A biography full of side-lights on the history of Italy during the latter part of the sixteenth century. Tasso’s personal history is a succession of failures and troubles; it is a record of one too weak to buffet his way among despots and courtiers identified with Italy’s decline and corruption.
“We may have appeared to have criticised Mr. Boulting severely, but we have done so because his book seems to deserve careful consideration, and we desire to recommend it to many readers whom its more conspicuous merits will instruct and entertain.”
| + + − | Acad. 73: 965. O. 5, ’07. 2080w. |
“From every point of view, historical, biographical, literary, and critical, ‘Tasso and his times’ will be found most satisfactory.” Walter Littlefield.
| + + | N. Y. Times. 12: 598. O. 5, ’07. 1320w. | |
| + | N. Y. Times. 12: 664. O. 19, ’07. 30w. |
“It is rather because this volume gives us a clear picture of Italy in the latter part of the sixteenth century than because it is a biography of Tasso that it will be welcome to a large circle of readers.”
| + | Outlook. 87: 270. O. 5, ’07. 220w. |
“This book, heralded so loudly, is a popular and superficial account, not so much of Tasso as a poet as of Tasso at court, without a single note or an allusion in the text to any authority save a reference in the last chapter to Professor Solerti. Mr. Boulting mistakes the whole dream and purpose of the Italian renaissance.”
| − − | Sat. R. 104: 397. S. 28, ’07. 1320w. |