Abstract
In his epic poem Gerusalemme liberata, Torquato Tasso sets forth allegorical landscapes representing various aspirations of the human mind. In the Allegory of his poem, Tasso explains that he has attempted to draw the mind of a mature man striving to achieve existential equilibrium. In my interpretive reading of the poem, I compare the representations of two women that confound the linearity of that strife for inner balance. These women stand for contrasting drives within this landscape of the mind: the first one, Erminia, embodies a positive influence, the second one, Armida, incarnates destructive temptation. Erminia, a Muslim princess, falls prey to an overpowering and hopeless love for the Christian knight Tancredi. After some peripeties to locate and save the injured Tancredi, Erminia takes refuge in a forest far from the busyness of the court or the battlefield. Armida, a Muslim sorceress, lives on an enchanted island she has artificially created via black magic. There she holds Rinaldo, the right-hand man of the commander of the Christian army, prisoner. This landscape is a completely artificial paradise where idle pleasures are the sole end of existence. By analyzing these two landscapes, I argue in my paper that Tasso’s representations of nature allegorically point to two competing poles of the human psyche: 1) longing for reintegration into an ecologically balanced environment, far from passionate entanglements, and (2) desire for a self-conceived artificial paradise where the individual may disregard communal ecological concerns.
Presenters
Matthew MotykaAssociate Professor, Romance Languages and Literatures, University of San Francisco, California, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2023 Special Focus—Literary Landscapes: Forms of Knowledge in the Humanities
KEYWORDS
Torquato Tasso, Renaissance Epic, Female Warriors, Allegory, Mental Landscape
