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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 October 2023
The poetic mode most often associated with the marvellous is epic: an inherently hybrid form of poetry that combines narration with enactment. In his Discorsi del poema eroico (1587; pub. 1594), Torquato Tasso (1544–95) conveyed his own understanding of meraviglia, which in epic poetry is essential as long as it is tempered, in his view, by verisimile (verisimilitude). This chapter explores the transformation of epic from poem to madrigal to reveal how musical setting recalibrated the representational balance achieved in epic poetry. Following the lead of Giaches de Wert (1535–96) and Luca Marenzio (1553–99), Monteverdi would bring epic poetry in ottava rima – particularly musical settings of Tasso’s epic Gerusalemme liberata (1581) – into the lyric-dominated world of the madrigal book.
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