Ressenyes

Obra ressenyada: Ludovico ARIOSTO; edición bilingüe, traducción, prólogo y notas de José María Micó, Sátiras. Barcelona: Península, 1999

Jews and Judaism in Ariosto’s Literary Production

Although Ludovico Ariosto never mentions contemporary Jewish intellectuals in his writings, Jews do appear in his works. The article deals with the various depictions of Jewish characters in the poet's production. They are always portrayed as an important component of the society of Ferrara, where they were known as scholars, merchants, bankers, physicians, and astrologers. Ariosto probably saw them as neighbours, not as strangers or infidels

Re/Writing the Orient: Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, the Thousand and One Nights, and the Hundred and One Nights

Canto XXIII marks a tragicomic turning point in the Orlando Furioso, as the tension sustaining the titular character’s epic stoicism and romantic chivalry falls away to reveal a maniacal anti-hero. This canto’s staging of Orlando’s madness signals a significant extra-textual literary transition, unsettling the binary of medieval and classical literary traditions that Ariosto draws on, and suggesting a novel genre of literary expression. This article explores one avenue by which Ariosto disrupts such ostensible polarities through the dynamic intertextual practice of writing and rewriting the “Orient.”  A close reading of Canto XXVIII’s resounding echoes of the Thousand and One Nights’ and the lesser-known Hundred and One Nights’ frame tales, illuminates the Furioso’s double focus upon movement toward and away from Muslim-Arab cultural affiliation, a push-pull that opens a space of difference where literary traditions can converge neither in reconciliation nor domination of one another. In particular, this paper examines how Ariosto’s poem captures the ambiguous hybridity of the medieval Mediterranean as an ever-shifting terrain defined not only by oppositionality and hostility, but also by curiosity, exchange, and alliance

Documentos sobre Merlín al alcance de Ariosto

Trazo aquí la hipótesis de los numerosos documentos que pudo consultar Ludovico Ariosto para la caracterización de Merlín en su Orlando Furioso. Aunque la crítica hasta ahora ha señalado una única fuente de inspiración, en las bibliotecas que Ariosto pudo consultar se encuentran más de diez diferentes versiones acerca del profeta inglés, muy distintos entre sí por el tipo de tratamiento del personaje – desde breves alusiones a la leyenda hasta códices o ediciones dedicados enteramente a describir su vida o por el origen y la lengua en la que dichos materiales fueron compuestos, pues existen, en las bibliotecas estenses, versiones escritas fuera de Italia y muy anteriores a la época en la que se compuso el poema ariostesco.Here I unfold the documents which Ludovico Ariosto possibly consulted for the characterization of Merlin in his Orlando Furioso. Even though the critics have pointed out a single source for his inspiration, in the libraries that Ariosto could have used more than ten different versions of the English prophet can be found, very different from each other because of the treatment the character received -from brief allusions to codexes or editions devoted entirely to describe Merlin’s life-, or because of the origin and the language in which this material was composed, since in the Este’s libraries there are versions written outside Italy and very ancient regarding the epoch in which Ariosto’s poem was composed

THEATRE AS THE REPRESENTATIVE SCENE OF THE POWER OF COURT: THE FIFTEENTH- AND SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ITALIAN EXEMPLA

Tra XV e XVI secolo il teatro diviene luogo deputato alla rappresentazione della corte . Il luogo teatrale manifesta emblematicamente la metafora del potere e del prestigio del casato . Sin dalla seconda metà del XV secolo la corte di Ferrara mette in atto, attraverso la figura di Pellegrino Prisciani, un’ operazione culturale orientata al recupero dei testi e del teatro classico.Il saggio analizza il coerente percorso della festa e della sua rappresentazione a Ferrara nel XV secolo e nel XVI secolo , evidenziando rapporti tematici e compositivi con gli affreschi di palazzo Schifanoia

Self-Portraits of a Truthful Liar: Satire, Truth-Telling, and Courtliness in Ludovico Ariosto's Satire and Orlando Furioso

Composed during the most difficult years of Ludovico Ariosto’s relationship with the Este court, the Satire are known for presenting a picture of their author as a simple, quiet-loving man, and also as a man who can speak only the truth. However, the self-portrait offered by the Satire of the author as a man incapable of lying stands in direct contrast to the depiction presented by St. John in canto 35 of the Orlando Furioso of all writers (and thus, implicitly, of Ariosto) as liars. This article investigates the relationship between such contrasting self-portraits of Ariosto, aiming to overcome the traditional opposition of satire as the mode for honest speech—and for a truthful portrayal of the author’s self— and epic as the mode for courtly flattering

London calling : John Harington’s exegetical domestication of Ariosto in late sixteenth-century England

Sir John Harington's 1591 translation of ‘Ludovico’ Ariosto's Orlando Furioso has been much maligned for its free translation, digressive notes, and the translator's obtrusive presence. This essay addresses the question of Harington's accommodation of his audience using Paul Ricoeur's notion of ‘linguistic hospitality’ to consider how Harington invites English readers to engage with the Italian poem. Harington's exegetical notes and paratextual aids serve as a privileged site or ‘third text’ between the source and target texts to adapt Ariosto for English readers. The translator's anglicising strategies are grounded in contemporary Elizabethan reading practices, while also emulating the exegetical apparatus that accompanied the Italian reception of Ariosto's poem. Domestication strategies Harington employs include the anticipation of his audience's cultural biases, an emphasis on historical events of interest to English readers, and the inclusion of personal details that create cultural bridges between the reader, the translator, and the Italian author

Angélica y Marcela, Leandra Y Fiammetta. Mujeres ariostescas en el Quijote

AbstractThis analysis shows several similarities between the female characters of Orlando Furioso, by Ludovico Ariosto, and Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. Also, matches are found in the literary structures in which these characters act. On one hand, the discourse of 'beautiful victim', in both works in the form of soliloquy Angelica in Italian and Marcela in Spanish. On the other hand, there is a kind of collection of manifestos on women put on one of the framed novels each analyzed author wrote through its own masterpEste análisis muestra diversas semejanzas entre los personajes femeninos del Orlando furioso, de Ludovico Ariosto, y el Quijote, de Miguel de Cervantes. Además, se observan coincidencias en las estructuras literarias en las que actúan esos personajes. Por un lado, el discurso de la ‘víctima bella’, en ambas obras con la forma de soliloquio –de Angélica en la del italiano y de Marcela en la del español. Por otro lado, hay una especie de colección de manifiestos sobre las mujeres puestos en una de las novelas enmarcadas que cada autor analizado escribió en medio de su respectiva obra maestra. 

SOZZINO BENZI, DE SOMNIO. TESTO CRITICO, TRADUZIONE E NOTE

The manuscript Classe II 102 kept in the Ariostea Library of Ferrara represents the only known witness of the De somnio, an unpublished work written in 1546 by the physician Sozzino Benzi from Ferrara. Using the formal model of Dante’s Commedia, the physician tells about a dream in which he sets out with his genius a research journey of happiness through all the degrees of universe, in a speculative ascent animated by love that rises from the contemplation of beauty. Going through the world, the physician observes the images and myths in which had set the great tradition of Ficino’s philosophy of love, and thanks to the incessant mediation of his genius he is constantly urged to understand the symbolical meaning of that language. Pushed by the unceasing wish of new beauty, but unable to go beyond of her physical dimension, the physician reaches the limits of universe without finding any satisfaction, and he understands only thanks to the divine help that the only way to reach happiness is the abandon to the grace. Telling a history of a conversion from the research of a corporeal beauty to the research of true beauty, which is God, Benzi’s work becomes thus a radical criticism of the surrounding cultural reality. Although it is unknown, the De somnio represents a precious witness of the philosophical culture in Ferrara at the middle of XVIth century, and proves the capacity of some characteristic themes of philosophy of love of answering the worries of a period of great political, cultural and religious changes