Tasso
was not released until 1586, and then, broken in health, he passed the
rest of his life in Rome and Naples, living on charity, though treated
with great honor. He died in Rome, April 25, 1595, just before he was to
have been crowned at the capitol.
The Jerusalem Delivered has for its subject the first Crusade, and the
events recorded in its twenty cantos comprise the happenings in the camp
of the Crusaders during forty days of the campaign of 1099. Its metre is
the _octava rima_, the eight lined rhymed stanza.
Tasso was not so successful in the delineation of character and in the
description of actions as in the interpretation of feeling, being by
nature a lyric rather than an epic poet. But his happy choice of
subject,--for the Crusades were still fresh in the memory of the people,
and chivalry was a thing of the present--his zeal for the Christian cause,
his impassioned delineations of love, and his exquisitely poetical
treatment of his whole theme, rendered his epic irresistible.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED.
J. Black's Life of Tasso (with a historical and critical account of his
writings), 2 vols. 1810;
E. J. Hasell's Tasso, 1882;
Rev. Robert Milman's Life of Tasso, 2 vols. 1850;
Dennistown's Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino, 1851, iii., 292-316;
Hallam's Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the 15th, 16th, and
17th Centuries, 1839, ii.
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