Discorsi del poema eroico

Following the unauthorized publication of his Discorsi dell’arte poetica in 1587, Tasso set about adding to and revising a text from the early 1560s that had set the guiding principles of the Liberata. In the summer that same year he had finalized the new structure of the work, now entitled Discorsi del poema eroico, although it was published after many further additions and revisions only in 1594, during the last of his periods spent in Naples. The new text now had six discourses instead of three, with most of the additions in the section on elocuzione, concerning the style to be adopted by the epic poet. More generally, the additions were due to Tasso’s desire to provide examples from theoretical and poetic texts, both classical and modern, in order to document his theoretical positions. He quotes frequently from Virgil and Homer when discussing their epic models, but the discussion on contemporary writers such as Jacopo Mazzoni and Francesco Patrizi is also of interest. Although his new version is lengthier, the theoretical framework is the same as in his earlier Discorsi, with only occasional variations or stronger versions of his views, such as his greater caution concerning the category of “marvellous”, used to alert readers to love content, and the idea of poetry aiming to educate rather than delight. While developing the theoretical work written when he was still young, aligning it to his new image as a scholarly poet, Tasso had been meditating for some time on the revision of his epic. These new Discorsi, especially in the final part on style, are thus a moment of clarification and planning, the prelude to a poetic outcome, the Gerusalemme Conquistata, which may not have been particularly successful, but was nonetheless developed in awareness.