Orlando Furioso

Orlando Furioso—meaning "The Frenzy of Orlando"—is an Italian epic poem by Ludovico Ariosto that went on to shape later culture in many ways. It first appeared in 1516, but the complete version did not come out until 1532.

Ariosto and Boiardo

The poem picks up where Matteo Maria Boiardo left off in his unfinished romance Orlando Innamorato (published after his death in 1495). In its setting and cast, it also echoes the eleventh-century Old French La Chanson de Roland, which recounts the death of Roland. At the same time, it belongs to the tradition of chivalric romance, a genre that began in the Late Middle Ages and stayed popular through the 16th and well into the 17th century.

Plot

Orlando is the Christian knight known in French and English as Roland. The story unfolds during the war between Charlemagne’s Christian paladins and the Saracen army that has invaded Europe, aiming to overthrow the Christian empire. The poem deals with knights and ladies, war and love, and the romantic ideal of chivalry. It blends realism with fantasy, humor with tragedy.

Its stage spans the entire world, plus a journey to the Moon. The large cast includes Christians and Saracens, soldiers and sorcerers, and fantastic beasts like a giant sea monster called the Orc and a flying horse known as the hippogriff. Many themes are woven into its complicated, episodic structure, but the most important are: the paladin Orlando’s unrequited love for the pagan princess Angelica, which drives him mad; the romance between the female Christian warrior Bradamante and the Saracen Ruggiero, who are meant to be ancestors of Ariosto’s patrons, the House of Este of Ferrara; and the war between Christian and Infidel.

The poem is split into forty-six cantos, each containing a varying number of eight-line stanzas in ottava rima (rhyme scheme abababcc). This verse form had been used in earlier Italian romantic epics, such as Luigi Pulci’s Morgante and Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato. Ariosto’s work totals 38,736 lines, making it one of the longest poems in European literature.

Composition and publication

Ariosto began writing around 1506, when he was 32. The first edition, in 40 cantos, was published in Ferrara in April 1516 and dedicated to his patron Ippolito d’Este. A second edition, with minor revisions, came out in 1521. During the 1520s, Ariosto wrote five more cantos, marking a further development in his poetry, but he decided not to include them in the final version. These were published after his death by his illegitimate son Virginio under the title Cinque canti and are highly regarded by some modern critics.

The third and final version of Orlando Furioso, containing 46 cantos, appeared in 1532. Ariosto sought stylistic advice from the humanist Pietro Bembo to give his verse the last degree of polish, and this is the version known to posterity. The first English translation, by John Harington, was published in 1591 at the request of Queen Elizabeth I, who reportedly banned Harington from court until the translation was finished.

Ariosto’s poem is a sequel to Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato. One of Boiardo’s main achievements was fusing the Matter of France (stories about Charlemagne and paladins like Roland) with the Matter of Britain (legends about King Arthur and his knights). The latter brought in magical elements and love interest, which were generally missing from the more austere, warlike Carolingian poems.

Ariosto continued mixing these elements and added material from Classical sources. However, his tone is ironic, something rarely found in Boiardo, who treated chivalric ideals much more seriously. In Orlando Furioso, instead of those outdated ideals, a humanistic view of man and life is vividly celebrated beneath the surface of a fantastical world, despite its early modern approaches to feminism.

The action takes place against the backdrop of the war between Christian emperor Charlemagne and the Saracen king of Africa, Agramante, who has invaded Europe to avenge his father Troiano’s death. Agramante and his allies—including Marsilio, the King of Spain, and the boastful warrior Rodomonte—besiege Charlemagne in Paris. Meanwhile, Orlando, Charlemagne’s most famous paladin, has been tempted to forget his duty because of his love for the pagan princess Angelica. At the poem’s start, Angelica escapes from the castle of the Bavarian Duke Namo, and Orlando sets off after her.

The two meet various adventures until Angelica comes across a wounded Saracen infantryman near death, Medoro. She nurses him back to health, falls in love, and elopes with him to Cathay. When Orlando learns the truth—by finding the pair’s secret garden of love, or Locus Amoenus—he goes mad with despair and rampages through Europe and Africa, destroying everything in his path, demonstrating the frenzy the title suggests. The English knight Astolfo journeys to Ethiopia on the hippogriff to find a cure.

He flies up in Elijah’s flaming chariot to the Moon, where everything lost on Earth can be found, including Orlando’s wits. He brings them back in a bottle and makes Orlando sniff them, restoring his sanity. At the same time, Orlando falls out of love with Angelica, as the author explains that love is itself a form of insanity. Orlando then joins with Brandimarte and Oliver to fight.