Ariosto's Orlando Furioso

by Lodovico Ariosto

Other authorsRudolf Gottfried (Introduction), Sir John Harington (Translator)
Paperback, 1966

Publication

Indiana University Press: A Midland Book (1966)

Description

Fiction. Poetry. HTML: 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..… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member mattmcg
The best book ever about going mad and killing everybody and everything in sight.
LibraryThing member Terpsichoreus
Perhaps it speaks more to the age I live in than that of the author, but I'm always surprised to find a reasonable, rational mind on the other end of the pen. Though his work is full of prejudice and idealism, it is constantly shifting, so that now one side seems right, and now the other.

His use of
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hyperbole and oxymoron prefigures the great metaphysical poets, and like them, these are tools of rhetoric and satire. Every knight is 'undefeatable', every woman 'shames all others by her virtue', and it does not escape Ariosto that making all of them remarkable only makes more obvious the fact that none of them are.

Ariosto's style flies on wings, lilting here and there, darting, soaring. He makes extensive use of metafiction, both addressing the audience by means of a semi-fictionalized narrator and by philosophical explorations of the art of poetry itself, and the nature of the poet and his patron.

As with most epics, Ariosto's asides to the greatness of his patron are as jarring as any 30-second spot. His relationship to his various patrons was extremely difficult for him, as he was paid a mere pittance and constantly drawn away from his writing to deliver bad news to the pope (if you're thinking that's a bad job, Ariosto would agree--the See nearly had him killed).

This is likely the reason that these moments of praise fall to the same unbelievable hyperbole as the rest. His patrons could hardly be angry at him for constantly praising them, but his readers will surely be able to recognize that his greatest compliments are the most backhanded, and merely serve to throw into stark contrast the hypocrisy of man.

Since we will all be oblivious hypocrites at some point (for most of us, nearly all the time), the only useful defense is the humility to admit our flaws. Great men never have it so easy: they cannot accept their mistakes, but must instead be buried by them.

Though Ariosto often lands on the side of the Christians, his Muslims are mighty, honorable, well-spoken, and as reasonable in their faith. The only thing which seems to separate the two sides is their petty squabbling.

Likewise, he takes a surprisingly liberal view of sex and gender equality, with lady knights who are not only the match for any man, but who need no marriage to complete their characters. He even presents homosexuality amongst both sexes, though with a rather light hand.

His epic is not the stalwartly serious sort, like Homer, Virgil, or Dante. Ariosto is a humanist, and has none of the fetters of nationalism or religious idealism to hold him in place. His view of man is a contrary, shifting, absurd thing. The greatest achievements of man are great only in the eyes of man.

By showing both sides of a conflict, by supporting each in turn, Ariosto creates a space for the author to inhabit. He is not tied to some system of beliefs, but to observation, to recognition; not to the ostensible truth of humanity, but to our continuing story.

Ariosto took a great leap from Petrarch's self-awareness. While Petrarch constantly searched and argued in his poems, he found a sublime comfort in the grand unknown. Ariosto is the great iconoclast, not only asking why of the most obvious conflicts, but of the grandest assumptions. The grand mystery is only as sacred as it is profane.

Ariosto is also funny, surprising, and highly imaginative. Though his work is defined by its philosophical view, this view is developed slowly and carefully. It is never stated outright, but is rather the medium of the story: a thin, elegant skein which draws together all characters and conflicts.

The surface of the story itself is a light-hearted, impossible comedy. It is no more impossible than the grand heights of any other epic, but only seems so because it is not girt tightly with high-minded seriousness. Perhaps Ariosto's greatest gift is that he is doing essentially the same thing all other authors do, the same situations and characters, but he makes you laugh to see it.

To be able to look at life simply as it is and laugh is the only freedom we will ever know. It is all wisdom. For this gift, I hail fair Ariosto, the greatest of all epicists, all poets, all writers, all humanists, all men, and never to be surpassed.
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LibraryThing member BillMcGann
In 778 Charlemagne made an incursion over the Pyrenees into Spain. Needing to take his army to the Rhine to meet another challenge, he retreated, leaving a rearguard to protect his army as it withdrew. That rearguard, led by Count Hruodland (later known as Roland) was defeated at Roncesvalles.

This
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episode gave us the legend of the brave Roland, who died blowing his horn to summon Charlemagne to return and rescue the overwhelmed soldiers. The story grew ever more elaborate with every retelling. In Italy Roland became Orlando. By the 1400s France and Italy nostalgically looked back on a lost world that never existed, the world of chivalry. Roland (or Orlando) figured largely in this literature that grew up about knights, ladies, dragons and magicians.

The Italian poet Matteo Boiardo wrote his contribution to the Roland cycle, Orlando Innamorato (1495). Boiardo died before finishing the planned final third part of his poem.

That brings us to Ludovico Ariosto who set out to finish Boiardo’s epic. Ariosto was a superior poet and his Orlando Furioso is a truly major work and an important part of the Western Canon. It is also the most Italian book I have ever read. The mix of magic, history, humor, irony all combine in a way that ends up feeling Italian, yet that I can’t exactly explain why. But anyone who has a close familiarity with Italian culture will understand what I mean. I can give an example. A brave knight saves the beautiful damsel. She offers herself as a reward. The brave knight then starts unbuckling his armor in order to collect his payment. Finally the lady grows bored with the laborious, time-consuming knightly undressing and wanders off. This irreverent original twist on an old story, done with a sly smile is pure Ariosto and pure Italy.

Ariosto is not only a good poet, he is a great storyteller. Because of this Orlando Furioso becomes a wonderful book in Guido Waldman’s prose translation. I have rarely found translations of poetry to be satisfactory. As one man said, you can translate the words, but who can translate the music?

It’s a shame this terrific book has slid off the modern reader’s radar. The Renaissance was more than pictures and statues. It was a complete rebirth of the western mind. Orlando Furioso is as important a work of art as Botticelli’s Primavera or Raphael’s School of Athens.

It’s a big book. Give yourself some time to enjoy this burly, mirthful work. It’s worth it.
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LibraryThing member olgalijo
After the famous protagonist of the French "Chanson the Roland" falls in love in Boiardo's "Orlando Innamorato", Ludovico Ariosto decides to give another turn of the screw to Orlando's humanity (something that had never happened before in the literature of this era, as the heros of the sagas didn't
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have human weaknesses) by making him go crazy. This happens during the time in which the Christian king of the moment is inmersed in a war against the muslin kingdom. Two other important characters weave their own plot line, Ruggiero and his beloved, a recognized knight of the kingdom herself. As she is Christian, and he is Muslin there are a number of twists of the plot until they are actually able to marry and live happily ever after. An incredibly complex plot with many alegoric situations.
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LibraryThing member AlCracka
It gets mentioned so much in Don Quixote...maybe I'll try it at some point.
LibraryThing member JeffersonBallard
Took away one star because this (and the publisher is very coy about telling one) IS AN ABRIDGEMENT!
LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
A wonderful verse translation of a major European romance cycle. When you couple this book with the "Orlando Innamorato" of Boiardo, you have the story of Roland nailed down. And it's a big story, with many more magical elements than the Arthur cycle. I understand that in Italian it is a satire of
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Roland, but simple English-speaking readers will read this for information, I think.
Still he was the first writer to tell the reader to look at the amount of remaining unread book, when the heroine is in peril.
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Original publication date

1516-1532

Physical description

7.8 inches
Page: 0.7538 seconds