The Trumpet and the Lyre: Torquato Tasso and the Problem of Vernacular Epic in 16th-century Italy
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Date
2017-07-20
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Johns Hopkins University
Abstract
In this dissertation, I analyze conceptions of epic poetry in sixteenth century Italy, specifically the debates surrounding vernacular poetic language, which ultimately produce the first successful Italian epic, Torquato Tasso's \textit{Gerusalemme liberata}. While scholars have mainly focused on early interpretations of Aristotle's \textit{Poetics} and questions of narrative structure, I argue for a shift towards analyzing discourses of language and style, which provide a more concrete framework for understanding Tasso's poetic innovation. Examining linguistic and literary texts from the 1530s to 1560s, I focus on issues of establishing a stable vernacular poetic language capable of equalling classical forms, specifically that of epic, at a time when the epic genre is defined by an exacting set of aesthetic expectations seemingly at odds with a predominantly lyric tradition grounded in Petrarchan love poetry. I argue that an unstable critical moment emerges by the mid sixteenth century concerning the ability of poets to translate the ideal form of classical epic into the mellifluous Italian language. This tension leads to experimentation with various formal elements that concern sound, notably meter and rhyme. I conclude that Tasso addresses this issue of sound with a radical theory of epic style based on the unconventional aesthetic qualities of harshness, dissonance, and sonority. My research therefore constructs an alternative history of early modern conceptions of epic form by emphasizing evolving descriptions of aesthetic experience, particularly of sound, which ultimately proves to be fundamental for the development of a new poetic language.
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Torquato Tasso, Italian epic, epic poetry, epic style, Renaissance poetics