Jerusalem Delivered
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Jerusalem Delivered (La Gerusalemme liberata) (first published 1581) is an epic poem by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso which tells a largely fictionalized version of the First Crusade in which Christian knights, led by Godfrey of Bouillon, battle Muslims in order to raise the siege of Jerusalem. The poem is composed of eight line stanzas grouped into 20 cantos of varying length.
The work belongs to the Renaissance tradition of the Italian romantic epic poem, and Tasso frequently borrows plot elements and character types directly from Ariosto's Orlando furioso. Tasso's poem also has elements inspired by the classical epics of Homer and Virgil (especially in those sections of their works that tell of sieges and warfare).
Tasso's choice of subject matter, an actual historic conflict between Christians and Muslims (albeit with fantastical elements added), had an historical grounding and created compositional implications (the narrative subject matter had a fixed endpoint and could not be endlessly spun out in multiple volumes) that are lacking in other Renaissance epics. But like other works of the period which portray conflicts between Christians and Muslims, this subject matter had a topical resonance to readers of the period, as the Ottoman Empire was advancing through Eastern Europe.
One of the most characteristic literary devices in Tasso's poem is the emotional conundrum endured by characters torn between their heart and their duty, and this depiction of love at odds with martial valour or honor is a source of great lyrical passion in the poem.
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[edit] Composition and publication
Tasso began work on the poem in the mid-1560s. Originally, it bore the title Il Goffredo. It was completed in April, 1575 and that summer the poet read his work to Duke Alfonso of Ferrara and Lucrezia, Duchess of Urbino. A pirate edition of 14 cantos from the poem appeared in Venice in 1580. The first complete editions of Gerusalemme liberata were published in Parma and Ferrara in 1581.[1]
[edit] Plot summary
The poem tells of the initial disunity and setbacks of the Christians and their ultimate success. The most famous sequences include the following:
Sofronia (in English: Sophronia), a Christian maiden of Jerusalem, accuses herself of a crime in order to avert a general massacre of the Christians by the Muslim king. In an attempt to save her, her lover Olindo accuses himself in turn, and each lover pleads with the authorities in order to save the other.
Clorinda, a female warrior-maiden, joins the Muslims, but the Christian knight Tancredi (in English: Tancred) falls in love with her. During a night battle in which she sets the Christian siege tower on fire, she is mistakenly killed by her lover, but she converts to Christianity before dying. The character of Clorinda is inspired in part by Virgil's Camilla and by Bradamante in Ariosto; the circumstances of her birth (a Caucasian girl born to African parents) are modeled on the lead character (Chariclea) from the ancient Greek novel by Heliodorus of Emesa.
Another maiden of the region, the Princess Erminia (or "Hermine") of Antioch, also falls in love with Tancred and betrays her people to help him, but she grows jealous when she learns that Tancred loves Clorinda. She returns to the Muslims, then steals Clorinde's armor and joins a group of shepherds.
The witch Armida (modeled on Circe in Homer and the witch Alcina in Ariosto's epic) enters the Christian camp asking for their aid; her seductions divide the knights against each other and a group leaves with her, only to be transformed into animals by her magic.
Armida tries to kill the greatest Christian knight Rinaldo (his name appears in Ariosto's Orlando furioso (III, 30); he is the son of Bertoldo and was the reputed founder of the house of Este) but she falls in love with him instead and takes him away to a magical island where he becomes infatuated with her caresses and grows idle. Two Christian knights seek out the hidden fortress, brave the dangers that guard it and, by giving Rinaldo a mirror of diamond, force him to see himself in his effeminated and amorous state and to return to the war, leaving Armida heartbroken. Armida grieves at this loss and desires death, but being a sorceress, she cannot die. (This sequence echoes a similar storyline in Ariosto: the witch Alcina ensnares the knight Ruggiero, but the spell is broken by a magic ring that the good sorceress Melissa brings him; earlier antecedents include Circe's attempt to keep Odysseus on her island, and Morgan le Fay taking Ogier the Dane off to a faraway island).
[edit] Reception
The poem was immensely successful throughout Europe and over the next two centuries various sections were frequently adapted as individual storylines for operas, plays, ballets and masquerades; scenes from the poem were also depicted in paintings and frescoes (for example, at Fontainebleau in France).
Certain critics of the period however were less enthusiastic, and Tasso came under much criticism for the magical extravagance and narrative confusion of his poem. Before his death, he drastically rewrote the poem, giving this new version the title La Gerusalemme Conquistata, or "Jerusalem Conquered." This revised version is much maligned by modern critics however.
[edit] Gerusalemme liberata and English literature
The fame of Tasso's poem quickly spread to England. Edmund Spenser described Tasso as an "excellente poete" and made use of elements from Gerusalemme liberata in The Faerie Queene. In the twelfth canto of Book Two, Spenser's enchantress Acrasia is partly modelled on Tasso's Armida and the English poet directly imitated two stanzas from the Italian [2] The first attempt to translate Gerusalemme liberata was made by Richard Carew, who published his version of the first five cantos as Godfrey of Bulloigne or the recoverie of Hierusalem in 1594. More significant was the complete rendering by Edward Fairfax which appeared in 1600 and has been acclaimed as one of the finest English verse translations. Tasso's poem remained popular among educated English readers until the 19th century.[3]
[edit] Works based on Jerusalem Delivered
[edit] Music and Operas
- Madrigali La Gerusalemme Liberata by Giaches de Wert (ca. 1595)
- Armide by Jean-Baptiste Lully (1686)
- Rinaldo by George Frideric Handel (1711)
- The Inchanted Forrest by Francesco Geminiani (1754)
- Armida abbandonata by Niccolò Jommelli (1770)
- Armida by Antonio Salieri (1771)
- Armide by Christoph Willibald Gluck (1777)
- Armida by Joseph Haydn (1784)
- Armida by Gioacchino Rossini (1817)
- Rinaldo by Johannes Brahms (1858)
- Armida by Antonín Dvořák (1904)
- Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda by Claudio Monteverdi (1624) from his eighth book of madrigals
[edit] Plays
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Max Turiel. Clorinda Deleste, El Camino del Sol. Play and Script, partially adapted from " Gerusalemme Liberata ". ISBN 84-934710-8-9. Ediciones La Sirena 2006.
[edit] Paintings
- Poussin's illustration to Jerusalem Delivered (1630s)
- Theodor Hildebrandt - Tancred and Clorinda (ca. 1830)
- Eugène Delacroix - Clorinda Rescues Olindo and Sophronia
- Francois Boucher - Rinaldo and Armida
- Francesco Hayez - Rinaldo and Armida
- Paolo Finoglio - The pictorial series Jerusalem Delivered (1640)
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[edit] References
- ^ Caretti pp.lxv and lxix
- ^ Compare the "Song of the Rose" in The Faerie Queene, Book 2, Canto 12, Stanzas 74-5 and Gerusalemme liberata Canto 16, Stanzas 14-15
- ^ This section: Roberto Weiss, introduction to the Fairfax translation of Jerusalem Delivered (Centaur Classics, 1962)
[edit] Sources
- Gerusalemme liberata ed. Luca Caretti (Mondadori, 1983)
