The Epic Rhetoric of Tasso: Theory and Practice

Maggie Günsberg examines the poetica and poesia of Tasso in the context of the historical and cultural climate in which he lived. His epic theory is explored from the point of view of the three rhetorical faculties current in sixteenth-century poetics: inventio, dispositio and elocutio. His discussion of dispositio reveals a fascinating similarity with ideas on art expressed by the Russian Formalists in the 1920s, a coincidence that can be attributed to the lasting influence of Aristotelian writings on plot. In her analysis of the Gerusalemme liberata, Dr Günsberg draws on methodologies based on Freud, Lacan and the ideology of body language.