10. ‘Non basta il suono, e la voce’: Listening for Tasso’s Clorinda

This chapter considers the sounds of the stranger in Torquato Tasso’s late Renaissance epic, Gerusalemme liberata, focusing on the figure of Clorinda, who is also central to the musical composition Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, written by Claudio Monteverdi several decades later. Clorinda is a Muslim woman, killed in a duel by a Crusader who loves her. Critics have called attention to Monteverdi’s innovations with respect to Clorinda, since in his rendition she is finally allowed to speak in the moments before her death. This chapter suggests that we need to consider the manner in which Tasso also ‘lets’ her speak, arguing that he was supremely attentive to the importance of what he called ‘parole pellegrine’, or foreign words and sounds. This poetics of alterity is crucial for understanding his achievement, and allows us to understand why Clorinda herself is never fully absorbed into the world of Tasso’s poem.