Canto X of Torquato Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata
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Canto 10 of Torquato Tasso’s Gerusa- lemme liberata is the textual center, but not the narrative center, of the work as far as Canto 10 the role and fortune of the pagan forces are still predominant. The narrative turn- Julianne VanWagenen ing point will not come until canto 13, with the rain delivered through Gof- fredo’s prayer, yet in canto 10 there are already hints of a grand-scale change, complicated allusions to Dante’s Purgato- rio and an overcoming of the Inferno, as well as signs of discord amongst the pa- gans and unity in the Christian troops, a unity that for Tasso is the decisive feature of a victorious army (not to mention, yet, 1 successful literature); together, these fea- tures give the reader a sense that s/he has arrived at a cusp and that a breaking- point is near. Canto 10, as the textual, if not narrative, center, is a fruitful place to examine the sometimes tense and always complex dialectical mirroring of charac- ters and forces in the Liberata. The pagan and Christian wise men, Ismeno and Pie- tro l’Eremita, predict the future in mir- Julianne VanWagenen is a PhD candidate in rored scenes, Solimano arises as a Dante- Harvard University’s Department of Romance esque pilgrim-hero, while the Christian Languages and Literatures. She is interested in hero is the incomplete (Rinaldo is still ab- 20th century Italian cultural studies, particularly sent) triad of Goffredo/Rinaldo/Tancre- pre-WWI cultural spasms, anarchy, rock and roll, di. In a more subtle case of mirroring, and the crisis of identity and self-conception in Tasso deals with the question, ever im- contemporary Italy. portant to him, of poetry as imitation, di- Julianne VanWagenen, Gerusalemme liberata: Canto 10 verging from Dante’s model and collocat- stop a peace treaty that has been issued ing all of the fantastic aspects of the canto forth by Orcanus. When Tasso returns to under the subject heading, “Dark Arts,” the Christian camp, almost three-quarters imitations of God’s power rather than of the way into the canto, we find the re- manifestations of it, while at the same cently returned soldiers regaling the time connecting the idea and act of magic, troops with their story of imprisonment the fantastic, to the acts of reading and in Armida’s castle and their deliverance writing. Thus, as he creates a complex by Rinaldo as they were being trans- paralleling of the dark and light arts, of ported to Egypt in chains. The canto ends black and white magic, he problematizes with Pietro l’Eremita’s affirmation that the issue of ‘faith’ and situates literature Rinaldo lives, his rapt vision of the fu- in an unclear position between the fantas- ture, and night falling once again on the tic imitation of nature created by dark characters. The canto, thus, completes one powers and a valid tool for manifesta- diurnal and thematic cycle, it progresses tions of god-given imagination. In a final from a state of uncertainty and violence, point, this chapter functions as a knot, a the end of a battle and Solimano’s flight coming together and/or a tending to- to Egypt, then his redemption at Mount ward of diverse stories, that momentarily Zion, and Ismeno’s hesitant vision of a redeems the unity of action in the work as distant happy-ending, to a state of joy a whole, as a single canvas that Tasso and peace, the lost soldiers’ deliverance works to weave without giving up the from Egypt, the promised redemption of audience-friendly complexity of multiple the complete Christian hero as Tancredi subplots with seemingly variant teleolo- returns and Rinaldo is revealed to be gies. alive, and Pietro l’Eremita’s teleological Canto 10 continues the plot of canto 9 reassurance to the soldiers of the war almost seamlessly. After, in canto 9, Soli- they wage, if not in a revelation of ulti- mano guides his troops to a night assault mate victory, at least in a clear declara- of the Christian camp and the Christians tion that the “Ciel,” that is, God is on prevail with the intervention of the arch- their side. angel Michael as well as the opportune Within the work as a whole, this return of Tancredi and the fifty soldiers canto is positioned at the center of the who had been prisoners at Armida’s cas- book and of the section generally referred tle, canto 10 tells of the injured Soli- to as the perturbazione, or “disturbance,” mano’s flight from the battlefield, to- which comes after the introduction in wards Egypt, and the appearance of Is- cantos 1-3 and before the rivolgimento or meno, the wizard, who transports him in “Upheaval” of cantos 14-18 and the ulti- an invisible carriage to Jerusalem. There, mate denouement of the final two can- he spies on a pagan war council and re- tos.2 As part of a continual game of veil- veals himself to the council in order to ing and unveiling, canto 10 marks the be- 2 THE ROMANCE SPHERE, 2013 ginning of a sustained trend of unmask- you from me, o God and Father? / Miser- ing that will continue until the end of the able, without you I am nothing. Oh mis- perturbazione section. Armida is revealed ery! / I hope for nothing: oh exhaustion! to the army as a wicked enchantress (only and nothing do I yearn for]. to be masked again at the begin of the Canto 10 begins, as already noted, next section), Rinaldo is revealed to be with Solimano’s nighttime flight from the alive, and the opposing wise men lift the battlefield. He is injured and, stopping to veil from the future, telling each his own rest, he falls asleep and awakens in a truth. In the succeeding cantos, Clorinda quasi-dream state. While it is always will first be revealed as of Christian birth, dangerous to draw too many compari- then she will be unmasked by Tancredi sons between works, with the opening of upon her death (only to be masked again this dream-state, canto 10 takes on in the form of the enchanted tree at the enough striking similarities to Dante’s end of the section), realigning Tancredi Purgatorio that they are worth mentioning teleologically with Goffredo’s war but here. These similarities are, furthermore, complicating and highlighting his inner interestingly complicated by the fact that battle. These “unmaskings” gain speed the pilgrim-hero is a pagan, not on a path toward the ultimate unveiling, which to Christian, spiritual salvation, and by comes in the form of an answer to Gof- the fact that the fantastic elements in the fredo’s prayer in canto 13, as Pietro account are artifices of black magic, not l’Eremita predicted, God unveils himself manifestations of God’s will. While Dante as Goffredo’s patron and salvation, deliv- included the fantastic in order to create in ering the rain that will squelch the seeds the intellect and imagination of the reader of the Christian troops’ inquietude and an imitation of God’s universe, scope, reassure the Christians of their chosen power, love, light, Tasso’s inventions of “side” or faith. This revelation seems the wonderment in canto 10—which Aristotle fictional representation of the sign that in his Poetics allows for in epic poetry, as Tasso so long sought himself in his strug- long as they are still part of an imitation gle for the concept of faith,3 a sign that, of reality, life as it is, should be, or is however, never manifested itself to Tasso. thought to be—are imitations of the real- For, as Claudio Gigante points out, Tasso ity of the poem, not of life, they are mas- laments still in the Mondo creato: God the querades within the poetic reality. Tasso creator of everything but egotistically in- explains the inclusion of angels, demons, visible: “Dove sei? dove sei? chi mi ti nas- and magicians, converted from the conde? / chi mi t’invola, o mio Signore e knightly tradition of enchanted rings, Padre? / Misero, senza te son nulla. Ahi shields, and swords, through an interpre- lasso! / e nulla spero: ahi lasso! e nulla tation from Aristotle’s Poetics that allows bramo”4 [Where are you? Where are you? for the credibly impossible before the Who hides you from me? Who conceals possible that is not credible. Tasso points 3 Julianne VanWagenen, Gerusalemme liberata: Canto 10 out that Church leaders have taught, and for example, is said, by the narrator in the Bible teaches, that there are miracles, first person in an aside that he dedicates saints who perform the impossible, and to the “maraviglie” to come, to be not angels and demons. As Tasso states in his only enshrouded in a cloud, but also in- Discorsi dell’arte poetica: “leggendo e sen- visible, thus doubly veiled: “sì che ‘l gran tendo ogni dì ricordarne novi essempi [di carro ne ricopre e cinge, / ma non appar miracoli, angeli, ecc.], non parrà loro fuori la nube o poco o molto” [The chariot hid- del verisimile quello che credono esser ing and environing; / The subtile mist no possible” [reading and hearing everyday mortal eye could view] (10, 16),6 yet the of reminders and new examples [of mira- riders from inside can see out, even if its a cles, angels, etc.], these do not seem to us vision fogged by the cloud that en- outside of the plausible, they are both shrouds them. Thus, this miracle bidirec- credible and possible].5 Interesting here is tionally occludes a clear vision of nature his use of the verbs “leggendo e sen- and reality, just as we see later that Ar- tendo” rather than “vedendo.” Tasso re- mida’s many tricks do.