Self-commentary on the Rime

The project of a complete and reorganized edition of his lyric poetry was to include a commentary on the texts, “explications” that Tasso started to work on in the second half of the 1580s and with which he planned to provide a precise interpretation of his lyrical poems. Along with numerous references to the preceding literary tradition, with Petrarch and Bembo at the forefront, there are frequent references also to Latin lyric poetry, indicating a tension regarding these models. At the same time, his commentary aimed to tone down the love content, adding fragments of philosophy with quotations from Plato, Aristotle and St Thomas. An example is provided by his commentary on the opening sonnet, Vere fur queste grazie e questi ardori, when in connection with the expression ostinati cori Tasso comments that “in sensual love there is obstinacy rather than constancy, whereas that love which is the noble expression of the will, as St Thomas tells us, is constant in the goodness that is its goal" (“ne l’amor concupiscibile non vi può esser costanza ma ostinazione, ma l’amore, il quale è abito nobilissimo della volontà, come dice San Tommaso ne le operette, è costante nel bene che si propone per oggetto”); Tasso’s self-interpretation fascinates on account of his reflections on his work, undertaken often after many years, and his urge to at least partly modify their meaning by adding references and ideas that go beyond the simplicity of the initial work. His self-commentary accompanied the two editions of his lyric poetry that he himself supervised (soon expressing his dissatisfaction): the first in Mantua at the end of 1591 for the Osanna press, and the second in Brescia, in 1593.