Force and human suffering in sixteenth-century epic poetry: Torquato Tasso's 'Gerusalemme Liberata' and Alonso de Ercilla y Zuniga's 'Araucana

This dissertation centers on two of the most important epic poems of early modern Europe, Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata and Ercilla's Araucana. I utilize Simone Weil's philosophical essay "The Iliad or the Poem of Force" to suggest that her notion of force in the Homeric context is also productive for reading Virgilian and late Renaissance epic poetry. Weil stresses equal subjection of epic combatants to an overriding violence and undifferentiated human suffering in the Iliad. She underscores the futility of wins and losses in warfare, suggesting that all victors will ultimately become vanquished. Additionally, she presents a specific instance of empathy that disrupts the momentum of war in the final book of the Iliad in the encounter between epic adversaries, Priam and Achilles.;I consider the viability of the Weilian idea of force in the late Renaissance poetry and provide textual support that suggests instances of opposing combatants' equal subjection to force. Moreover, specific episodes of supplication become authentic occurrences of compassion in the overall slaughter presented in both poems. Aside from unqualified episodes of empathy, I also discuss instances of failed clemency, concentrating on the encounter between Tancredi and Clorinda in Canto XII of the Liberata and the figure of the Amerindian chieftain Caupolican in the Araucana. Finally, these poems unfailingly depict the socio-political climate and religious fervor of post-Counter-Reformation Europe. Catholic doctrine and colonial imperialism are two major themes that constitute the backbone of late Renaissance epos and ultimately condition the expression of a complete and unmitigated clemency.