WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.980 I want you to close your eyes for a second. Transport 00:00:01.980 --> 00:00:04.620 yourself back in time. Right. We're going to 00:00:04.620 --> 00:00:09.179 Rome. The date is April 25th, 1595. And it is 00:00:09.179 --> 00:00:14.439 a dark and stormy, well, day. Rain is just lashing 00:00:14.439 --> 00:00:16.679 against the cobblestones, thunders rolling over 00:00:16.679 --> 00:00:19.179 the seven hills. It's dramatic. Very dramatic. 00:00:19.600 --> 00:00:22.309 But despite the weather. There's this electric 00:00:22.309 --> 00:00:25.329 buzz in the city. The Vatican is in overdrive. 00:00:25.469 --> 00:00:28.070 You've got cardinals fussing over banquet menus. 00:00:28.449 --> 00:00:31.050 The pope himself, Clement VIII, is preparing 00:00:31.050 --> 00:00:33.869 this massive ceremony on the Capitoline Hill. 00:00:34.030 --> 00:00:36.289 It is supposed to be the event of the decade. 00:00:36.509 --> 00:00:38.590 And we should probably set the stakes here because 00:00:38.590 --> 00:00:40.490 this isn't a political coronation. I mean, they're 00:00:40.490 --> 00:00:42.770 not crowning a king or an emperor. No. They're 00:00:42.770 --> 00:00:45.750 preparing to crown a poet, the king of poets. 00:00:45.950 --> 00:00:47.750 And you have to understand, this was a huge deal. 00:00:48.200 --> 00:00:49.820 The laurel wreath they were going to use had 00:00:49.820 --> 00:00:51.719 basically been collecting dust since Petrarch 00:00:51.719 --> 00:00:54.060 wore it centuries earlier. Right. So this is 00:00:54.060 --> 00:00:56.079 like the ultimate validation. It's the Nobel 00:00:56.079 --> 00:00:58.439 Prize, the Lifetime Achievement Oscar, and a 00:00:58.439 --> 00:01:01.719 knighthood all rolled into one beautiful leafy 00:01:01.719 --> 00:01:04.260 package. Exactly. So the entire intellectual 00:01:04.260 --> 00:01:06.700 world of Europe, they're all looking at Rome. 00:01:06.739 --> 00:01:09.560 They're all waiting to celebrate this man, the 00:01:09.560 --> 00:01:11.939 greatest living writer of the age, Torquato Tasso. 00:01:12.260 --> 00:01:16.340 But here's the twist. And it's a really dark 00:01:16.340 --> 00:01:19.260 one. It's so cinematic. While all the dignitaries 00:01:19.260 --> 00:01:22.040 are down on the Capitoline Hill, you know, polishing 00:01:22.040 --> 00:01:23.799 their speeches and getting their robes ready, 00:01:23.939 --> 00:01:26.319 the guest of honor isn't there. He's not even 00:01:26.319 --> 00:01:28.480 close. He's on a completely different hill, the 00:01:28.480 --> 00:01:30.980 Janiculum, at this little convent called Sant 00:01:30.980 --> 00:01:34.400 'Onofrio. And he is not trying on his laurel 00:01:34.400 --> 00:01:37.319 wreath. He's lying in a monk's cell listening 00:01:37.319 --> 00:01:41.269 to that same rain. And he is... dying it's just 00:01:41.269 --> 00:01:43.250 a devastating image isn't it he'd arrived there 00:01:43.250 --> 00:01:44.870 just a little while before in the middle of a 00:01:44.870 --> 00:01:47.510 storm basically dragging his broken body up the 00:01:47.510 --> 00:01:49.650 hill and when the monks opened the door to greet 00:01:49.650 --> 00:01:52.349 this huge celebrity i mean this man who was supposed 00:01:52.349 --> 00:01:54.870 to be the pride of all italy tasso just looked 00:01:54.870 --> 00:01:56.650 at the prior and said i have come here to die 00:01:56.650 --> 00:01:59.670 wow he knew he knew the coronation was a phantom 00:01:59.670 --> 00:02:01.329 it was never going to happen for him he was out 00:02:01.329 --> 00:02:03.750 of time and that moment right there the king 00:02:03.750 --> 00:02:06.049 of poets dying alone in a monastery while the 00:02:06.049 --> 00:02:08.750 world prepares this huge party he'll never attend 00:02:08.750 --> 00:02:13.789 that is the perfect encapsulation of the man 00:02:13.789 --> 00:02:15.969 we're talking about today. I really is. So welcome 00:02:15.969 --> 00:02:18.689 to our deep dive into the life and work of Torquato 00:02:18.689 --> 00:02:20.789 Tasso. And if you're listening to this thinking, 00:02:20.969 --> 00:02:23.490 Tasso, I think I read a footnote about him in 00:02:23.490 --> 00:02:27.169 college once, you are in for a ride because Tasso 00:02:27.169 --> 00:02:29.710 is the original archetype. He really, really 00:02:29.710 --> 00:02:31.990 is. You know how we have this cultural concept 00:02:31.990 --> 00:02:35.469 of the tortured artist? This idea that genius 00:02:35.469 --> 00:02:38.270 always comes with a side order of madness, suffering, 00:02:38.449 --> 00:02:40.569 and persecution. Sure, Van Gogh cutting off his 00:02:40.569 --> 00:02:43.210 ears, Sylvia Plath, Kurt Cobain. Exactly, we 00:02:43.210 --> 00:02:45.750 think of them. But Tasso is the grandfather of 00:02:45.750 --> 00:02:48.129 that entire lineage. He was the first one to 00:02:48.129 --> 00:02:51.889 really, truly embody that tragic fusion of supreme, 00:02:52.069 --> 00:02:55.270 world -changing talent and supreme, soul -crushing 00:02:55.270 --> 00:02:57.490 instability. And the mission for this deep dive 00:02:57.490 --> 00:03:00.210 is to figure out how that happened. We're talking 00:03:00.210 --> 00:03:03.530 about a guy who wrote Liberata Jerusalem Delivered. 00:03:03.719 --> 00:03:06.340 which is, and it's not really an exaggeration 00:03:06.340 --> 00:03:08.340 to say this, it's arguably the greatest epic 00:03:08.340 --> 00:03:10.539 poem of the entire Renaissance. It's right up 00:03:10.539 --> 00:03:13.580 there. A masterpiece. He had the world at his 00:03:13.580 --> 00:03:16.099 feet. He was handsome. He was brilliant. He was 00:03:16.099 --> 00:03:18.080 a favorite at the most glamorous court in Italy. 00:03:18.680 --> 00:03:21.740 And yet, he ended up... locked in a madhouse 00:03:21.740 --> 00:03:24.120 for seven years. Which is the central question, 00:03:24.219 --> 00:03:26.159 right? That's what we have to answer today. How 00:03:26.159 --> 00:03:29.039 did he get there? Was he actually mad in a clinical 00:03:29.039 --> 00:03:32.000 sense we'd understand today? Or was he a victim? 00:03:32.280 --> 00:03:35.960 Was he gaslit by a rigid, paranoid society that 00:03:35.960 --> 00:03:38.580 just had no idea what to do with a mind like 00:03:38.580 --> 00:03:40.780 his? So we're going to be looking at his biography. 00:03:40.860 --> 00:03:43.460 We'll dig into the actual plots of his masterpieces, 00:03:43.479 --> 00:03:45.419 and we'll even read through the heartbreaking 00:03:45.419 --> 00:03:47.979 letters he wrote from inside the asylum to try 00:03:47.979 --> 00:03:49.889 and piece together the truth. It's a complicated 00:03:49.889 --> 00:03:53.189 story. So let's untack this life. To understand 00:03:53.189 --> 00:03:55.689 that tragic ending, we really have to start at 00:03:55.689 --> 00:03:57.550 the beginning. And with Tasso, the beginning 00:03:57.550 --> 00:04:00.370 is almost prophetic. He wasn't some self -made 00:04:00.370 --> 00:04:03.030 man who just stumbled into poetry. He was born 00:04:03.030 --> 00:04:06.199 into the family business. He was. Born in 1544 00:04:06.199 --> 00:04:08.379 in Sorrento, which, if you've never been, is 00:04:08.379 --> 00:04:11.419 this absolutely beautiful coastal town, his father 00:04:11.419 --> 00:04:14.080 was a man named Bernardo Tasso. And Bernardo 00:04:14.080 --> 00:04:16.439 wasn't just some hobbyist. He was a serious, 00:04:16.500 --> 00:04:19.920 famous nobleman poet in his own right. He had 00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:22.459 a reputation. Okay. But I think, more importantly, 00:04:22.660 --> 00:04:25.220 Bernardo was a professional courtier. And we 00:04:25.220 --> 00:04:27.019 need to clarify what that means, because courtier 00:04:27.019 --> 00:04:29.579 sounds like a very fancy, cushy job. Yeah. Where 00:04:29.579 --> 00:04:32.100 you just, I don't know, bow a lot and wear nice 00:04:32.100 --> 00:04:35.709 tights. But in 16th century Italy, Being in Cordia 00:04:35.709 --> 00:04:39.389 was more like being a high -level executive in 00:04:39.389 --> 00:04:41.269 a company that is constantly being raided by 00:04:41.269 --> 00:04:43.889 the FBI while also being in the middle of a hostile 00:04:43.889 --> 00:04:46.410 takeover. It was dangerous. That is a perfect 00:04:46.410 --> 00:04:48.089 analogy. It really is. You have to remember, 00:04:48.310 --> 00:04:51.490 Italy wasn't a unified country. It was this patchwork 00:04:51.490 --> 00:04:53.769 of the city -states and principalities, Ferrara, 00:04:53.850 --> 00:04:56.329 Mantua, Urbino, the papal states. And they were 00:04:56.329 --> 00:04:58.069 all fighting each other, all dealing with massive 00:04:58.069 --> 00:05:00.009 foreign powers like Spain or France breathing 00:05:00.009 --> 00:05:03.009 down their necks. A political minefield. A total 00:05:03.009 --> 00:05:06.529 minefield. And Bernardo, Tasso's father, he worked 00:05:06.529 --> 00:05:09.350 for the Prince of Salerno. Now, the prince got 00:05:09.350 --> 00:05:11.810 into a massive political conflict with the Spanish 00:05:11.810 --> 00:05:14.170 government, who controlled Naples at the time. 00:05:14.389 --> 00:05:17.250 The prince was declared a rebel and outlawed. 00:05:17.689 --> 00:05:20.769 And because Bernardo was his secretary, his right 00:05:20.769 --> 00:05:22.949 -hand man, Bernardo, went down with the ship. 00:05:23.230 --> 00:05:25.569 So Trocuato was just a little kid at this point, 00:05:25.629 --> 00:05:27.649 watching his dad get declared an enemy of the 00:05:27.649 --> 00:05:30.800 state. Exactly. The family is outlawed. Their 00:05:30.800 --> 00:05:33.379 entire patrimony, all their property, is seized 00:05:33.379 --> 00:05:36.000 by the government. Bernardo is proclaimed a rebel 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:38.939 and has to flee into exile. So from the very 00:05:38.939 --> 00:05:41.759 beginning, Tossa learns this brutal, brutal lesson. 00:05:42.180 --> 00:05:45.300 Art and politics are a toxic mix. You can be 00:05:45.300 --> 00:05:47.899 a celebrated poet one day and a homeless refugee 00:05:47.899 --> 00:05:50.180 the next. And the trauma doesn't just stop with 00:05:50.180 --> 00:05:52.240 the politics. There's a personal family tragedy 00:05:52.240 --> 00:05:53.879 here that feels like something straight out of 00:05:53.879 --> 00:05:56.819 a true crime podcast. It really does. While Bernardo 00:05:56.819 --> 00:05:59.139 is in exile, young Turquato is separated from 00:05:59.139 --> 00:06:01.240 his mother, Portia de Rossi. This must have been 00:06:01.240 --> 00:06:03.459 devastating for him. It was the heartbreak of 00:06:03.459 --> 00:06:06.120 his childhood. He's sent away and she stays behind 00:06:06.120 --> 00:06:09.040 in Naples to try and save her dowry to salvage 00:06:09.040 --> 00:06:11.920 some money for the family. But then she dies. 00:06:12.399 --> 00:06:16.579 Suddenly. Mysteriously, Tasso is still just a 00:06:16.579 --> 00:06:19.680 young boy. And the circumstances around her death, 00:06:19.879 --> 00:06:22.519 well, they were deeply suspicious. Suspicious 00:06:22.519 --> 00:06:25.439 how? What happened? Bernardo, the father, was 00:06:25.439 --> 00:06:27.459 absolutely convinced that Portia was poisoned. 00:06:27.899 --> 00:06:30.379 Poisoned? By who? By her own brothers. Her own 00:06:30.379 --> 00:06:32.360 brothers? Why would they do that? For the money. 00:06:32.459 --> 00:06:35.240 For the dowry. If she died, the money would stay 00:06:35.240 --> 00:06:37.839 with her family, with them, instead of ever going 00:06:37.839 --> 00:06:39.920 to her exiled husband Bernardo and their son 00:06:39.920 --> 00:06:42.800 Torquato. That's unbelievably cold. It's brutal. 00:06:42.899 --> 00:06:45.319 And sure enough, Tasso never saw a single dime 00:06:45.319 --> 00:06:47.699 of that inheritance his entire life. So just 00:06:47.699 --> 00:06:50.540 try to picture the psyche of this child. He's 00:06:50.540 --> 00:06:53.139 maybe 12 years old. His father is an outlaw living 00:06:53.139 --> 00:06:55.680 in exile. His mother is dead. And he's been told 00:06:55.680 --> 00:06:58.279 she was likely murdered by his own uncles. He's 00:06:58.279 --> 00:07:00.639 essentially homeless. bouncing around from city 00:07:00.639 --> 00:07:03.079 to city with his dad, the world must have felt 00:07:03.079 --> 00:07:06.160 like an incredibly hostile, dangerous, and treacherous 00:07:06.160 --> 00:07:09.720 place. It's the perfect recipe for anxiety, for 00:07:09.720 --> 00:07:12.879 paranoia, and for a desperate lifelong need for 00:07:12.879 --> 00:07:15.899 security and validation. Absolutely. But here's 00:07:15.899 --> 00:07:18.870 the amazing part. Despite all this chaos, all 00:07:18.870 --> 00:07:21.870 this trauma, the kid is a prodigy. I mean, he's 00:07:21.870 --> 00:07:24.670 not just smart, he's scary smart. The phrase 00:07:24.670 --> 00:07:26.870 biographers always use is precocity of intellect, 00:07:27.069 --> 00:07:29.569 right? That's the one. Before the exile fully 00:07:29.569 --> 00:07:32.529 hit, he was educated by the Jesuits in Naples. 00:07:32.709 --> 00:07:35.230 And we should note, the Jesuits were the intellectual 00:07:35.230 --> 00:07:37.550 shock troops of the Catholic Church. The best 00:07:37.550 --> 00:07:39.980 of the best. They gave him an incredibly rigorous 00:07:39.980 --> 00:07:43.519 classical education. We're talking Latin, Greek, 00:07:43.779 --> 00:07:46.819 rhetoric, theology, philosophy. He soaked it 00:07:46.819 --> 00:07:49.300 all up. He was apparently famous for his intellect 00:07:49.300 --> 00:07:51.579 by the age of eight. By the time he's a teenager, 00:07:51.800 --> 00:07:54.240 he's debating complex philosophy with grown men 00:07:54.240 --> 00:07:56.500 and winning. So he eventually joins his father 00:07:56.500 --> 00:07:59.259 in exile, and they move from Rome to the court 00:07:59.259 --> 00:08:01.639 of Urbino. And Urbino is a key setting here, 00:08:01.740 --> 00:08:03.639 isn't it? If you've ever read Castiglione's The 00:08:03.639 --> 00:08:05.620 Book of the Courtier, that was set in Urbino. 00:08:05.720 --> 00:08:08.290 It's the model of Renaissance refinement. It 00:08:08.290 --> 00:08:10.709 is. It's a society of highly cultivated men, 00:08:10.910 --> 00:08:14.350 refined luxury, incredible art. But it's also 00:08:14.350 --> 00:08:17.550 a place of extreme judgment. It's what one historian 00:08:17.550 --> 00:08:21.490 called a place of pedantic criticism. What does 00:08:21.490 --> 00:08:23.629 that mean exactly? It means it's a place where 00:08:23.629 --> 00:08:26.550 how you hold your gloves or how you turn a phrase 00:08:26.550 --> 00:08:29.329 in a poem or whether you know the latest philosophical 00:08:29.329 --> 00:08:31.910 argument can literally determine your entire 00:08:31.910 --> 00:08:34.889 social standing. It's high stakes intellectualism. 00:08:34.909 --> 00:08:37.309 And Casa is just soaking all this up. He's a 00:08:37.309 --> 00:08:40.450 natural. He's handsome. He's athletic. A great 00:08:40.450 --> 00:08:43.009 fencer and horseman. He's studying and playing 00:08:43.009 --> 00:08:45.590 sports with the Duke's own son and heir. He's 00:08:45.590 --> 00:08:48.940 learning how to be the perfect gentleman. But 00:08:48.940 --> 00:08:50.980 there is a conflict brewing under the surface. 00:08:51.259 --> 00:08:53.860 With his father. With his father. Bernardo, this 00:08:53.860 --> 00:08:56.259 famous poet who has lived this life of poverty 00:08:56.259 --> 00:08:58.220 and exile, looks at his brilliant son and says, 00:08:58.320 --> 00:09:00.899 whatever you do for the love of God, do not become 00:09:00.899 --> 00:09:02.940 a poet. Which is pretty rich coming from him. 00:09:02.980 --> 00:09:05.710 But I guess he knew the cost firsthand. He knew 00:09:05.710 --> 00:09:08.269 the poverty. He knew the dependency on patrons 00:09:08.269 --> 00:09:10.629 who could turn on you in a second. He didn't 00:09:10.629 --> 00:09:13.190 want his son begging princes for scraps his whole 00:09:13.190 --> 00:09:16.029 life. So he does what so many parents do. He 00:09:16.029 --> 00:09:18.590 forced Tasso to study law at the University of 00:09:18.590 --> 00:09:21.409 Padua. I feel like my father forced me to study 00:09:21.409 --> 00:09:24.049 law is the origin story of half the great artists 00:09:24.049 --> 00:09:26.830 in history. It really is. And like pretty much 00:09:26.830 --> 00:09:29.330 all of them, Tasso ignored it. He apparently 00:09:29.330 --> 00:09:31.990 sat in the law lectures, but under the desk he 00:09:31.990 --> 00:09:33.889 was secretly reading philosophy and writing a 00:09:33.889 --> 00:09:38.690 verse. And then the rebellion happens. In 1562, 00:09:38.850 --> 00:09:41.870 at the ripe old age of 18, he publishes an epic 00:09:41.870 --> 00:09:45.309 poem, a full -blown epic called Rinaldo. 18 years 00:09:45.309 --> 00:09:47.970 old. I was struggling to write a coherent five 00:09:47.970 --> 00:09:50.549 -page term paper at 18. He publishes an epic 00:09:50.549 --> 00:09:52.389 poem. And it wasn't just some throwaway poem. 00:09:52.629 --> 00:09:55.190 Rinaldo was a serious literary contender. It 00:09:55.190 --> 00:09:57.250 was Tasso's attempt to solve this huge puzzle 00:09:57.250 --> 00:09:59.549 that all the intellectuals in Italy were arguing 00:09:59.549 --> 00:10:02.470 about at the time. The big question was, how 00:10:02.470 --> 00:10:05.690 do you combine the wild, imaginative excitement 00:10:05.690 --> 00:10:08.710 of medieval romance, you know, knights, dragons, 00:10:08.929 --> 00:10:11.690 damsels in distress, magic, with the strict... 00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:14.899 classical rules of epic poetry laid down by virgil 00:10:14.899 --> 00:10:18.179 and more importantly by aristotle ah the rules 00:10:18.179 --> 00:10:20.240 we're going to be talking a lot about these rules 00:10:20.240 --> 00:10:21.919 later because they basically become the bane 00:10:21.919 --> 00:10:24.820 of his entire existence but for now ronaldo is 00:10:24.820 --> 00:10:27.620 a hit it is a massive success it shows incredible 00:10:27.620 --> 00:10:29.860 originality it's amazing command of language 00:10:29.860 --> 00:10:33.419 and bernardo the father he finally has to admit 00:10:33.419 --> 00:10:35.899 defeat he realizes his son isn't going to be 00:10:35.899 --> 00:10:38.620 a lawyer he's a poet and maybe a better one than 00:10:38.620 --> 00:10:40.679 bernardo ever was so he drops out of law school 00:10:41.100 --> 00:10:43.740 He has a hit debut under his belt, and this success 00:10:43.740 --> 00:10:46.379 sets him on a path to the most glittering and 00:10:46.379 --> 00:10:48.539 maybe the most dangerous court in all of Italy, 00:10:48.740 --> 00:10:52.120 Ferrara. Enter the House of Este. It's 1565. 00:10:52.620 --> 00:10:55.120 Tasso is 21 years old. He enters the service 00:10:55.120 --> 00:10:56.919 of Cardinal Luigi d 'Este, and then a few years 00:10:56.919 --> 00:10:59.419 later, the service of the Duke himself, Alfonso 00:10:59.419 --> 00:11:01.679 II. I want to pause on Ferrara for a second. 00:11:02.080 --> 00:11:04.500 Because when we say court, people might picture 00:11:04.500 --> 00:11:07.539 some quiet, stuffy room with tapestries on the 00:11:07.539 --> 00:11:11.860 wall. But Ferrara in the 1560s, it was more like 00:11:11.860 --> 00:11:13.980 a permanent festival mixed with a snake pit. 00:11:14.100 --> 00:11:16.039 It was the Hollywood of the Renaissance. That's 00:11:16.039 --> 00:11:18.620 a great description. The Esther Court was obsessed 00:11:18.620 --> 00:11:21.679 with prestige, with art, with music, with fear. 00:11:21.759 --> 00:11:24.580 It was loud. It was colorful. It was decadent. 00:11:24.580 --> 00:11:27.320 And it was incredibly competitive. And Tasso, 00:11:27.399 --> 00:11:30.639 he fits right in. He's the golden boy. He's young, 00:11:30.879 --> 00:11:33.139 handsome. He has that fashionable, melancholy 00:11:33.139 --> 00:11:35.460 air about him. He's a great horseman, a brilliant 00:11:35.460 --> 00:11:38.100 conversationalist. He becomes the idol of the 00:11:38.100 --> 00:11:40.139 court. And of course, being a court poet involves 00:11:40.139 --> 00:11:42.820 romance, or at least the public performance of 00:11:42.820 --> 00:11:44.500 romance. Right. It was part of the job description. 00:11:44.740 --> 00:11:47.929 A courtier poet needs music. So he courted several 00:11:47.929 --> 00:11:50.590 ladies -in -waiting, like Lucrezia Bandidio and 00:11:50.590 --> 00:11:52.409 Laura Pavera, who were famous singers of the 00:11:52.409 --> 00:11:54.789 time. He wrote these beautiful sonnets for them, 00:11:54.789 --> 00:11:56.830 praising their voices, their beauty, their virtue. 00:11:56.970 --> 00:11:59.870 Standard stuff. Standard stuff. But then he moves 00:11:59.870 --> 00:12:02.289 up a weight class. He becomes very close to the 00:12:02.289 --> 00:12:04.269 princesses themselves. The Duke's own sisters. 00:12:04.870 --> 00:12:07.620 Lucrezia and Eleanor d 'Este. They were about 00:12:07.620 --> 00:12:10.299 10 years older than Tasso, unmarried, very intelligent, 00:12:10.480 --> 00:12:13.419 very refined, and they took him under their protection. 00:12:13.559 --> 00:12:15.700 He was admitted to their private rooms to read 00:12:15.700 --> 00:12:18.139 his poetry aloud to them. This was a huge honor, 00:12:18.279 --> 00:12:21.500 a sign of incredible intimacy and favor. So for 00:12:21.500 --> 00:12:24.340 a while, Tasso was just living the dream. He 00:12:24.340 --> 00:12:26.399 has a good salary. He has prestige. He has the 00:12:26.399 --> 00:12:28.779 ear of the ruling family. He's on top of the 00:12:28.779 --> 00:12:32.110 world. It's his golden age. And during this period, 00:12:32.230 --> 00:12:34.750 before the madness really sets in, he produces 00:12:34.750 --> 00:12:37.710 two works that will define his career. The first 00:12:37.710 --> 00:12:40.809 is a play called Aminta. Okay, now help us out 00:12:40.809 --> 00:12:44.610 here. Aminta is a pastoral drama. For a modern 00:12:44.610 --> 00:12:46.529 listener, what does that actually mean? Because 00:12:46.529 --> 00:12:48.389 pastoral kind of sounds like a church sermon 00:12:48.389 --> 00:12:50.830 or something about farming. It's pretty much 00:12:50.830 --> 00:12:53.009 the opposite. You should think of Pastoral as 00:12:53.009 --> 00:12:55.669 the 16th century version of, I don't know, Cottagecore. 00:12:55.889 --> 00:12:58.649 It's a complete fantasy. The setting is always 00:12:58.649 --> 00:13:02.350 a beautiful, idealized forest Arcadia. The characters 00:13:02.350 --> 00:13:04.769 are shepherds and nymphs. But they're not real 00:13:04.769 --> 00:13:07.309 shepherds who have to deal with, you know, sheep 00:13:07.309 --> 00:13:10.460 dung and ticks. Not at all. They are highly refined, 00:13:10.779 --> 00:13:13.960 eloquent, poetic shepherds who spend all day 00:13:13.960 --> 00:13:16.700 talking about love and beauty and heartbreak. 00:13:16.919 --> 00:13:19.299 It's a form of escapism for the stressed -out 00:13:19.299 --> 00:13:21.659 city courtiers. It's a fantasy of a simpler, 00:13:21.759 --> 00:13:24.440 more beautiful world. Got it. So what made Aminta 00:13:24.440 --> 00:13:27.720 so special? It was staged in 1573, and it was 00:13:27.720 --> 00:13:30.340 revolutionary because of its style. The plot 00:13:30.340 --> 00:13:33.879 is very simple. Shepard Amenta loves nymph Sylvia. 00:13:34.000 --> 00:13:36.419 Sylvia is sworn to chastity and doesn't love 00:13:36.419 --> 00:13:39.440 him back. Complications ensue. But the language? 00:13:39.840 --> 00:13:42.500 Oh my God, the language was just dripping with 00:13:42.500 --> 00:13:45.820 this exquisite lyrical charm. And this is happening 00:13:45.820 --> 00:13:47.700 right around the time that music is undergoing 00:13:47.700 --> 00:13:50.379 a huge change in Italy, right? We're seeing the 00:13:50.379 --> 00:13:53.279 birth of what will eventually become opera. Precisely. 00:13:53.279 --> 00:13:55.590 That is the perfect context. Aminta is almost 00:13:55.590 --> 00:13:57.610 like a libretto waiting for a composer to set 00:13:57.610 --> 00:13:59.929 it. It's filled with these honeyed melodies and 00:13:59.929 --> 00:14:02.429 this unique feeling of sensuous melancholy. It 00:14:02.429 --> 00:14:05.029 was a massive, massive hit. It was read and performed 00:14:05.029 --> 00:14:07.629 all across Europe for two centuries. It influenced 00:14:07.629 --> 00:14:09.590 Shakespeare. It heavily influenced the development 00:14:09.590 --> 00:14:12.409 of opera and the cantata. If Tasso had died right 00:14:12.409 --> 00:14:14.309 after writing Aminta, he would still be in all 00:14:14.309 --> 00:14:16.879 the textbooks. But he didn't stop there. He had 00:14:16.879 --> 00:14:19.000 a much bigger target in his sights. He wanted 00:14:19.000 --> 00:14:21.200 to write the great Italian epic. He wanted to 00:14:21.200 --> 00:14:23.759 top Ariosto, who was the reigning champion. He 00:14:23.759 --> 00:14:26.960 wanted to top Virgil. He set out to write Jerusalem 00:14:26.960 --> 00:14:30.179 Liberata. Jerusalem delivered. He finished the 00:14:30.179 --> 00:14:33.059 draft around 1574 when he was just 31 years old. 00:14:33.179 --> 00:14:35.559 We need to dive deep into this book because this 00:14:35.559 --> 00:14:37.960 is the masterpiece. This is the main event. On 00:14:37.960 --> 00:14:40.919 the surface, it's about the First Crusade, specifically 00:14:40.919 --> 00:14:44.580 the siege of Jerusalem in 1099. But that sounds 00:14:44.580 --> 00:14:47.740 a little dry. A little bit like homework. What 00:14:47.740 --> 00:14:49.700 is the actual experience of reading this thing? 00:14:50.159 --> 00:14:52.879 Well, Tasso was brilliant. He knew that a poem 00:14:52.879 --> 00:14:55.519 that was just about military strategy and pious 00:14:55.519 --> 00:14:58.700 knights praying would be incredibly boring. So 00:14:58.700 --> 00:15:01.399 he creates this nominal hero, Godfrey of Bouillon, 00:15:01.539 --> 00:15:03.960 who is the leader of the Christian army. And 00:15:03.960 --> 00:15:06.940 Godfrey is, well, he's pious, he's serious, he's 00:15:06.940 --> 00:15:09.419 modeled on Virgil's Aeneas. And frankly, he's 00:15:09.419 --> 00:15:11.419 dull as dishwater. He's the guy you're supposed 00:15:11.419 --> 00:15:13.379 to root for, but you don't really care about 00:15:13.379 --> 00:15:16.070 him. Exactly. He's the designated... Good guy. 00:15:16.269 --> 00:15:19.629 But Tasso, very cleverly, surrounds Godfrey with 00:15:19.629 --> 00:15:21.429 what I like to call the soap opera. The good 00:15:21.429 --> 00:15:24.409 stuff. The really good stuff. The romance, the 00:15:24.409 --> 00:15:27.250 magic, the conflicted villains, the psychological 00:15:27.250 --> 00:15:31.070 drama. This is where the poem comes alive. The 00:15:31.070 --> 00:15:34.269 real appeal is in all of the side characters 00:15:34.269 --> 00:15:36.730 who are constantly getting distracted from the 00:15:36.730 --> 00:15:39.509 Holy War by their very human feelings. Okay, 00:15:39.570 --> 00:15:40.990 so walk us through some of these characters. 00:15:41.149 --> 00:15:43.570 Who were the fan favorites that made this book 00:15:43.570 --> 00:15:46.240 a bestseller? All right. First, you have to talk 00:15:46.240 --> 00:15:49.019 about Clorinda. She is a fascinating, revolutionary 00:15:49.019 --> 00:15:51.899 character. She's a warrior maiden fighting for 00:15:51.899 --> 00:15:54.320 the enemy side, for the Saracens defending Jerusalem. 00:15:54.700 --> 00:15:56.860 She wears full armor. She's their greatest champion. 00:15:56.940 --> 00:15:59.840 She kicks butt. She's totally independent. And 00:15:59.840 --> 00:16:02.059 one of the top Christian knights, a prince named 00:16:02.059 --> 00:16:05.500 Tancredi, falls desperately, obsessively in love 00:16:05.500 --> 00:16:08.299 with her after seeing her just once. And this 00:16:08.299 --> 00:16:10.279 obsession leads to one of the most famous and 00:16:10.279 --> 00:16:12.799 most tragic scenes in all of literature. It's 00:16:12.799 --> 00:16:15.190 the duel. It's unforgettable. They meet on the 00:16:15.190 --> 00:16:17.429 battlefield at night. Clorinda is wearing her 00:16:17.429 --> 00:16:19.649 full armor. Her helmet is down, so she's anonymous. 00:16:20.070 --> 00:16:22.070 Tancredi doesn't know it's her. He thinks he's 00:16:22.070 --> 00:16:24.870 fighting another male enemy champion. And they 00:16:24.870 --> 00:16:28.590 fight this brutal, intimate, desperate duel to 00:16:28.590 --> 00:16:30.929 the death under the stars. It's described in 00:16:30.929 --> 00:16:34.169 excruciating detail. And finally, Tancredi gets 00:16:34.169 --> 00:16:37.049 the upper hand and drives his sword through her 00:16:37.049 --> 00:16:39.320 chest. Oh, man. I can see where this is going. 00:16:39.419 --> 00:16:41.620 And as she's dying, she whispers a final request. 00:16:41.879 --> 00:16:44.879 She asks to be baptized, to become a Christian. 00:16:45.080 --> 00:16:47.279 So Tancredi, fulfilling the duty of a knight, 00:16:47.419 --> 00:16:50.120 runs to a nearby stream to get water in his helmet. 00:16:50.320 --> 00:16:52.940 He comes back, takes off her helmet to baptize 00:16:52.940 --> 00:16:55.549 his dying enemy, and he realizes... it's her 00:16:55.549 --> 00:16:58.049 it's the woman he loves she dies in his arms 00:16:58.049 --> 00:17:00.389 just as he baptizes her that is absolutely gut 00:17:00.389 --> 00:17:03.429 -wrenching it is it wrecked readers people wept 00:17:03.429 --> 00:17:05.509 over this scene for centuries it brings this 00:17:05.509 --> 00:17:08.190 incredible humanity and pathos to the enemy it's 00:17:08.190 --> 00:17:10.569 not just good versus evil anymore and then for 00:17:10.569 --> 00:17:12.369 something completely different you have armida 00:17:12.369 --> 00:17:15.299 the witch The sorceress. The beautiful sorceress, 00:17:15.299 --> 00:17:18.640 yes. She is a demonic agent, basically. She's 00:17:18.640 --> 00:17:21.480 sent by the forces of hell to distract and seduce 00:17:21.480 --> 00:17:23.980 the Christian knights. She uses her magic to 00:17:23.980 --> 00:17:26.599 lure their greatest warrior, Rinaldo, who is 00:17:26.599 --> 00:17:28.339 a different character from the one in his earlier 00:17:28.339 --> 00:17:31.119 poem, Away, to her enchanted island. And her 00:17:31.119 --> 00:17:33.759 plan is to kill him, right? To neutralize the 00:17:33.759 --> 00:17:36.319 Christian's best player. That's the plan. But 00:17:36.319 --> 00:17:38.180 she looks at him while he's sleeping and she's 00:17:38.180 --> 00:17:40.750 so struck by his beauty that she just... can't 00:17:40.750 --> 00:17:43.049 do it. She falls in love with him instead. She 00:17:43.049 --> 00:17:46.009 creates this incredible magical pleasure palace 00:17:46.009 --> 00:17:49.009 for him, the famous Garden of Armida, where they 00:17:49.009 --> 00:17:51.809 just lay around in bliss, surrounded by sensual 00:17:51.809 --> 00:17:53.549 delights, completely forgetting about the war. 00:17:53.769 --> 00:17:56.210 So Tasso is basically inventing the make love 00:17:56.210 --> 00:17:59.589 not war trope right in the middle of a holy war 00:17:59.589 --> 00:18:02.329 epic. In a way, yes. And this is Tasso's great 00:18:02.329 --> 00:18:04.490 innovation. He introduced what literary critics 00:18:04.490 --> 00:18:07.130 call the poetry of sentiment. Before him, epics 00:18:07.130 --> 00:18:09.349 were mostly about action, about deeds. Tasso 00:18:09.349 --> 00:18:11.730 made them about feeling he elevated the emotional 00:18:11.730 --> 00:18:14.289 lives of women of enemies of lovers who are on 00:18:14.289 --> 00:18:16.849 the wrong side he drenched the whole story in 00:18:16.849 --> 00:18:20.230 this noble beautiful intoxicating melancholy 00:18:20.230 --> 00:18:22.869 it was a brand new feeling in 16th century literature 00:18:22.869 --> 00:18:26.150 it was absolutely magnetic so here we are The 00:18:26.150 --> 00:18:29.990 year is about 1575. He's 31 years old. He has 00:18:29.990 --> 00:18:32.349 in his desk drawer the manuscript for the greatest 00:18:32.349 --> 00:18:34.910 poem of his age. He has the favor of the Duke 00:18:34.910 --> 00:18:37.269 of Ferrara. He should be on top of the world. 00:18:37.390 --> 00:18:39.470 But this is the moment where the music changes 00:18:39.470 --> 00:18:42.549 to a minor key. This is where we begin the unraveling. 00:18:42.569 --> 00:18:45.549 It really is a tragedy of, well, of one's own 00:18:45.549 --> 00:18:47.569 making, but fueled by the environment around 00:18:47.569 --> 00:18:49.509 him. Instead of just publishing the poem and 00:18:49.509 --> 00:18:52.369 taking the win, Tasso hesitated. He had this... 00:18:53.480 --> 00:18:55.900 paranoid character, as his biographers call it. 00:18:55.920 --> 00:18:58.480 But we have to contextualize that paranoia. It 00:18:58.480 --> 00:19:00.480 wasn't just in his head. Right. We can't just 00:19:00.480 --> 00:19:02.779 fall back on, oh, he was crazy. What was the 00:19:02.779 --> 00:19:05.420 political and religious climate that was making 00:19:05.420 --> 00:19:08.140 him so anxious? This is the absolute height of 00:19:08.140 --> 00:19:10.180 the Counter -Reformation. The Council of Trent 00:19:10.180 --> 00:19:12.640 had just wrapped up a few years earlier. The 00:19:12.640 --> 00:19:15.299 Catholic Church was terrified, absolutely terrified 00:19:15.299 --> 00:19:17.599 of the Protestant Reformation spreading south 00:19:17.599 --> 00:19:19.980 from Germany and Switzerland. So they clamped 00:19:19.980 --> 00:19:22.400 down hard. This is when they created the Index 00:19:22.400 --> 00:19:25.519 of prohibited books. The Index, yes. And the 00:19:25.519 --> 00:19:28.400 Roman Inquisition was very, very active. If you 00:19:28.400 --> 00:19:30.579 wrote something that was seen as heretical or 00:19:30.579 --> 00:19:33.680 too pagan or too sensual, you could be in very 00:19:33.680 --> 00:19:36.460 serious trouble. We're talking prison or worse. 00:19:36.680 --> 00:19:39.619 So Tasso's anxiety wasn't coming from nowhere. 00:19:40.500 --> 00:19:43.019 He's written a poem that is filled with sympathetic 00:19:43.019 --> 00:19:46.279 Muslim characters, with powerful magic, with 00:19:46.279 --> 00:19:49.039 witches, with incredibly sexy garden scenes, 00:19:49.279 --> 00:19:52.680 all in a world where the church is burning people 00:19:52.680 --> 00:19:55.460 at the stake for less. Exactly. He became obsessed 00:19:55.460 --> 00:19:58.799 with the idea that his poem was sinful or theologically 00:19:58.799 --> 00:20:01.559 improper. So in what has to be one of the worst 00:20:01.559 --> 00:20:04.440 decisions in literary history, he sent the manuscript 00:20:04.440 --> 00:20:07.119 to a committee of critics in Rome. He voluntarily 00:20:07.119 --> 00:20:09.740 asked them to audit it for him. He voluntarily. 00:20:09.829 --> 00:20:11.430 sent his poem to a committee. That sounds like 00:20:11.430 --> 00:20:13.569 an absolute nightmare. It was a complete disaster. 00:20:13.769 --> 00:20:15.289 You have to understand, these weren't his fans. 00:20:15.490 --> 00:20:17.990 These were pedantic, by -the -book Aristotelian 00:20:17.990 --> 00:20:20.150 scholars and churchmen, and they just tore the 00:20:20.150 --> 00:20:23.099 poem to shreds. What specifically did they hate? 00:20:23.119 --> 00:20:25.160 Because as you've described it, the romance and 00:20:25.160 --> 00:20:27.740 the magic are the best parts of the book. That's 00:20:27.740 --> 00:20:29.880 precisely what they hated. They complained that 00:20:29.880 --> 00:20:32.180 the magic, you know, Armida spells and so on, 00:20:32.180 --> 00:20:34.700 wasn't Christian enough. They said the intense 00:20:34.700 --> 00:20:37.400 romance between Tancredi and Clorinda was unworthy 00:20:37.400 --> 00:20:39.960 of an epic, but their biggest obsession was with 00:20:39.960 --> 00:20:43.500 the unities. The famous Aristotelian rules. The 00:20:43.500 --> 00:20:46.799 rules, yeah. The idea that a proper epic must 00:20:46.799 --> 00:20:50.420 happen in one primary place over one continuous 00:20:50.420 --> 00:20:53.579 stretch of time with one single plot line. And 00:20:53.579 --> 00:20:55.640 they looked at Tasso's masterpiece and said, 00:20:55.759 --> 00:20:58.700 too many subplots. It's too messy. Too many distractions. 00:20:58.900 --> 00:21:01.039 You have to cut the garden scene. Cut the death 00:21:01.039 --> 00:21:03.220 of Clorinda. Cut the love stories. They were 00:21:03.220 --> 00:21:05.339 basically trying to turn his Technicolor masterpiece 00:21:05.339 --> 00:21:07.839 into a black and white documentary. They wanted 00:21:07.839 --> 00:21:09.339 to strip out everything that made it special. 00:21:09.789 --> 00:21:11.630 And Tasso tried to argue with them. He wrote 00:21:11.630 --> 00:21:14.049 these long, desperate letters defending his artistic 00:21:14.049 --> 00:21:17.750 choices, but he was driven almost mad with worry. 00:21:17.930 --> 00:21:20.869 He was caught in this impossible bind, trying 00:21:20.869 --> 00:21:23.730 to reconcile his own artistic genius with the 00:21:23.730 --> 00:21:26.690 rigid, suffocating demands of these critics and 00:21:26.690 --> 00:21:28.809 the stress of it all, feeling like a heretic, 00:21:28.869 --> 00:21:31.609 feeling like a failure. It cracked him. And this 00:21:31.609 --> 00:21:34.730 is where we see the slide into what his contemporaries 00:21:34.730 --> 00:21:37.750 called persecution mania yes this is the mid 00:21:37.750 --> 00:21:41.250 -1570s tasso starts having active delusions it 00:21:41.250 --> 00:21:43.890 starts small he thinks the servants at the court 00:21:43.890 --> 00:21:46.750 are stealing his notes his books then he becomes 00:21:46.750 --> 00:21:48.789 convinced they are spying on him and reporting 00:21:48.789 --> 00:21:51.529 back to the inquisition then he thinks the duke 00:21:51.529 --> 00:21:54.450 himself is plotting against him He almost stopped 00:21:54.450 --> 00:21:56.890 eating because he expected to be poisoned at 00:21:56.890 --> 00:21:59.670 every single meal. And it wasn't just paranoia 00:21:59.670 --> 00:22:01.549 in his head. He started acting out in public. 00:22:01.930 --> 00:22:05.309 Violently. In 1576, he got into a huge quarrel 00:22:05.309 --> 00:22:07.549 and physically assaulted a courtier named Medallo 00:22:07.549 --> 00:22:09.930 because he thought Medallo was spreading rumors 00:22:09.930 --> 00:22:12.789 about his private life, specifically about a 00:22:12.789 --> 00:22:15.609 same -sex love affair, which, again, in the climate 00:22:15.609 --> 00:22:17.769 of the Counter -Reformation, was an accusation 00:22:17.769 --> 00:22:20.190 that could get you killed. And then, a year later, 00:22:20.269 --> 00:22:23.910 the infamous knife incident. 1577. This is the 00:22:23.910 --> 00:22:25.970 scene that really marks the point of no return. 00:22:26.549 --> 00:22:28.970 Tasso is in the private apartments of Lucrezia 00:22:28.970 --> 00:22:31.650 d 'Este, the Duke's sister, who by now is the 00:22:31.650 --> 00:22:34.730 Duchess of Urbino. It's a quiet evening. Suddenly, 00:22:34.930 --> 00:22:37.410 Tasso thinks he sees a servant spying on them 00:22:37.410 --> 00:22:40.569 from the shadows. And he just snaps. He draws 00:22:40.569 --> 00:22:42.769 a knife and attacks the servant. In front of 00:22:42.769 --> 00:22:44.250 the duchess. In the royal apartments. You just 00:22:44.250 --> 00:22:46.569 cannot pull a knife on a servant in the presence 00:22:46.569 --> 00:22:49.430 of a royal duchess. It's a massive, massive breach 00:22:49.430 --> 00:22:52.730 of protocol. Aside from being, you know, aggravated 00:22:52.730 --> 00:22:55.150 assault. But what does the duke do? Because the 00:22:55.150 --> 00:22:58.430 romantic legend says the duke was a cruel tyrant 00:22:58.430 --> 00:23:01.329 who hated Tasso. But the history suggests something 00:23:01.329 --> 00:23:04.859 else, right? The Duke, Alfonso II, was actually 00:23:04.859 --> 00:23:07.160 incredibly forbearing and patient at first. He 00:23:07.160 --> 00:23:09.299 seems to have realized that Tasso was genuinely 00:23:09.299 --> 00:23:11.720 unwell. He didn't throw him in a dungeon. He 00:23:11.720 --> 00:23:13.839 put him under a kind of house arrest in the castle 00:23:13.839 --> 00:23:16.539 and then sent him to a country villa and then 00:23:16.539 --> 00:23:19.279 to a Franciscan convent to calm down. He even 00:23:19.279 --> 00:23:21.640 arranged for doctors to see him. But Tasso can't 00:23:21.640 --> 00:23:23.900 handle the confinement. He escapes. He does, 00:23:24.099 --> 00:23:26.500 and this begins one of the most cinematic sequences 00:23:26.500 --> 00:23:29.200 of his entire life. He breaks out of the convent 00:23:29.200 --> 00:23:31.680 at night, he gets his hands on some peasant clothes, 00:23:31.960 --> 00:23:34.940 disguises himself as a shepherd, and he walks 00:23:34.940 --> 00:23:38.079 on foot all the way from Ferrara in the north 00:23:38.079 --> 00:23:41.259 of Italy down to his sister's home in Sorrento 00:23:41.259 --> 00:23:44.700 in the south. That is... Hundreds and hundreds 00:23:44.700 --> 00:23:47.140 of miles. Through bandit country with no money. 00:23:47.299 --> 00:23:50.460 Through incredibly dangerous territory. He finally 00:23:50.460 --> 00:23:53.480 shows up at his sister Cornelia's house in Sorrento. 00:23:53.480 --> 00:23:56.180 She hasn't seen him in years. He's in rags. He 00:23:56.180 --> 00:23:58.619 looks like a beggar. And he actually plays this 00:23:58.619 --> 00:24:01.940 cruel prank on her at first. He pretends to be 00:24:01.940 --> 00:24:04.640 a messenger bringing the terrible news of Torquato 00:24:04.640 --> 00:24:06.759 Tasso's death just to see if she really loves 00:24:06.759 --> 00:24:10.650 him. That is, wow. That's both deeply cruel and 00:24:10.650 --> 00:24:13.029 incredibly insecure. It's so revealing, isn't 00:24:13.029 --> 00:24:15.730 it? When she faints from grease, he finally reveals 00:24:15.730 --> 00:24:18.230 himself. It's me. And for a few months, he lives 00:24:18.230 --> 00:24:20.529 quietly with her in beautiful Sorrento. It's 00:24:20.529 --> 00:24:22.470 safe. He's away from the critics. He's away from 00:24:22.470 --> 00:24:24.329 the pressures of the court. He could have just 00:24:24.329 --> 00:24:26.750 stayed there. But he couldn't stay away. He couldn't. 00:24:26.750 --> 00:24:28.829 This is the central tragedy of his personality. 00:24:29.150 --> 00:24:31.410 He was addicted to the court. He was addicted 00:24:31.410 --> 00:24:34.009 to the prestige, the danger, the validation. 00:24:34.390 --> 00:24:36.670 He missed what he called the charmed circle. 00:24:37.099 --> 00:24:39.559 So he started writing these desperate begging 00:24:39.559 --> 00:24:42.339 letters to the Duke and Ferrara. I'm better now. 00:24:42.539 --> 00:24:44.720 I'm cured. I promise I'll behave. Please let 00:24:44.720 --> 00:24:46.700 me come back. And the Duke actually takes him 00:24:46.700 --> 00:24:50.119 back after everything. Reluctantly. The Duke's 00:24:50.119 --> 00:24:53.279 condition was, OK, you can come back, but you 00:24:53.279 --> 00:24:55.380 have to agree to submit to medical treatment 00:24:55.380 --> 00:24:57.900 for your melancholy. You have to take your medicine 00:24:57.900 --> 00:25:00.059 and listen to the doctors. And Tasso agrees. 00:25:00.380 --> 00:25:03.240 So he goes back to Ferrara. But the timing is 00:25:03.240 --> 00:25:06.220 just catastrophic. It's 1579. And this is the 00:25:06.220 --> 00:25:09.000 grand finale of his breakdown. Tasso arrives 00:25:09.000 --> 00:25:11.059 back in Ferrara, and he's probably expecting 00:25:11.059 --> 00:25:13.740 a hero's welcome. The great poet returns, but 00:25:13.740 --> 00:25:16.299 he walks into a city that is in total chaos. 00:25:16.940 --> 00:25:19.099 Duke Alfonso is about to get married for the 00:25:19.099 --> 00:25:22.059 third time, this time to a princess from Mentua. 00:25:22.200 --> 00:25:24.160 Why was the duce so stressed out about this? 00:25:24.259 --> 00:25:27.130 A royal wedding should be a party. It was a desperation 00:25:27.130 --> 00:25:30.210 wedding. Alfonso had no children, no heir from 00:25:30.210 --> 00:25:32.769 his first two marriages. If he died without a 00:25:32.769 --> 00:25:35.630 son, the Pope was legally entitled to seize the 00:25:35.630 --> 00:25:38.380 entire Duchy of Ferrara. and annex it to the 00:25:38.380 --> 00:25:40.880 Papal States. The very existence of the Eston 00:25:40.880 --> 00:25:43.380 dynasty was on the line. The Duke was frantic. 00:25:43.400 --> 00:25:46.079 He had absolutely zero time or patience for a 00:25:46.079 --> 00:25:48.819 neurotic poet having a personal crisis. So Tasso 00:25:48.819 --> 00:25:50.839 arrives, and nobody rolls out the red carpet 00:25:50.839 --> 00:25:53.000 for him. He gets completely ignored. He's given 00:25:53.000 --> 00:25:55.200 bad rooms in the castle. The other courtiers, 00:25:55.359 --> 00:25:57.119 who were probably jealous of him anyway, openly 00:25:57.119 --> 00:26:00.200 mock him. And Tasso, with his fragile ego and 00:26:00.200 --> 00:26:02.859 his raging paranoia, takes all of this as a deliberate 00:26:02.859 --> 00:26:06.240 personal attack, a conspiracy, and he just explodes. 00:26:06.700 --> 00:26:08.819 What does he do? He breaks into what the Chronicles 00:26:08.819 --> 00:26:11.500 call open abuse in the middle of the court. He 00:26:11.500 --> 00:26:14.140 screams insults at the Duke. He screams at the 00:26:14.140 --> 00:26:17.200 new princess from Mantua. He shouts blasphemies. 00:26:17.259 --> 00:26:19.960 He behaves like a complete and utter lunatic 00:26:19.960 --> 00:26:22.000 in front of all the most important diplomatic 00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:25.059 guests from all over Italy. And that's it. That's 00:26:25.059 --> 00:26:27.539 the last straw. The Duke's patience is finally 00:26:27.539 --> 00:26:30.970 gone. It snapped completely. Alfonso orders the 00:26:30.970 --> 00:26:32.970 guards to seize him, and he doesn't send him 00:26:32.970 --> 00:26:35.109 to a nice country villa this time. He sends him 00:26:35.109 --> 00:26:37.849 to the madhouse of St. Anna. And let's be very 00:26:37.849 --> 00:26:40.670 clear. This isn't a modern mental health facility 00:26:40.670 --> 00:26:43.710 with therapy and calming music. This is a 16th 00:26:43.710 --> 00:26:46.130 century asylum. It was a prison for the Pazzi. 00:26:46.269 --> 00:26:49.700 The mad. Tasso was thrown into a cell. He was 00:26:49.700 --> 00:26:52.299 chained, at least initially. He was surrounded 00:26:52.299 --> 00:26:55.059 by the sounds of people screaming, howling, suffering. 00:26:55.420 --> 00:26:58.140 For a man of his incredible sensitivity, it must 00:26:58.140 --> 00:27:00.420 have been a vision of hell on earth. And he stays 00:27:00.420 --> 00:27:03.220 there for seven years. Seven years of his life. 00:27:03.299 --> 00:27:07.380 Seven years, from 1579 to 1586. I want to dig 00:27:07.380 --> 00:27:10.480 into his life inside St. Anna, because the story 00:27:10.480 --> 00:27:12.480 is a bit more complicated than him just rotting 00:27:12.480 --> 00:27:14.839 in a dungeon. Eventually, the conditions improved 00:27:14.839 --> 00:27:17.579 for him, right? They did. Once the initial fury 00:27:17.579 --> 00:27:20.539 of the Duke wore off, and as Tasso's fame continued 00:27:20.539 --> 00:27:22.900 to grow outside the walls, the Duke probably 00:27:22.900 --> 00:27:25.779 realized, okay, I can't just let the most famous 00:27:25.779 --> 00:27:29.400 poet in Europe rot in a filthy cell. So Tasso 00:27:29.400 --> 00:27:31.259 was eventually moved to much better quarters, 00:27:31.420 --> 00:27:33.799 a suite of spacious apartments within the asylum 00:27:33.799 --> 00:27:36.400 complex. He was allowed to have his books. He 00:27:36.400 --> 00:27:38.779 was allowed to receive visitors. And he wrote. 00:27:38.799 --> 00:27:41.900 He wrote constantly. He wrote thousands of letters. 00:27:41.980 --> 00:27:43.779 And these letters are just heartbreaking to read. 00:27:43.880 --> 00:27:46.000 They are our best window into his mind. They 00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:48.160 show a man who is lucid one day, then manic the 00:27:48.160 --> 00:27:51.099 next, then plunged into deep depression. He writes 00:27:51.099 --> 00:27:53.440 about the horrible sounds of the mad that keep 00:27:53.440 --> 00:27:56.000 him awake all night. He writes about hallucinations. 00:27:56.000 --> 00:27:58.869 He described a filetto. of mischievous sprite 00:27:58.869 --> 00:28:01.289 that would steal his food and mess up his papers. 00:28:01.490 --> 00:28:03.109 But at the same time he could write incredibly 00:28:03.109 --> 00:28:06.619 lucid philosophy. Incredibly lucid. Most modern 00:28:06.619 --> 00:28:09.019 psychiatrists and scholars who have studied his 00:28:09.019 --> 00:28:11.799 letters agree that his symptoms align almost 00:28:11.799 --> 00:28:14.420 perfectly with what we would now call bipolar 00:28:14.420 --> 00:28:17.859 disorder. The extreme oscillations between immense 00:28:17.859 --> 00:28:20.700 creative energy and deep, paranoid, delusional 00:28:20.700 --> 00:28:23.539 depression fits the profile perfectly. But back 00:28:23.539 --> 00:28:25.960 then, they just called it melancholy or mania. 00:28:26.079 --> 00:28:28.539 While he is locked up, suffering through this, 00:28:28.660 --> 00:28:31.660 the cruelest twist of his entire career happens. 00:28:31.740 --> 00:28:33.960 This is what you call the literary tragedy. This 00:28:33.960 --> 00:28:36.619 part, it just makes my blood boil on his behalf. 00:28:37.160 --> 00:28:39.819 While he is in St. Anna, completely powerless 00:28:39.819 --> 00:28:43.259 to do anything, his manuscript of Jerusalem Liberata, 00:28:43.420 --> 00:28:45.880 the one he was so afraid to publish, the one 00:28:45.880 --> 00:28:48.869 he wanted to fix to please the critics. It gets 00:28:48.869 --> 00:28:51.789 stolen. Stolen. How? Well, circulated is probably 00:28:51.789 --> 00:28:54.150 the better word. Friends and patrons had copies 00:28:54.150 --> 00:28:57.009 of the manuscript. And in 1581, a publisher in 00:28:57.009 --> 00:28:59.049 Venice gets his hands on one of these unauthorized 00:28:59.049 --> 00:29:01.809 copies and prints it. Without Tasso's permission, 00:29:01.990 --> 00:29:04.109 he just puts it out there. Here it is. The Great 00:29:04.109 --> 00:29:06.609 Loss Masterpiece by the mad poet Tasso. And the 00:29:06.609 --> 00:29:09.470 public reaction. It goes viral. 16th century 00:29:09.470 --> 00:29:12.630 style. It is an instant runaway sensation. There 00:29:12.630 --> 00:29:14.950 were seven different editions printed in just 00:29:14.950 --> 00:29:17.430 six months. It becomes the most talked about, 00:29:17.490 --> 00:29:20.539 most... read, most recited book in Europe. Everyone 00:29:20.539 --> 00:29:23.380 is talking about Tasso. And Tasso himself gets, 00:29:23.539 --> 00:29:26.339 what does he get from all this success? Nothing. 00:29:26.460 --> 00:29:28.619 Absolutely nothing. No royalties, no creative 00:29:28.619 --> 00:29:31.779 control, no money. He's sitting in a madhouse, 00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:34.380 hearing through visitors that the entire world 00:29:34.380 --> 00:29:36.740 is in love with his poem. But it's the wrong 00:29:36.740 --> 00:29:39.059 version in his mind. It's the unpolished draft 00:29:39.059 --> 00:29:41.039 he hated. And the publishers are getting rich 00:29:41.039 --> 00:29:43.220 while he's writing letters to the Duke begging 00:29:43.220 --> 00:29:45.740 for new shirts. It's nightmarish. It's like hearing 00:29:45.740 --> 00:29:47.599 your demo tape from high school has become the 00:29:47.599 --> 00:29:49.559 number one album in the world. But you're in 00:29:49.559 --> 00:29:51.720 jail and someone else is collecting all the checks. 00:29:51.880 --> 00:29:54.380 And to make it even worse. Because he was legally 00:29:54.380 --> 00:29:57.019 declared mad, he had no standing, he couldn't 00:29:57.019 --> 00:29:59.519 sue the publishers, he had to watch as a rival 00:29:59.519 --> 00:30:02.000 poet at the Ferrara Court, a man named Battista 00:30:02.000 --> 00:30:04.940 Guarini, was hired to edit his lyrics for official 00:30:04.940 --> 00:30:07.859 publication. It was the ultimate humiliation, 00:30:08.079 --> 00:30:11.279 the ultimate powerlessness. Before we get him 00:30:11.279 --> 00:30:13.940 out of St. Anna, we have to address the elephant 00:30:13.940 --> 00:30:17.819 in the room, the big myth. The Leonora myth. 00:30:18.160 --> 00:30:21.400 Ah, yes. The romantic conspiracy theory. If you 00:30:21.400 --> 00:30:23.279 read a lot of the older biographies, especially 00:30:23.279 --> 00:30:25.720 from the 19th century, they will tell you that 00:30:25.720 --> 00:30:28.240 Tasso wasn't locked up for being crazy. They 00:30:28.240 --> 00:30:30.220 say he was locked up because he was secretly 00:30:30.220 --> 00:30:33.099 in love with the Duke's unmarried sister, the 00:30:33.099 --> 00:30:35.400 Princess Leonora d 'Este. The story goes that 00:30:35.400 --> 00:30:37.619 he kissed her in public or that they were caught 00:30:37.619 --> 00:30:40.440 in a secret affair and the enraged Duke locked 00:30:40.440 --> 00:30:43.160 Tasso up in the asylum to silence him and cover 00:30:43.160 --> 00:30:45.720 up the scandal. Lord Byron wrote a famous poem 00:30:45.720 --> 00:30:48.400 about it. Goethe wrote a play. It's so romantic. 00:30:48.480 --> 00:30:51.000 The poet is the martyr of love. It's a great 00:30:51.000 --> 00:30:53.240 story. The only problem is we have to be the 00:30:53.240 --> 00:30:55.240 buzzkills here and say there is zero evidence 00:30:55.240 --> 00:30:58.019 for it. None at all. None. The historical record 00:30:58.019 --> 00:31:00.799 just doesn't support it. At the time of his confinement, 00:31:01.079 --> 00:31:04.880 Leonora was 42 years old. Tasso was 35. She was 00:31:04.880 --> 00:31:08.480 a chronic invalid. Very, very religious. Their 00:31:08.480 --> 00:31:10.319 letters to each other are affectionate, but they're 00:31:10.319 --> 00:31:13.220 very formal and proper. The Duke didn't lock 00:31:13.220 --> 00:31:15.680 him up for love. He locked him up because Tasso 00:31:15.680 --> 00:31:17.880 was a public menace who pulled knives on servants 00:31:17.880 --> 00:31:19.960 and screened insults at his new bride during 00:31:19.960 --> 00:31:22.519 their wedding celebrations. It was a mental health 00:31:22.519 --> 00:31:25.140 crisis, not a romance novel. Good to clear that 00:31:25.140 --> 00:31:28.339 up. Okay, so it's 1586. Tasso has been in St. 00:31:28.460 --> 00:31:30.759 Anna for seven long years. How does he finally 00:31:30.759 --> 00:31:34.019 get out? He has a super fan. A powerful one. 00:31:34.400 --> 00:31:36.839 A young man named Vincenzo Gonzaga, who was the 00:31:36.839 --> 00:31:39.440 prince of Mantua. Vincenzo was a young, hip, 00:31:39.539 --> 00:31:42.000 art -loving prince, and he idolized Tasso. For 00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:45.099 years, he pestered Duke Alfonso of Ferrara. Let 00:31:45.099 --> 00:31:46.920 me take Tasso. I'll look after him. He can come 00:31:46.920 --> 00:31:49.640 to my court in Mantua. Finally, Alfonso, who 00:31:49.640 --> 00:31:51.700 is probably just sick of the bad PR of keeping 00:31:51.700 --> 00:31:53.859 a world -famous genius locked in a cage, agrees. 00:31:54.460 --> 00:31:57.220 Fine, take him. He's your problem now. So Tosso 00:31:57.220 --> 00:31:59.700 is free. He goes to the court of Mantua. Is this 00:31:59.700 --> 00:32:01.900 the happy ending we've been waiting for? You 00:32:01.900 --> 00:32:04.680 so want it to be. And for a little while it is. 00:32:04.759 --> 00:32:06.720 He's treated like a king in Mantua. He has nice 00:32:06.720 --> 00:32:10.039 clothes, good food, intellectual company. But 00:32:10.039 --> 00:32:12.740 the damage was done. The restlessness, the paranoia, 00:32:12.740 --> 00:32:14.839 it was too deeply ingrained. He couldn't settle. 00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:17.720 These are the Odyssey years. He becomes a wanderer. 00:32:18.119 --> 00:32:21.039 After a while in Mantua, he gets bored, feels 00:32:21.039 --> 00:32:24.220 neglected, and he leaves. He goes to Bologna, 00:32:24.220 --> 00:32:27.059 then to Loreto, then Rome, then Naples, then 00:32:27.059 --> 00:32:29.900 Florence. He's just bouncing around Italy like 00:32:29.900 --> 00:32:32.920 a pinball. He's welcomed by princes and popes 00:32:32.920 --> 00:32:34.759 everywhere he goes, but he can't rest anywhere. 00:32:35.079 --> 00:32:37.819 He always finds a reason to be paranoid or unsatisfied. 00:32:38.099 --> 00:32:40.380 There's that sad, famous quote from the people 00:32:40.380 --> 00:32:42.579 in Florence who saw him during this period. Yes. 00:32:42.619 --> 00:32:46.240 They saw this shambling, prematurely old man, 00:32:46.460 --> 00:32:49.359 probably in his mid -40s but looking 70, and 00:32:49.359 --> 00:32:52.519 a Florentine diarist wrote, Actum este eo, it 00:32:52.519 --> 00:32:54.380 is all over with him. They looked at him and 00:32:54.380 --> 00:32:57.990 saw a ghost, a finished man. And in this... fragile, 00:32:58.029 --> 00:33:01.069 wandering state, he commits what I can only call 00:33:01.069 --> 00:33:04.589 literary suicide. This is the part of the story 00:33:04.589 --> 00:33:07.089 that just hurts to talk about. It really does, 00:33:07.349 --> 00:33:10.990 because in 1592, he publishes a new book. It's 00:33:10.990 --> 00:33:14.289 called Jerusalem Conquistada, Jerusalem Conquered. 00:33:14.480 --> 00:33:16.980 This was his official rewrite, his director's 00:33:16.980 --> 00:33:19.380 cut of his own masterpiece. It was his attempt, 00:33:19.400 --> 00:33:22.460 after all these years, to finally please those 00:33:22.460 --> 00:33:25.460 pedantic critics from Rome. He spent his final 00:33:25.460 --> 00:33:28.160 wandering years butchering his own beautiful 00:33:28.160 --> 00:33:30.579 poem. What exactly did he change? He took out 00:33:30.579 --> 00:33:32.579 everything we loved, everything that made it 00:33:32.579 --> 00:33:35.819 immortal. He cut the heartbreaking scene of Clorinda's 00:33:35.819 --> 00:33:38.559 baptism and death. He completely removed the 00:33:38.559 --> 00:33:41.319 beautiful, sensual garden of Armida. He took 00:33:41.319 --> 00:33:43.440 out most of the magic. He made the language... 00:33:43.759 --> 00:33:46.920 Stiff, formal, pedantic, and historically accurate. 00:33:47.299 --> 00:33:50.059 He basically turned a vibrant, emotional soap 00:33:50.059 --> 00:33:53.079 opera into a boring, rhetorical sermon. George 00:33:53.079 --> 00:33:56.349 Lucas, his own special edition. But much, much 00:33:56.349 --> 00:33:58.470 worse. Much worse. Because at least the original 00:33:58.470 --> 00:34:00.990 Star Wars still exists. Tasso wanted this version 00:34:00.990 --> 00:34:03.150 to replace the other one. He destroyed the soul 00:34:03.150 --> 00:34:05.450 of his own poem to accuse his religious guilt 00:34:05.450 --> 00:34:07.210 and the rules of the critics who had tormented 00:34:07.210 --> 00:34:10.190 him 20 years earlier. It was a tragic act of 00:34:10.190 --> 00:34:12.309 artistic self -mutilation. It's a good thing 00:34:12.309 --> 00:34:15.210 history has basically ignored it. Yes. Thank 00:34:15.210 --> 00:34:19.130 God. Nobody reads Jerusalem Conquistada. We still 00:34:19.130 --> 00:34:21.820 read the Liberata. The unauthorized pirate version. 00:34:22.039 --> 00:34:24.559 The one he thought was sinful and flawed is the 00:34:24.559 --> 00:34:26.699 one that made him immortal. The irony is just 00:34:26.699 --> 00:34:29.280 staggering. So we're nearing the end now. It's 00:34:29.280 --> 00:34:32.460 1594. Tasso is completely worn out. He's ruined 00:34:32.460 --> 00:34:34.480 his own book. His health is completely shattered. 00:34:34.699 --> 00:34:37.940 But then one last lifeline appeared. One last 00:34:37.940 --> 00:34:40.500 chance at glory. The Pope calls. Pope Clement 00:34:40.500 --> 00:34:43.079 VIII personally invites him to Rome to finally 00:34:43.079 --> 00:34:45.659 be crowned Poet Laureate on the Capitoline Hill. 00:34:45.980 --> 00:34:48.530 Back to our intro. The coronation that never 00:34:48.530 --> 00:34:51.349 was. It was the ultimate vindication. After all 00:34:51.349 --> 00:34:53.829 the suffering, all the humiliation, the Pope 00:34:53.829 --> 00:34:55.750 offered him a pension, a permanent apartment 00:34:55.750 --> 00:34:58.530 in the Vatican, and the laurel crown. Tasso accepts. 00:34:58.650 --> 00:35:01.469 He travels to Rome. But he's just too sick. The 00:35:01.469 --> 00:35:04.329 winter of 1594 is harsh. The ceremony keeps getting 00:35:04.329 --> 00:35:06.650 postponed because a cardinal is busy or the weather 00:35:06.650 --> 00:35:09.030 is bad. Tasso just waits in Rome, getting weaker 00:35:09.030 --> 00:35:11.309 and weaker every day. And then comes that stormy 00:35:11.309 --> 00:35:14.289 day in April 1595. He knows he isn't going to 00:35:14.289 --> 00:35:16.869 make it to the ceremony. He asks his patrons 00:35:16.869 --> 00:35:19.849 to be moved to the convent of Centonofrio, up 00:35:19.849 --> 00:35:21.750 on the Janiculum Hill, where he says the air 00:35:21.750 --> 00:35:24.369 is better. He climbs that hill during the storm. 00:35:24.510 --> 00:35:27.150 He makes his last confession to the monks. He 00:35:27.150 --> 00:35:30.570 receives the last rites. And on April 25th, the 00:35:30.570 --> 00:35:33.090 very day the coronation was finally officially 00:35:33.090 --> 00:35:37.530 supposed to happen. He dies, age just 51. The 00:35:37.530 --> 00:35:39.809 laurel wreath was literally waiting for him down 00:35:39.809 --> 00:35:41.909 at the capital, but he never got to wear it. 00:35:42.250 --> 00:35:45.150 It's such a profoundly tragic timeline. But if 00:35:45.150 --> 00:35:46.630 we pull back and look at his legacy, he didn't 00:35:46.630 --> 00:35:49.250 really die, did he? His influence was just beginning. 00:35:49.510 --> 00:35:51.969 Not even a little bit. His influence was seismic, 00:35:51.969 --> 00:35:54.730 especially outside of Italy. In England, a young 00:35:54.730 --> 00:35:57.510 poet named Edmund Spencer read Tasso and was 00:35:57.510 --> 00:36:00.289 so inspired he wrote The Fairy Queen. A few decades 00:36:00.289 --> 00:36:02.909 later, John Milton read Tasso and wrote Paradise 00:36:02.909 --> 00:36:06.570 Lost. The entire idea of a grand Christian epic 00:36:06.570 --> 00:36:09.550 poem in the vernacular comes directly from Tasso. 00:36:09.590 --> 00:36:11.750 And the romantics. A couple of centuries later, 00:36:11.829 --> 00:36:14.610 they absolutely adored the mad genius angle of 00:36:14.610 --> 00:36:17.320 his life story. Oh, they ate it up. Goethe wrote 00:36:17.320 --> 00:36:20.579 a famous play called Torquato Tasso. Lord Byron 00:36:20.579 --> 00:36:23.820 wrote his poem The Lament of Tasso. To the romantics, 00:36:23.820 --> 00:36:26.099 he was the patron saint of suffering. He was 00:36:26.099 --> 00:36:28.340 the ultimate proof that great art comes from 00:36:28.340 --> 00:36:31.199 great pain and that society will always misunderstand 00:36:31.199 --> 00:36:33.880 its greatest artists. And we can't forget the 00:36:33.880 --> 00:36:36.739 music. His work was perfect for musical adaptation. 00:36:37.119 --> 00:36:40.389 Incredibly so. The great Claudio Monteverdi took 00:36:40.389 --> 00:36:43.190 that scene, the duel between Tancredi and Clorinda, 00:36:43.309 --> 00:36:46.690 and set it to music. It's a piece called Il Combattimento 00:36:46.690 --> 00:36:49.289 di Tancredi e Clorinda, and it is one of the 00:36:49.289 --> 00:36:51.989 first and greatest masterpieces of the Baroque 00:36:51.989 --> 00:36:55.440 musical style. Tasso's poetry, with its intense, 00:36:55.480 --> 00:36:57.880 conflicting emotions, basically taught music 00:36:57.880 --> 00:37:01.019 how to express deep psychological drama. So bringing 00:37:01.019 --> 00:37:03.239 it all back to the present, when we look at Tasso's 00:37:03.239 --> 00:37:05.280 life, the paranoia, the pedantic criticism, the 00:37:05.280 --> 00:37:07.480 asylum, the rewritten poem, what do you think 00:37:07.480 --> 00:37:09.900 is the big final takeaway for us today? I think 00:37:09.900 --> 00:37:11.820 it's a timeless and powerful warning about the 00:37:11.820 --> 00:37:14.599 conflict between individual genius and the pressure 00:37:14.599 --> 00:37:18.559 to conform. Tasso had a wild, romantic, innovative 00:37:18.559 --> 00:37:20.960 spirit. He wanted to write about magic and impossible 00:37:20.960 --> 00:37:23.780 love and the humanity of the enemy. But he lived 00:37:23.780 --> 00:37:26.360 in a world of rigid rules, the counter -reformation, 00:37:26.719 --> 00:37:29.059 the Aristotelian critics. They all tried to put 00:37:29.059 --> 00:37:31.199 his genius in a box. And the friction between 00:37:31.199 --> 00:37:33.800 his spirit and that box is what ultimately drove 00:37:33.800 --> 00:37:36.699 him mad. It did. And the ultimate tragedy is 00:37:36.699 --> 00:37:39.179 that he spent the last years of his life internalizing 00:37:39.179 --> 00:37:41.500 their criticism. He spent his life trying to 00:37:41.500 --> 00:37:43.960 please the comment section of his day. He tried 00:37:43.960 --> 00:37:46.480 to fix his work. make the critics happy. And 00:37:46.480 --> 00:37:48.440 in doing so, he ended up completely ruining it. 00:37:48.519 --> 00:37:51.219 And that, I think, is the provocative thought 00:37:51.219 --> 00:37:54.500 I want to leave all of you with. Tasso's unauthorized, 00:37:54.519 --> 00:37:57.739 flawed pirate draft is a timeless masterpiece. 00:37:58.320 --> 00:38:02.460 His own fixed, authorized version is unreadable 00:38:02.460 --> 00:38:05.280 garbage. It forces us to ask a really uncomfortable 00:38:05.280 --> 00:38:08.719 question. How much great art has been lost or 00:38:08.719 --> 00:38:11.519 ruined or just watered down into mediocrity because 00:38:11.519 --> 00:38:14.099 the artist was too afraid of the critics of their 00:38:14.099 --> 00:38:17.159 time? How many incredible movies or albums or 00:38:17.159 --> 00:38:19.579 books have been edited into oblivion because 00:38:19.579 --> 00:38:22.139 the creator was listening to the wrong voices? 00:38:22.710 --> 00:38:24.489 It's a terrifying thought. Tasso is standing 00:38:24.489 --> 00:38:26.789 there in history, shouting at us across the centuries, 00:38:26.989 --> 00:38:29.409 don't read the reviews, trust your gut, just 00:38:29.409 --> 00:38:31.909 publish the damn draft. For God's sakes, whatever 00:38:31.909 --> 00:38:34.170 you do, don't let a committee edit your poem. 00:38:34.369 --> 00:38:36.449 Amen to that. That is all the time we have for 00:38:36.449 --> 00:38:38.610 this deep dive into the agony and the ecstasy 00:38:38.610 --> 00:38:41.150 of Torquato Tasso. If you get a chance, go read 00:38:41.150 --> 00:38:43.309 some Jerusalem Delivered, the unauthorized version, 00:38:43.369 --> 00:38:45.269 of course. Thanks for listening.