Lena’s Reviews > Jerusalem Delivered > Status Update

All these battle scenes are wearying, and made me realize: the most pleasure I've gotten from this poem comes from its beauteous imagery and turns of phrase, or its up-close, emotionally-fraught scenes. This review (http://www.authorama.com/national-epi...) puts it well: Tasso was "by nature a lyric rather than an epic poet." On the other hand, his attempts at grandeur rarely inspire awe.

Whenever I watch a movie and then pick up a book, the scenes in my mind's eye unfold cinematically. Recently I've been wondering how visual culture informs literary imagery. Tasso's imagination, I think, has been pollinated by Baroque theater: so many scenes could be staged easily. The narrative sweep doesn't glide over the landscape; there is little sense for geography; scene-based plotting circles onto itself...

Ah! The descriptions of heat make me feel feverish. (Within his caves sweet Zephyr silent lies,/Still was the air, the rack nor came nor went,/But o'er the lands with lukewarm breathing flies/The southern wind, from sunburnt Afric sent,/Which thick and warm his interrupted blasts/Upon their bosoms, throats, and faces casts.)

By the way, Max Wickert in the Oxford World Classics edition has a marvelously helpful introduction. (https://books.google.com/books/about/...)

Just... wow. Some really haunting and brilliantly-observed sequences here. Book XII is legendary.

This gets really gory -- pierced hearts bursting blood, heads 'cleft in twain', severed limbs twitching after dismemberment: (Gernier's right hand she from his arme divided,/Whereof but late she had receiv'd a wound;/The hand his sword still held, although not guided,/The fingers halfe alive stirr'd on the ground...)

This book is fantastic. Soap-opera dramatic irony + copious bloodshed + a gloriously overwrought and musical Elizabethan translation = tremendous emotional and cerebral entertainment. And look how Fairfax writes! He's describing a restless and bloodthirsty knight hungering for his next tournament: (Above his head he shooke his naked blade,/And gainst the subtle aire vaine battaile made.) Genius!

Huh, I just found out that Galileo hated this book. (https://books.google.com/books?id=0hS...) He gives some scathing (and hilarious) criticisms. I personally disagree, but that shall await my review :)

That said, the poetry is impressive: (Of silver wings he tooke a shining paire/Fringed with gold, unwearied, nimble, swift;/With these he parts the windes, the clouds, the aire,/And over seas and earth himselfe doth lift,/Thus clad he cut the spheares and circles faire,/And the pure skies with sacred feathers clift;/On Libanon at first his foot he set,/And shooke his wings with roarie May-dewes wet.)

So the first book is mostly set-up: acquainting the reader with the heroes and villains. But it also serves as a training period for the reader -- Fairfax has contrived his translation in full-blown ottava rima, and to pull it off in rhyme-poor English he uses complex syntax and abundant archaisms.