ABSTRACT
The relationship between the individual and society, as portrayed by Torquato Tasso's text, acquires an additional resonance when assimilated with a possible third narrative level which emerges in the light of an insight of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. This takes the form of a study of the significance of the mirror in the psychological development of the infant, entitled 'The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the /'. The basic tenet in the notion of the mirror stage, as expounded by Lacan, is that it represents a step forward in the psychological development of the infant aged between six and eighteen months. Primary narcissism involves an exclusive interest in the self, a self-absorption that is reflected in a type of concentricity. The mirror ritual is the expression, on the narrative level of the text, of the pleasurable, uncontrolled libidinal energies at play in the self-absorbed/Armida phase in Rinaldo's development, a process equivalent to primary narcissism.
