Author: TASSO, Torquato
Biography:
TASSO, Torquato (1544-95: Encyclopaedia Britannica)
The productions of the great epic poet of the Italian Renaissance had an almost immediate impact on English literature, with Edward Fairfax’s translation of Jerusalem Delivered (1580-81) as Godfrey of Bulloigne appearing in 1600. Further translations of this and other works (sonnets, odes, plays, critical treatises) followed in a steady stream. All the translators of the titles included here have headnotes as poets themselves: James Glassford, John Hoole, John Higgs Hunt, Leigh Hunt, Percival Stockdale, Charles Strong, and Jeremiah Holmes Wiffen, qq.v. On 11 Mar. 1544, Tasso was born at Sorrento into a noble family, the son of Porzia de’ Rossi and Bernardo Tasso. His father, who was also a poet and published an epic on Amadis of Gaul, was the secretary of the Prince of Salerno, but when the prince was driven into exile in 1552 Tasso’s family shared in his downfall and spent the rest of their lives in a state of more or less dependency and instability. Torquato nevertheless was brought up in courts and educated accordingly. A literary prodigy, he published his first epic, Rinaldo, in 1562, and his first critical discourse, on the art of poetry, shortly after. He entered the household of the Cardinal Luigi d’Este of Ferrara in 1565, then left his first patron for the Duke of Ferrara in 1571. The story of his romance with a daughter of the household, Leonora d’Este, is no longer credited but was generally believed in the eighteenth century. (Both Goethe and Byron, qq.v., composed poems on the subject.) From about 1575 Tasso showed increasing signs of mental illness, and the Duke had him (comfortably) confined for seven years, 1579-86, after which he was released on condition that he leave Ferrara. He led a wandering life thereafter, passing from court to court and continuing to write, but less effectively. In 1595 he was invited to Rome to be crowned as a laureate and receive a pension, but he was already in ill health and before the ceremony could take place, he died on 25 Apr. at the monastery of St. Onofrio in Rome and was buried in the church there. (Encyclopaedia Britannica [1911] 25, 443-4; NBG 44 cols 903-19) HJ
Other Names:
- Tasso