Cecilia SAITA

The representation of gestures in Tasso’s Jerusalem delivered: body language and eloquence of emotions at the intersection of codes and knowledge
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Doctoral School : Europe latine -­ Amérique latine
Thesis Description :

The importance of gesture description in Tasso’s Jerusalem delivered (1581) opens a fruitful research and previously unexplored (with only a few exceptions) path onto the study of poetical representation of the body language. Indeed gestures play an essential role in the new narrative model elaborated by Tasso. In his theoretical work, Discourses on the art of poetry, gestures are described as fundamental tools for a visual eloquence serving pathos.
My aims are to analyze the poetical representation of gesture in the Jerusalem delivered, exploring its sources and meanings in the poem and to analyze gesture in its cultural and historical dimensions, studying its interactions with Tasso’s work