such of his precepts as do not limit your delight:  for instance, in the frequent use of episodes, making the characters talk in their own persons, introducing recognitions and peripeties by necessary or plausible motives, and withdrawing the poet as far as possible from the narration.  I have also endeavored to construct my poem with unity of interest and action, not, indeed, in any strict sense, but so that the subordinate portions should be seen to have their due relation to the whole.’  He then proceeds to explain why he has abandoned the discourses on moral and general topics with which Ariosto opened his Cantos, and hints that he has taken Virgil, the ‘Prince of Poets,’ for his model.  Thus the Romantic Epic, as conceived by Tasso, was to break with the tradition of the Cantastorie, who told the tale in his own person and introduced reflections on its incidents.  It was to aim at unity of subject and to observe classical rules of art, without, however, sacrificing the charm of variety and those delights which episodes and marvelous adventures yielded to a modern audience.  The youthful poet begs that his Rinaldo should not be censured on the one hand by severely Aristotelian critics who exclude pleasure from their ideal, or on the other by amateurs who regard the Orlando Furioso as the perfection of poetic art.  In a word, he hopes to produce something midway between the strict heroic epic, which had failed in Trissino’s Italia Liberata through dullness, and the genuine romantic epic, which in Ariosto’s masterpiece diverged too widely from the rules of classical pure taste.  This new species, combining the attractions of romance with the simplicity of epic poetry, was the gift which Tasso at the age of eighteen sought to present in his Rinaldo to Italy.  The Rinaldo fulfilled fairly well the conditions propounded by its author.  It had a single hero and a single subject—­

    Canto i felici affanni, e i primi ardori,
      Che giovinetto ancor soffri Rinaldo,
      E come il trasse in perigliosi errori
      Desir di gloria ed amoroso caldo.

The perilous achievements and the passion of Rinaldo in his youth form the theme of a poem which is systematically evolved from the first meeting of the son of Amon with Clarice to their marriage under the auspices of Malagigi.  There are interesting episodes like those of young Florindo and Olinda, unhappy Clizia and abandoned Floriana.  Rinaldo’s combat with Orlando in the Christian camp furnishes an anagnorisis; while the plot is brought to its conclusion by the peripeteia of Clarice’s jealousy and the accidents which restore her to her lover’s arms.  Yet though observant of his own classical rules, Tasso remained in all essential points beneath the spell of the Romantic Epic.  The changes which he introduced were obvious to none but professional critics.  In warp and woof the Rinaldo is similar to Boiardo’s and Ariosto’s tale of chivalry;