Pastoral Eden

The dream of an idyllic setting far from the anxieties and suffering of real life, comes across, loosely based on actual circumstances, in the impressive poetry of the Aminta and the episode of Erminia among the shepherds in canto VII of the Gerusalemme liberata. In the chorus of Act I of the Aminta, the nostalgia expressed for a mythical golden age praises the natural above all, nature unrestrained by social and moral norms and enshrined in the fascinating formula of “If it pleases, it is allowed”. The pastoral image of Erminia among the shepherds, which Tasso wrote shortly afterwards, shows Erminia conversing with the old shepherd and gradually calming her amorous worries, forgetting for a while the horrors of the war taking place nearby, beneath the walls of Jerusalem. Tasso defended this episode for a long time against his revisors’ criticisms (eliminating it only from the Gerusalemme conquistata), an episode that expresses a fascination with seclusion and peace, suggesting Tasso’s own yearning for detachment from his troubles within the protective timelessness of a comforting myth.