Orlando Furioso: The Frenzy of Orlando
Apr 2009 · The Floating Press
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About this ebook
Orlando Furioso ("The Frenzy of Orlando", more literally "Mad Orlando") is an Italian romantic epic by Ludovico Ariosto, published in its complete form in 1532 and exerting a wide influence on later culture. It is a continuation of Matteo Maria Boiardo's unfinished romance Orlando Innamorato ("Orlando in Love"). From the backdrop of war between Charlemagne and his Christian paladins, and the Saracen army attempting to invade Europe, the poem wanders at will from Japan to the Hebrides, and includes many fantastical elements, such as a trip to the moon and an array of fantastical creatures including a gigantic sea monster and the hippogriff. Many themes are interwoven in its complicated, episodic structure, the most important being the paladin Orlando's unrequited love for the pagan princess Angelica, which develops into the madness of the title. At 38,736 lines, Ariosto's work is one of the longest poems in European literature.
Orlando Furioso ("The Frenzy of Orlando", more literally "Mad Orlando") is an Italian romantic epic by Ludovico Ariosto, published in its complete form in 1532 and exerting a wide influence on later culture. It is a continuation of Matteo Maria Boiardo's unfinished romance Orlando Innamorato ("Or...
About the author
Born in Reggio, Italy, in 1474, Ludovico Ariosto lived most of his life in Ferrara, in northern Italy. He enjoyed the patronage first of Cardinal Ippolito and then of the cardinal's brother, Alfonso, Duke of Este, who had been his inseparable companion in youth. Aristo composed a mock epic of chivalry titled Orlando Furioso. It appeared in 1516 and 1521 before the definitive edition of 1532. Hegel observed that Ariosto prepared the way for the treatment of chivalry in Cervantes's Don Quixote and Shakespeare's Falstaff in a gently veiled humor. A translation of Orlando Furioso into English heroic verse by Sir John Harrington was published in 1591, but by then Edmund Spenser had already sought to outdo Ariosto's epic in his own Faerie Queene. Walter Scott read a translation by John Hoole in 1783, and Byron drew on it for his Don Juan. In addition to the mock epic, Ariosto wrote many lyric poems in Latin and Italian, seven satires in terza rima, and five comedies in unrhymed lines of 11 syllables. His satires were read and imitated by Thomas Wyatt. One of his comedies, I suppositi, was translated and adapted into English by George Gascoigne and performed at Gray's Inn in 1566. It provided Shakespeare with much of the content and inspiration for The Taming of the Shrew. Ariosto died on July 6,1533.
Born in Reggio, Italy, in 1474, Ludovico Ariosto lived most of his life in Ferrara, in northern Italy. He enjoyed the patronage first of Cardinal Ippolito and then of the cardinal's brother, Alfonso, Duke of Este, who had been his inseparable companion in youth. Aristo composed a mock epic of chi...
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