His irritable and suspicious temper, vain and sensitive to slights, rendered him only too easy a prey to their malevolence.In the course of the 1570s Tasso developed a persecution mania which led to legends about the restless, half-mad, and misunderstood author.He became consumed by thoughts that his servants betrayed his confidence, fancied he had been denounced to the In the autumn of 1576 Tasso quarrelled with a Ferrarese gentleman, Maddalo, who had talked too freely about some same-sex love affair; the same year he wrote a letter to his homosexual friend Luca Scalabrino dealing with his own love for a 21-year-old young man Orazio Ariosto;The conclusions were that Tasso, after the beginning of 1575, became the victim of a mental malady, which, without amounting to actual insanity, rendered him fantastical and insupportable, a cause of anxiety to his patrons.There is no evidence whatsoever for the later romantic myth that this state of things was due to an overwhelming passion for Leonora.
‘Tasso in the Madhouse’ was created in 1839 by Eugene Delacroix in Romanticism style. He left France next year, and took service under The action of the epic turns on three stories of interaction between noble beautiful pagan women and these Crusaders.
But now I clearly perceive that I have been and is not a friend, but a quite honest lover, because I feel a terrible pain, not only because he doesn't respond to my love, but also because I can't talk with him with that freedom I was used to, and being far from him pains me very much." The subsequent history of his connection with the poet corroborates this view.While with his sister at Sorrento, Tasso yearned for Ferrara. Torquato Tasso was an Italian poet of the 16th century, best known for his poem Gerusalemme liberata, in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the Siege of Jerusalem. For Romantics like Delacroix, Tasso, shut up in his Ferrarese prison, was to be the epitome of the artist-hero who suffers for his art and beliefs.
It is singular that he spoke always respectfully, even affectionately, of the Duke.Some critics have attempted to make it appear that he was hypocritically kissing the hand which had chastised him, with the view of being released from prison, but no one who has impartially considered the whole tone and tenor of his epistles will adopt this opinion. Without exercising common patience, or giving his old friends the benefit of a doubt, he broke into terms of open abuse, behaved like a lunatic, and was sent off without ceremony to the madhouse of St. Anna. Delacroix, Eugène, -- 1798-1863 -- Individual works -- Tasso in the madhouse (1824) View all subjects; More like this: Similar Items Learn more about Tasso in the Madhouse by Eugene Delacroix. In their uneasiness they suggested every course but the right one, which was to publish the Tasso, already overworked by his precocious studies, by exciting court-life and exhausting literary industry, now grew almost mad with worry. Torquato Tasso (1544-1595), Italian poet, one of the foremost writers and a tragic figure of the Renaissance. Rooms below his rank, he thought, had been assigned him; the Duke was engaged. Therefore, when an opening at the court of The young Torquato, a handsome and brilliant lad, became the companion in sports and studies of From 1565, Tasso's life was centered on the castle at Ferrara, the scene of many later glories and cruel sufferings. One of them he attached to In 1586 Tasso left St. Anna at the solicitation of His health grew ever feebler and his genius dimmer. The letters written from St. Anna to the princes and cities of Italy, to warm well-wishers, and to men of the highest reputation in the world of art and learning, form the most valuable source of information, not only on his then condition, but also on his temperament at large. Though a rigid and unsympathetic man, as egotistical as any princeling of his era, to Tasso he was never cruel; unintelligent perhaps, but far from being that monster of ferocity as which was later portrayed. Scene followed scene of irritability, moodiness, suspicion, wounded vanity and violent outbursts.In the summer of 1578 he ran away again; traveled through Alfonso was about to contract his third marriage, this time with a princess of the house of Tasso, preoccupied as always with his own sorrows and his own sense of dignity, made no allowance for the troubles of his master.