
Contents
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Revealing vs. Concealing: Imprese and the Rhetoric of Secrecy Revealing vs. Concealing: Imprese and the Rhetoric of Secrecy
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Writing as Image Writing as Image
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Monuments or Masks? Monuments or Masks?
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Altering and Erasing Imprese in Torquato Tasso’s Epic Poems: Why? Altering and Erasing Imprese in Torquato Tasso’s Epic Poems: Why?
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Transplanting Authority into Epic Transplanting Authority into Epic
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Representing the Ideal Courtier Representing the Ideal Courtier
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Floundering in a Sea of Images Floundering in a Sea of Images
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Meaning as a Question of Taste: The Failure of Personal Emblems Meaning as a Question of Taste: The Failure of Personal Emblems
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Nobility, Silence, and the Hollow Man Nobility, Silence, and the Hollow Man
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Conclusion Conclusion
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Five Silenus Strategies: The Failure of Personal Emblems
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Published:April 2013
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Abstract
Personal emblems (imprese) were intended to be enigmatic while still conveying information about the person to whom they referred. Yet the brief fashion for impresa books ultimately exposed the limitations of the personal emblem. Impresa literature promised guidelines and examples for creating an all-purpose, adaptable monumental pose. This chapter draws from a wide range of sources to show that even multivalent personal symbols, used to construct a monumental public identity, were increasingly seen as flawed. In particular, Torquato Tasso’s writings problematize a more general realization of the limitations of the impresa. Mediated by the printed treatise, emblems intended to be personal and unique were frequently imitated and copied; imprese that were too enigmatic to be imitated were often incomprehensible; and the reliance on multivalent symbols—although providing a seemingly adaptable monumental pose—resulted in meaning becoming a question of taste. In other words, not even personal emblems were able to provide a monumental identity that could adapt to multiple situations. What emerges instead is a new interest in the unique, the individual instance—a paradigm that influenced and altered conceptions of both the author and his protagonist.
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