Attorneys of Orlando

Orlando Furioso (Italian Edition)

Description

This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Reviews

Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-05-15
Summary: "One of the Seven Wonders of Western World Literature"

Begging you pardon: I say Western World Literature because my reading of Other World Literature is wanting--and I really don't know how many 'Wonders' there are. But like Walter Scott I would learn Italian to feed on this work in the original, it is so enrapturing. In my reading Pantheon is Quixote, Divine Comedy, Ulysses (Homer and Joyce), Huck Finn, and the indomitable Will Shakespeare: I gladly submit to those reads that take me epochally away and demand a great and gruesome gestation. I have taught and directed for the stage various of Shakespeare's works for forty years now and still revel in their creations. So Orlando for me is now at this later date in my experience vaulted into the firmament. It's Awesome! I would learn Italian because there are those unexpected moments Reynolds' otherwise swooping translation hits a traffic bump, (admittedly, Ariosto's own rhetorical patterns run so different than anything we commonly use) but this work never (well, once) let me go, (even reading passages out loud, marveling and laughing) and I've gone back for a second dose immediately, this time beginning with the Introduction. It's the threading of descriptive extravagance and seeming random and distracted narration with an embracing humor that lifts one away as though on Pegasus--although in Orlando it's a Hyppogriff. Yes, one must occasionally toil through Ariosto's honoring of his patrons, the d'Este family, but that done, one can disrespectfully reflect upon who we treasure more--the barbaric barons or the humanely inspired. That said, if you yearn for a soaring, roaring, and delectable literary feast for to last longer than anything you imagined--I kept putting off finishing--indulge in, not just Orlando's, but Humanity's continuing Madness, glazed with a sauce of exquisite taste. There is nothing like it. Nothing. It is unique.

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Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2008-09-26
Summary: "A Thousand Tales of Derring-Do"

Orlando Furioso, translated in two parts by Barabara Reynolds, is a sprawling work. A romance of the Renaissance period (first published in 1516 but written over 25 years), it covers the chivalrous and not-so chivalrous deeds of a huge cast of characters. The themes of the book are love, war and chivalry although one suspects Ariosto, the author, might have just enjoyed telling a good yarn, one tale leading to another in a vast jumble which, while not entirely undirected, only moves gradually towards a rather dimly seen goal.

Ariosto picks up from Boiardo's Orlando Innamoratto and assumes the reader has some knowledge of that poem, alluding tangentially to it throughout the work. The basic plot revolves around Charlemagne's defense of France from the Saracens, although, for most of the book, this is just back story. The siege of Paris is described in detail as are several smaller engagements - although their veracity is questionable - but primarily the story follows a panoply of characters through numerous quests, conflicts and magical interludes. The tales are drawn from many sources, contemporary to the time as well as historical and mythical. The Greek myths, in particular are woven throughout, although often gloriously unrecognizable. The tale jumps around the world - literally, as characters fly and sail from Europe to Africa, Asia and the newly discovered North America. Even the moon is a destination.

The characters range from the well known Orlando (Roland of the Charlemagne legend) and Charlemagne himself, to lesser known lights of the time drawn from other romances. The Saracens and Christians are treated almost equally - at times you have to refer to the dramatis personae to figure out which side an individual is on - and there is very even-handed treatment of both sides. Ariosto also has a rather advanced, for his time, view of women, casting several as military heros every bit the equal of men and giving almost all of his female characters strong, independent roles. No fainting wall-flower princesses here. Even the modern Disney princess pales in comparison to the fierce Marfisa (Saracen and female and a knight) and the magnificent force that is Bradamante.

The male characters are also headstrong, proud to a fault and seem more like rutting mountain goats at times, than men. They display few weaknesses, and are always ready for a challenge. The complicated plot seems designed to pit each of the heroes against each other in a complicated play-off scheme worthy of college football.

The tale ranges from brutal to poetic with scenes of beauty, nobility, cruelty and violence juxtaposed in close succession. The occasional bawdy interlude lightens the mood occasionally but this is no Decameron. The emphasis here is on chivalry and nobility of heart. Comparisons with Tasso are inevitable but probably unfair. Tasso's work is a much tighter, uniform work which reads more like a modern novel. Ariosto's work, in my opinion, belongs to a different genera entirely, consisting, as it does, of a loosely woven set of tales, held together by the slenderest of threads. Tasso and Ariosto each have their own particular charm but should not be ranked against each other.

Repeated encomiums for the house of Este, Ariosto's patrons, cloud the narrative somewhat. The fawning praise and false histories do, however, weave the thing into a whole, providing an overarching theme (the union of Ruggiero and Bradamante) which is otherwise somewhat lacking. The madness of Orlando, which lends the poem its title is really only one of many threads in the tale.

This version of the poem, translated as it is into 4000 octavo stanzas, is remarkably readable. The translation manages to retain a noble air, not sounding forced, in spite of rhyming lines and fixed form. The end notes are long enough to aid the reading and short enough to avoid snowing the reader under with useless details. Many pertain to Ariosto's use of historical figures and places of his own time. The two books of Reynold's translation each have an introduction. The first introduction is lengthy but very readable while the second is brief but fills in the gaps of the first quite nicely. A dramatis personae is presented in each book as well although the second only covers new characters introduced in the second half of the poem. These character lists are actually quite necessary for an intelligent reading of the poem as the number of characters approaches infinity. Finally, the book contains a lengthy index which concentrates on the characters and their actions.

The two volume translation is, I imagine, a bit daunting to the average reader, being nearly 1400 pages in length. It is a fairly smooth read, however, and rewards with many literary jewels. The book can be read as a whole quite easily but would also be useful to the scholar given its fairly extensive notes and indices. The one drawback for scholars would be that the paperbacks, given their enormous length, are unlikely to survive repeated readings. A hardcover version of this translation would, however, be an excellent investment.

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Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2003-11-15
Summary: "Powell's Orlando"

Not a review here but a note. Readers who enjoy Orlando would appreciate Anthony Powell's witty account of the moon trip in the 12th and last volume of his A Dance to the Music of Time.

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Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2001-09-19
Summary: "A delightful giant"

Ariosto was one of the giants of Renaissance literature, and this was his footprint. Grand, touching, funny, witty, stirring -- as Dryden said of Chaucer, here is the world's plenty. Some of the greatest poets of the next two centuries (Tasso, Spenser, Milton) explicitly attempted to overdo him, and only sometimes succeeded; Byron took as much from Ariosto as he did from Pulci.

But don't read this on that account. Read it because it's a delight from start to finish. War, love, and chivalry are the poet's themes, and they're here in all their forms.

I don't know Italian, but everyone I've asked who would know assures me Reynolds's translation captures not just the essence but the spirit of the original.

(Ignore the reviews that claim that this is a prose translation -- they are from another translation.)

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Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2001-04-27
Summary: "Reynold's is one of the classic English translations"

I may not have been the only person to have noticed how much the poetry improves in the last half of _Paradiso_ in the Dorothy Sayers translation. This is because Sayers died before completing the last of her translation of the _Divina Commedia_, and her devoted friend and admirer Barbara Reynolds took over. But where Sayers had been technically impressive in matching Dante's terza rima, but pedestrian in the poetry, at the point where (as I guess) Reynolds takes over a new lightness of touch and poetic feel for the language makes itself felt.

This Ariosto translation is Reynolds' great achievement. Moreover it is one of the three or four greatest literary translations in English, an achievement to stand beside Dryden's _Aeniad_ and Fairfax's _Gerusalemma Liberata_. (On Pope's _Illiad_, which I'm currently reading, I tend to agree with the contemporary reviewer who commented, "A very pretty poem, Mr Pope, but you must not call it Homer".)

She captures Ariosto's wit and lightness, occasionally turning in closing couplets for her stanzas that are as sharp as Byron's in _Don Juan_ (who was in turn also using Ariosto - among others - as a model), but also following Ariosto in allowing the sense to flow from stanza to stanza in a quite un-Byronic way. As well, she manages to transmit Ariosto's graver passages in equally dignified verse, for example some of the set pieces imitated (by Ariosto) from Homer. English readers tend to think of Ottava Rima as a vehicle for comic verse, but in Italian it is a model for epic. It's just that the great Italian epic tradition, unlike the English epic tradition before Byron's great anti-epic, includes humour.

As for Ariosto, he is a great poet and story-teller, and (not exactly a literary judgment, this) his authorial "voice" is one whose company you cannot help enjoying. His humour, sometimes sly, is also warmly compassionate; sometimes satirical, sometimes splendidly and deliberately silly. Ariosto knows his flying horses, invisibility rings, sexy sorceresses and the rest are perfectly absurd, but manages to maintain the fantasy elements as wonderful and exciting, without ever undercutting them with mere cynicism or bathos. But most often the humour is warm and character-based.

His story has an astonishing range of characters, the Moorish warriors and their lovers depicted as fairly and favourably as his Christian protegonists, and an astonish sweep, all over Europe and the East, with digressions to the Moon and other enchanted places.

Another feature of Ariosto is his feminism, which shows in his warrior women, who give and take in battle every bit as well as the men. He also tellingly mocks some of the anti-feminist aspects of chivalry, as in the scene where one of Ariosto's heroes is called upon to champion in a trial by combat a woman who has been accused of unchastity. The hero readily agrees to defend the woman's honour, but only after observing that he would as readily defend her if she were unchaste, as in his view (clearly also Ariosto's) women have a right to make love without being condemned for it.

Two last observations. First, I believe that this poem, and not Dante's, is the great Italian epic, superior to Dante for the same reason that Shakespeare is superior to Racine, or Byron's English epic is superior to Milton's or even Spencer's. Dante offers moral allegory (though with a thoroughly repellant worldview), and Ariosto's failure to preach has sometimes been taken as a sign of lack of depth or seriousness. But the great epics are about humanity, not allegory (though I have seen attempts to allegorise Homer, none have done so convincingly); and Ariosto presents one of the widest and greatest human canvases of all epic. It is the most readable long poem since the _Odyssey_. Yes.

Second, Amazon has linked this translation to another, a prose translation. I haven't read the prose translation, but I would observe that _Orlando Furioso_ is a poem. To render it as something else is to lose its structure, its purpose and its very nature. To present a prose translation of this poem as a genuine "version of Ariosto" is a bit like presenting Beethoven's Ninth symphony by playing an arrangement for kazoo: some of Beethoven will come through in a kazoo transcription, but you cannot call it the Ninth. Get the Reynolds; it is a great and easy _read_, and it is one of the glories of English poetic translation.

Cheers!

Laon