Canto Structure in Tasso and Spenser

Abstract

The new analytical approach illustrated here has its theoretical basis in Augustine’s structural concept of unity. Unity is found in a symmetrical or graded arrangement of parts, and the linking between parts is supported by a conscious manipulation of the verbal texture. Both Tasso and Spenser employ significant patterns of verbal repetition to underline thematic or narrative developments (in the epic as a whole, in a single canto, or in a segment). Good examples of the compositional technique are found in the narrative segments on Corceca’s house (FQ I.iii.10–21) and the escape from the Castle of Pride (FQ I.v.45–53). While there are many formal and thematic similarities between Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata 15 and FQ II.x, in Spenser’s chronicle of Briton kings the textual patterns are more elaborate, at the same time that they have the important function of revealing the presence of a unified pattern which flatly contradicts the impression that the course of history is chaotic. Especially noteworthy is the linking, by means of verbal repetition, of stanzas II.x.9 (on the arrival of Brutus in England) and II.x.50 (on the incarnation), a linking which turns this forty-two-stanza sequence into a British analogue to sacred history.