Harvard canto-by-canto commentary of Torquato Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata

August 21, 2017

Harvard canto-by-canto commentary of Torquato Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata
Julianne VanWagenen
CANTO X

   

Abstract (click here to read the full essay):

Canto 10 of Jerusalem Delivered is a fruitful place to examine Tasso’s sometimes tense and always complex dialectical mirroring. Pagan and Christian wise men predict the future in mirrored scenes, a pagan prince arises as a Dante-esque pilgrim-hero, while the Christian hero is an incomplete triad, and, in a more subtle case of mirroring, Tasso deals with the question of poetry as imitation, making all fantastic aspects of the canto imitations of God’s power rather than manifestations of it, while at the same time connecting the idea and act of magic to the acts of reading and writing.

 

 

   

Julianne VanWagenen is a PhD candidate in Harvard University’s Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. She is interested in 20th century Italian cultural studies, particularly pre-WWI cultural spasms, anarchy, rock and roll, and the crisis of identity and self-conception in contemporary Italy.

   

(Posted May  17, 2013)

tassocantoxvanwagenen.pdf198 KB