one who has impartially considered the whole tone and tenor of his epistles will adopt this opinion. What emerges clearly from them is that he labored under a serious mental disease, and that he was conscious of it.
Meanwhile he occupied his uneasy leisure with copious compositions. The mass of his prose dialogues on philosophical and ethical themes, which is very considerable, we owe to the years of imprisonment in St. Anna. Except for occasional odes or sonnets -- some written at request and only rhetorically interesting, a few inspired by his keen sense of suffering and therefore poignant -- he neglected poetry. But everything which fell from his pen during this period was carefully preserved by the Italians, who, while they regarded him as a lunatic, somewhat illogically scrambled for the very offscourings of his wit. Nor can it be said that society was wrong. Tasso had proved himself an impracticable human being; but he remained a man of genius, the most interesting personality in Italy. Long ago his papers had been sequestered. Now, in the year 1580, he heard that part of the Gerusalemme was being published without his permission and without his corrections. Next year the whole poem was given to the world, and in the following six months seven editions issued from the press. The prisoner of St. Anna had no control over his editors; and from the masterpiece which placed him on the level of Petrarch and Ariosto he never derived one penny of pecuniary profit. Francesco Petrarca ( July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374) known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar A rival poet at the court of Ferrara undertook to revise and edit his lyrics in 1582. This was Battista Guarini; and Tasso, in his cell, had to allow odes and sonnets, poems of personal feeling, occasional pieces of compliment, to be collected and emended, without lifting a voice in the matter. Giovanni Battista Guarini ( December 10, 1538 – October 7, 1612) was an Italian poet dramatist and diplomat A few years later, in 1585, two Florentine pedants of the Della Crusca academy declared war against the Gerusalemme. They loaded it with insults, which seem to those who read their pamphlets now mere parodies of criticism. Yet Tasso felt bound to reply; and he did so with a moderation and urbanity which prove him to have been not only in full possession of his reasoning faculties, but a gentleman of noble manners also. Certainly the history of Tasso's incarceration at St. Anna is one to make us pause and wonder. The man, like Hamlet, was distraught through ill-accommodation to his circumstances and his age; brain-sick he was undoubtedly; and this is the Duke of Ferrara's justification for the treatment he endured. Hamlet is a Tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601 In the prison he bore himself pathetically, peevishly, but never ignobly. He showed a singular indifference to the fate of his great poem, a rare magnanimity in dealing with its detractors. His own personal distress, that terrible malaise of imperfect insanity, absorbed him. What remained over, untouched by the malady, unoppressed by his consciousness thereof, displayed a sweet and gravely-toned humanity. The oddest thing about his life in prison is that he was always trying to place his two nephews, the sons of his sister Cornelia, in court-service. One of them he attached to Guglielmo I, Duke of Mantua, the other to Ottavio Farnese, Duke of Parma. Guglielmo ( William) I Gonzaga ( 24 April, 1538 - 14 August, 1587) was Duke of Mantua and Montferrat Ottavio Farnese ( 9 October 1521 - September 18 1586) was Duke of Parma and Piacenza from 1556 to 1586 and Duke of Castro in 1545-1547 After all his father's and his own lessons of life, he had not learned that the court was to be shunned like Circe by an honest man. In Greek mythology, Circe ( sərsē; Greek Κίρκη Kírkē, falcon is a Queen Goddess (or sometimes a Nymph In estimating Duke Alfonso's share of blame, this wilful idealization of the court by Tasso must be taken into account. That man is not a tyrant's victim who moves heaven and earth to place his sister's sons with tyrants.
Late years
In 1586 Tasso left St. Anna at the solicitation of Vincenzo Gonzaga, Prince of Mantua. Vincenzo I of Gonzaga ( September 21, 1562 - February 9, 1612) was ruler of the Duchy of Mantua and Montferrat from 1587 He followed his young deliverer to the city by the Mincio, basked awhile in liberty and courtly pleasures, enjoyed a splendid reception from his paternal town of Bergamo, and produced a meritorious tragedy called Torrismondo. Mincio (ˈmintʃo Latin: Mincius, Ancient greek: Minchios, Μιγχιος) is a river in the Lombardy region of northern But only a few months had passed when he grew discontented. Vincenzo Gonzaga, succeeding to his father's dukedom of Mantua, had scanty leisure to bestow upon the poet. Tasso felt neglected. In the autumn of 1587 he journeyed through Bologna and Loreto to Rome, and taking up his quarters there with an old friend, Scipione Gonzaga, now Patriarch of Jerusalem. Scipione Gonzaga (b at Mantua, 11 November[[ 542]] d at San Martino, 11 January[[ 593]] was an Italian Cardinal. The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem is the title given to the Latin Rite Catholic Archbishop of Jerusalem Next year he wandered off to Naples, where he wrote a dull poem on Monte Oliveto. The Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore is a large Benedictine monastery in the Italian region of Tuscany, 10 km south of Asciano. In 1589 he returned to Rome, and took up his quarters again with the patriarch of Jerusalem. The servants found him insufferable, and turned him out of doors. He fell ill, and went to a hospital. The patriarch in 1590 again received him. But Tasso's restless spirit drove him forth to Florence. The Florentines said, "Actum est de eo. " Rome once more, then Mantua, then Florence, then Rome, then Naples, then Rome, then Naples -- such is the weary record of the years 1590-94. We have to study a veritable Odyssey of malady, indigence and misfortune. The Odyssey ( Greek: Ὀδύσσεια or Odússeia) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. To Tasso everything came amiss. He had the palaces of princes, cardinals, patriarchs, nay popes, always open to him. Yet he could rest in none. Gradually, in spite of all veneration for the sacer vates, he made himself the laughingstock and bore of Italy.
His health grew ever feebler and his genius dimmer. In 1592 he gave to the public a revised version of the Gerusalemme. It was called the Gerusalemme Conquistata. All that made the poem of his early manhood charming he rigidly erased. The versification was degraded; the heavier elements of the plot underwent a dull rhetorical development. During the same year a prosaic composition in Italian blank verse, called Le Sette Giornate, saw the light. Nobody reads it now. We only mention it as one of Tasso's dotages -- a dreary amplification of the first chapter of Genesis.
It is singular that just in these years, when mental disorder, physical weakness, and decay of inspiration seemed dooming Tasso to oblivion, his old age was cheered with brighter rays of hope. Pope Clement VIII ascended the papal chair in 1592. Not to be confused with Antipope Clement VIII. Pope Clement VIII ( February 24, 1536 &ndash March 3, 1605 He and his nephew, Cardinal Aldobrandini of San Giorgio, determined to befriend our poet. San Giorgio in Velabro is a Basilica church in Rome, devoted to St In 1594 they invited him to Rome. There he was to assume the crown of bays, as Petrarch had assumed it, on the Capitol. Worn out with illness, Tasso reached Rome in November. The ceremony of his coronation was deferred because Cardinal Aldobrandini had fallen ill. But the pope assigned him a pension; and, under the pressure of pontifical remonstrance, Prince Avellino, who held Tasso's maternal estate, agreed to discharge a portion of his claims by payment of a yearly rent-charge. At no time since Tasso left St. Anna had the heavens apparently so smiled upon him. Capitolian honors and money were now at his disposal. Yet fortune came too late. Before he wore the crown of poet laureate, or the received his pensions, he ascended to the convent of Sant'Onofrio, on a stormy 1 April 1595. A Poet Laureate is a Poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for State occasions and other government events Events 527 - Byzantine Emperor Justin I names his nephew Justinian I as co-ruler and successor to the throne Seeing a cardinal's coach toil up the steep Trasteverine Hill, the monks came to the door to greet it. From the carriage stepped Tasso and told the prior he was come to die with him.
He died in Sant'Onofrio in the April 1595. He was just past fifty-one; and the last twenty years of his existence had been practically and artistically ineffectual. At the age of thirty-one the Gerusalemme, as we have it, was accomplished. The world too was already ringing with the music of Aminta. More than this Tasso had naught to give to literature. But those succeeding years of derangement, exile, imprisonment, poverty and hope deferred endear the man to us. Elegiac and querulous as he must always appear, we yet love Tasso better because he suffered through nearly a quarter of a century of slow decline and unexplained misfortune.
Other works
Rime (Rhymes) written between 1567 and 1593. Influenced by Petrarca's Canzoniere, they develop a research for musicality and are rich of delicate images and subtle sentiments. Il Canzoniere (English "Song Book" also known as the Rime Sparse (English "Scattered Rhymes" is a poetical collection by the Italian
Galealto re di Norvegia, (1573-4) an unfinished tragedy, which later was finished with a new title: Re Torrismondo (1587). It is influenced by Sophocles's and Seneca's tragedies, and tells the story of princess Alvida of Norway, who is forcibly married off to the Goth king Torrismondo, when she is devoted to her childhood friend, king Germondo of Sweden!
Dialoghi (Dialogues), written between 1578 and 1594. Sophocles (ˈsɒfəkliːz Ancient Greek, sopʰoklɛ̂ːs circa Norway ( Norwegian: Norge ( Bokmål) or Noreg ( Nynorsk) officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Constitutional The Goths ( Gothic: Gothic usvg|14px|u]]Gothic asvg|14px|a]]Gothic s "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation. These 28 texts deal with various issues, from moral ones (love, virtue, nobility) to more mundane ones (masks, play, courtly style, beauty). Sometimes Tasso touches major themes of his time: for instance, religion vs. intellectual freedom; Christianity vs. Islam at Lepanto.
Discorsi del poema eroico, published in 1594. This is the main text to understand Tasso's poetics and was probably written during the long years or composing and revising Gerusalemme Liberata
The disease
The disease Tasso began to suffer from is now believed to be schizophrenia. Schizophrenia ( from the Greek roots schizein (σχίζειν "to split" and phrēn Legends describe him wandering the streets of Rome half mad, convinced that he was being persecuted. Rome ( Roma ˈroma Roma is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city with more than 2 At times he was imprisoned for his own safety by the Duke in St. Anne's lunatic asylum. Though he was never fully cured, he was able to function and resumed his writing. The Gerusalemme was published by his friends Angelo Ingegneri and Febo Bonna, mostly with the consent of the poet.
Tasso and other artists
- The German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote a play Torquato Tasso in 1790, which explores the struggles of the artist. The German people (Deutsche are an Ethnic group, in the sense of sharing a common German culture, descent and speaking the German language as ˈjoːhan ˈvɔlfgaŋ fɔn ˈgøːtə (in English generally ˈgɝːtə 28 August 1749 22 March 1832 was a German writer Torquato Tasso is a play by the German Dramatist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe about the sixteenth-century Italian Poet, Year 1790 ( MDCCXC) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year
- Lord Byron's poem "The Lament of Tasso" narrates Tasso's spell in St. Anna's hospital.
- Franz Liszt composed a symphonic poem, Tasso, Lamento e Trionfo in commemoration of the centenary of Goethe's play. A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of Orchestral Music in one movement in which some extramusical program provides a narrative or illustrative element The sombre first half represents his anguish in the asylum, and the glorious second half charts the acknowledgement he and his poetry achieved after he departed from the hospital.
- The Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti wrote an opera on the subject of Torquato Tasso and incorporated some of the poet's writing into the libretto. Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 &ndash 8 April 1848 was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. Opera is an art form in which Singers and Musicians perform a Dramatic work (called an opera which combines a text (called a Libretto Torquato Tasso is a Melodramma semiseria, or 'semi-serious' Opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti and based on the life of the A libretto is the text used in an extended Musical work such as an Opera, Operetta, Masque, sacred or secular Oratorio and
See also
References
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. Orlando Furioso ("The Frenzy of Orlando" more literally "Mad Orlando" in Italian furioso is seldom capitalized is an Italian The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–1911 is a 29-volume reference work that marked the beginning of the Encyclopædia Britannica The public domain is a range of abstract materials &ndash commonly referred to as Intellectual property &ndash which are not owned or controlled by anyone
External links
- Works by Torquato Tasso at Project Gutenberg
- Project Gutenberg e-text of Jerusalem Delivered (translated by Edward Fairfax)
- Project Gutenberg e-text of Torquato Tasso by Goethe (German)
- http://www.museodeitasso.com/
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