The Lament of Tasso

Lament of Tasso, The,
a dramatic monologue by Byron , published in 1817 , inspired by Byron's visit to ‘much decayed’ Ferrara in that year, and written on the way to Florence. It is based on the legend of Tasso 's tragic love for Leonora d'Este: the narrator describes his imprisonment in a madhouse in Ferrara, and asserts his own enduring fame, which will outlive that of the city which has incarcerated him.