SOURCE: Hewitt, Regina. “Tasso's Place in the Courtly Universe: The Atavistic Cosmography of Goethe's Torquato Tasso.” Michigan Germanic Studies 9, no. 2 (fall 1983): 141-48.

In the following essay, Hewitt offers an interpretation of the outcome of Torquato Tasso, contending that the reconciliation of Tasso and Antonio fits the “atavistic cosmography at the heart of Goethe's play.”

Having set up the apparent incompatibility of the poet Torquato Tasso with the statesman Antonio Montecatino, the dramatic action of Goethe's Torquato Tasso tends towards the final embrace of its two antagonists. Critics have long been divided over this outcome. Some find it merely inconclusive; others see it as a tragic compromise on the part of the poet; still others interpret it as a reconciliation between the two figures.¹ No one among this latter group, however, has explored the evidence supporting the case for reconciliation which the Neoplatonic underpinnings of the play provide.² A...