Torquato Tasso

Jerusalem Delivered (Dodo Press) Torquato Tasso

Torquato Tasso (1544-1595) was an Italian poet of the 16th century. He was sent to study law at Padua. Instead of applying himself to law, he bestowed all his attention upon philosophy and poetry. Before the end of 1562, he had produced a narrative poem called Rinaldo. He later 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. However he is best known for his poem La Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered), 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. 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. His other works include: Rime, Le Sette Giornate, Galealto re di Norvegia (Re Torrismondo), Dialoghi and Discorsi del Poema Eroico.