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Jerusalem Delivered: Tasso (week 4)

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Betty and Chad B.
Jerusalem Delivered: Tasso (week 4)

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"Jerusalem Delivered" (1581) is one of the great works of Renaissance literature, composed by arguably the greatest Italian poet after Dante, which for three centuries was known as the great modern epic, influencing everything from The Faerie Queen to Paradise Lost.

Set during the First Crusade in the 11th century, it tells the story of the siege which gave Christian armies temporary control over Jerusalem and the Holy Land.

As in other epic poems, "Jerusalem Delivered" deftly mixes history and myth. Tasso's heroes--Godfrey, leader of the Christian armies; Rinaldo, bravest of the Christian warriors; and Tancred, the Italian prince who falls in love with the pagan warrioress Clorinda--must face not only the Saracens and their allies, but also a host of fearsome and manipulative devils, demons, and sorcerers.

This is a sweeping and often thrilling tale of war, faith, love, and sex. Writing at a time when Christianity was bitterly divided, Tasso was naturally concerned with themes of leadership and loyalty, the importance of sacrifice, the evils of corruption, and the existence of truth.

Schedule:

  • Week 1: books 1-5
  • Week 2: books 6-10
  • Week 3: books 11-16
  • Week 4: books 17-20

Jerusalem Delivered:

Trivia:

  • In Billy Budd, the full name of the captain is Edward Fairfax Vere. Edward Fairfax was a Renaissance poet known for his translation of "Jerusalem Delivered."
  • After producing his masterpiece, Tasso was declared insane and forced into confinement. Melville visited the site of his prison in 1857.

Extracts:

  • "She— Tasso’s Armida, by Lot’s sea, / Where that enchantress, with sweet look / Of kindliest human sympathy, / Such webs about Rinaldo wove / That all the hero he forsook— / Lost in the perfidies of love— Armida—starts at fancy’s bid / Not less than Rahab, lass which hid / The spies here in this Jericho.”" (Clarel, 2.16)
  • "Nor did ever the German forest, nor Tasso’s enchanted one, contain in its depths more things of horror than eventually were revealed in the secret clefts, gulfs, caves and dens of London." (Israel Potter, 22)
  • "Godfrey and Baldwin from their graves / (Made meetly near the rescued Stone) / Rise, and in arms. With beaming glaives / They watch and ward the urn they won." (Clarel, 1.3)
  • "But if that round / Of disillusions which accrue / In this our day, imply a ground / For more concern than Tancred knew, / Thinking, yet not as in despair, / Of Christ who suffered for him there / Upon the crag; then, own it true, / Cause graver much than his is ours" (Clarel, 1.4)
  • "But of the reign / Of Christ did no memento live / Save soil and ruin? Negative / Seemed yielded in that crumbling fane, / Erst gem to Baldwin’s sacred fief, / The chapel of our Dame of Grief." (Clarel, 1.10 )
  • "Time was when Holy Church did take, / Over lands then held by Baldwin’s crown, / True care for such for Jesu’s sake," (Clarel, 1.25)
  • "Voluptuous palaces expand, / From whose moon-lighted colonnade / Beckons Armida, deadly maid: / Traditions; and their fountains run / Beyond King Nine and Babylon." (Clarel, 2.37)
  • "Here showed, set up against the wall, / Heroic traditionary arms, / Protecting tutelary charms / (Like Godfrey’s sword and Baldwin’s spur / In treasury of the Sepulcher, / Wherewith they knighthood yet confer, / The monks or their Superior)" (Clarel, 3.12)
  • "The Ensign: palms, cross, diadems, / And star—the Sign!—Jerusalem’s, / Coeval with King Baldwin’s sway" (Clarel, 4.2)
  • "But, turning now, one glanced afar / Along the columned aisles, and thought / Of Baldwin whom the mailed knights brought / While Godfrey’s requiem did ring, / Hither to Bethlehem, and crowned / His temples helmet-worn, with round / Of gold and velvet—crowned him king— / King of Jerusalem" (Clarel, 4.13)
  • "That these Franciscans steadily / Have been custodians of the Tomb / And Manger, ever since the day / Of rescue under Godfrey’s plume / Long centuries ago." (Clarel, 4.14)
  • "The altar-like transom... gave the place the air of some subterranean oratory, say a Prayer Room of Peter the Hermit." (Mardi, 1.19)

This meetup is part of a series on The Crescent and the Cross.

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