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read for LibriVox by Thomas A.Copeland

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Translated by Edward Fairfax

The First Crusade provides the backdrop for a rich tapestry of political machinations, military
conflicts, martial rivalries, and love stories, some of which are complicated by differences in
religion. The supernatural plays a major role in the action. Partly on this account, and partly
because of the multilayered, intertwined plots, the poem met with considerable contemporary
criticism, so Tasso revised it radically and published the revision under a new name. La
Gerusalemme Conquistata, or "Jerusalem Conquered," which has remained virtually unread, a
warning to authors who pay attention to the critics.

The original poem influenced Edmund Spenser, whose unfinished epic. The Faerie Queene, is
still more complicated in plot than Tasso's poem and, being an allegory, affords the
supernatural an even greater share in the action. In Milton's Paradise Lost, the council in hell
(first half of Book II) owes much to Tasso's similar scene in Book IV. (Someone with sufficient
background in Old English might profitably compare the tirade of Satan in Book IV to the
remarkably similar speech of Satan in the Anglo-Saxon Genesis.) Moreover, Milton's decision
to write in English rather than in Latin, then the language of international discourse, was due in
part to his visit to Tasso's patron, Giovanni Battista Manso, who advised him as he had advised
Torquato Tasso before him, to dignify his native language by employing his talents in bold
defiance of custom and precedent. Had Petrarch had the benefit of Manso's advice, his great
epic. The Africa, might now eclipse his off-hour doodlings, the sonnets about Laura.

Read by Thomas A. Copeland. Total running time: 14:39:21

This recording is in the public domain and may be reproduced, distributed, or modified

without permission. For more information or to volunteer, visit librivox.org.

Cover picture Tasso and the Two Eleanors. Copyright expired in U.S., Canada, EU. and all

countries with author's life +70 yrs laws. Cover design by Annise. This design is in the public

domain.

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