Godfrey and the Christian armies, Jerusalem in the background. Sebastien Leclerc (1637-1714).
© The Hunterian, University of Glasgow 2014
In Canto One of Jerusalem Delivered, one by one the leaders of the First Crusade pass in front of the reader’s eyes like a true military parade, while Torquato Tasso offers a running commentary on their country of origin, their families, and the strength of each one’s army. We have seen Godfrey of Bouillon, the central character and leader, and now along with him we see Robert of Normandy, Raymond of Toulouse, William, bishop of Orange, Ademar, bishop of Le Puy, Baldwin and Eustace, the younger brothers of Godfrey, Stephen of Blois, Tancred of Calabria, and many other lords with their armies from all over Europe, from Norway to Sicily, from Ireland and Scotland to Greece. Most of them were actually historical figures who really participated in the Crusade; their names can be found in many chronicles of the First Crusade, contemporary or later (Tasso used William of Tyre, who wrote in the late twelfth century, as his main historical source[1]). Some of them were mythical or semi-mythical, like Arthur and his knights.
But above these, see young Rinaldo, mid
the whole parade the champion absolute,
sweetly ferocious, darting looks that bid
a king’s worship: him all eyes here salute.
Age he outran, and hope, and scarcely did
his flowers bud when he grew ripe with fruit.
You’d think, when cased in glistening carapace,
he’s Mars. (He’s Cupid when he bares his face).
Rinaldo on the Bank of the Enchanted River. Elizabeth Collins, 1759.
© The Hunterian, University of Glasgow 2014
Rinaldo is the other great hero of Jerusalem Delivered. He is a fictional character, based not on any historical figure[2] but on another epic hero, Achilles from The Iliad. Rinaldo is very young, very handsome, and very brave (the perfect super-hero), but just like Achilles, his anger and conflict with Godfrey bring serious trouble to the Christian camp. He then leaves his companions in order to seek glory for himself: his adventures on this quest provide one of the main romantic episodes in the epic.
When Tasso wrote Jerusalem in the late sixteenth century, the Renaissance movement had been propagating a return to classical Antiquity and its ideals (as interpreted by the Western European culture of the time). Tasso was a serious theorist on the modern epic and pleaded for its return to the classical sources, Homer and Virgil; this was also partly a renunciation of the chivalric romance of the times, with its numerous episodes with no apparent beginning or end, its plethora of plots and characters, and its endless digressions (to fans of Game of Thrones: does this ring any bells?). But as chivalric romance was wildly popular – especially Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso – it would be fatal for an author to ignore it completely, or steer too far away from it. As Daniel Javitch put it:
“[Tasso] could not afford the risk of losing his readership by not incorporating in his epic poem some of the more pleasurable ingredients of Ariostean romance, in particular its marvelous and erotic dimensions, and the episodic digressions they entailed.”[3]
Enchanted rivers, magical forests, islands with exotic nymphs, and the formidable, beautiful witch Armida will offer plenty of the marvelous and the erotic element sought by readers (then and now), and will more than compensate the romantically-inclined for all those longs lists of warriors and serious discourses on war and religion that the more austere, classicist side of Torquato Tasso deemed indispensable to the “new” epic.
[1] Interestingly, William Hunter owned a copy of William of Tyre’s chronicle on the First Crusade; there will be a separate post about it all soon.
[2] Tasso gives Rinaldo a genealogy, making Este his homeplace. That was the birthplace of the Este family, of whom Alfonso II d’ Este was Tasso’s patron. Patronage was extremely important for writers at a time when it would have been impossible to live on book royalties (the majority of the population was illiterate), Creative Writing teaching posts had not yet been invented, and selling film/TV rights was not an option either. Tasso was mindful of always singing the praise of his patron, even in broad hints, as when he describes how Rinaldo fled his home to follow the Crusade: “Noblest of flights! a worthy precedent for / deeds that await his great-souled progeny!” (Canto One, stanza 60)
[3] Daniel Javitch, ‘Tasso’s Critique and Incorporation of Chivalric Romance: His Transformation of Achilles in the Gerusalemme Liberata,’ International Journal of the Classical Tradition, 13:4 (Spring 2007), p.517.
First Crusade Fictions 