Jerusalem Delivered (La Gerusalemme liberata) is an epic poem by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso first published in 1581, which tells a largely fictionalized version of the First Crusade in which Christian knights, led by Godfrey of Bouillon, battle Muslims in order to raise the siege of Jerusalem. The poem is composed of eight line stanzas grouped into 20 cantos of varying length.
The work belongs to the Renaissance tradition of the Italian roma...
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Jerusalem Delivered (La Gerusalemme liberata) is an epic poem by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso first published in 1581, which tells a largely fictionalized version of the First Crusade in which Christian knights, led by Godfrey of Bouillon, battle Muslims in order to raise the siege of Jerusalem. The poem is composed of eight line stanzas grouped into 20 cantos of varying length.
The work belongs to the Renaissance tradition of the Italian romantic epic poem, and Tasso frequently borrows plot elements and character types directly from Ariosto's Orlando furioso. Tasso's poem also has elements inspired by the classical epics of Homer and Virgil (especially in those sections of their works that tell of sieges and warfare).
Tasso's choice of subject matter, an actual historic conflict between Christians and Muslims (albeit with fantastical elements added), had a historical grounding and created compositional implications (the narrative subject matter had a fixed endpoint and could not...
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