The Journeys of Orlando and Olimpia

2. Ruggiero’s First Journey

3. Ruggiero’s Second Journey

4. Astolfo’s Journey

5. The Siege of Paris

NOTES

TABLES

1. Genealogical Table of the House of Este: Historical

         I. Ferrara

        II. Modena

2. Genealogical Table of the House of Este: Legendary and Historical, according to Ariosto

3. Legendary Origins of Orlando and other Carolingians

DRAWINGS

Armorial Bearings of British Leaders

INDEX OF PROPER NAMES

… the story is extant, and written in very choice Italian.

Hamlet, III. ii.

INTRODUCTION

I. THE POEM

THE Orlando Furioso is above all a poem to be enjoyed; the chief aim of its creator was to give delight. Ariosto succeeded brilliantly, and for centuries his long and varied epic proved a treasure-house of enjoyment, frequented as eagerly in England as in Italy. ‘One of the great narrative poems of Europe’, writes Graham Hough, ‘it has perhaps given more sheer sparkling pleasure to its readers than any other poem on the same scale.’1

Yet some cultural adjustments are needed before the modern reader can enter into full enjoyment of this early sixteenth-century romantic epic. The very word ‘romantic’, associated as it now is with early nineteenth-century art and literature, requires some explanation. A romantic epic is an epic of Romance: that is, of post-classical, medieval legends, especially those relating to the paladins of Charlemagne and the knights of Arthur. Such material has long been out of favour as an inspiration to poetry. So, too, have vast, complicated tapestry-like verse narratives, with their numerous digressions and disconcertingly varied strands. Between Ariosto and the modern reader are a few hurdles to be cleared. Among them are the rules set up by later sixteenth-century theorists: the rigid separation of literary genres, the strict observance of the unities of action, time and place, and the disapproval of abrupt transition in style and tone. It is true that in drama Shakespeare accustomed the English to variety and contrast within a single, unified work, but no English poet achieved or aimed at a comparable diversity for epic.2 The sheer length (no less than 38,736 lines) and the leisured pace of the poem may also prove obstacles in a world accustomed to rapid, often non-verbal, communication.

In an age suspicious of ‘escapist’ literature, it may be of help to say at once that Ariosto had a serious-minded as well as a light-hearted purpose and that his poem shows a deep concern for the values of Christendom. The Orlando Furioso, for all its many sub-plots, is mainly the story of the defence of Europe by Charlemagne against Islam and evokes a crucial stage in the history of western civilization.

Critics are not agreed as to the central, unifying element in the structure of the poem. Some have seen it in the hopeless love of Orlando for the Eastern princess, Angelica, daughter of the Great Khan – a love which brings about his madness. Others have found it in the theme of the ducal house of Este, the rulers of Ferrara, Ariosto’s patrons, whom he praises throughout the poem and whose legendary origins he celebrates in the marriage of two of the main characters, Bradamante and Ruggiero. Still others have seen the unifying factor not in one of the many themes, not in the concept of chivalry, not in a regret for the ideals and heroism of a bygone age, but in a stylistic individuality, an aesthetic harmony, an ironic detachment.

While the structural importance of such features must be acknowledged, what gives the work its fundamental unity is the concept of Europe, seen by Ariosto as the fount of the creative and civilizing forces of the world. As Virgil was the poet of Rome, Ariosto is the poet of Europe.

The battle of Poitiers in 732, at which the Frankish leader, Charles Martel, defeated the Moslems, is said to have been a decisive victory. Yet his grandson, Charlemagne, found it necessary to continue the struggle; in the course of fifty-three campaigns, he defied and overcame the pagan forces encircling the Christian world: yet even he failed to break the hold of the Saracens in Spain. The threat of the Infidel remained. The legends to which the conflict gave rise acquired in consequence an enduring vitality, to be seen even today in the heroic duels between paladins and infidels in the puppet-theatres of Liège and Palermo. A lasting relevance had been ensured by an ever-present danger and an undiminished need for a united Europe.

Ariosto was twenty-four in July 1499 when the Turkish fleet of Bayezid II defeated the Venetians at Lepanto.1 Bayezid’s predecessor, Mohammed II, having taken Constantinople in 1453, subdued Serbia, Walachia, Bosnia and Albania, obliging Venice to surrender Scutari and Kroia and to pay an indemnity of 100,000 ducats; he next conquered the Crimea, bestowing it as a tributary province on the Tartar Khan and, preparatory to his plan of conquering Italy, began to menace Rhodes.