Ariosto

[Becky]

Is it only me who likes Ariosto's Orlando Furioso? Or has anyone read the faerie queen? Surely there must be someone out there...its not only for girls.

Why is it that everyone thinks there rubbish?

[Saturn]

I've been looking for a copy of Ariosto for years but can never find one.

As for the Faerie Queene - it's definitely just not for girls - where did that idae come from?

I've read it twice - here's one of my favourite quotes from it:

“…What though the sea with waves continuall
Doe eat the earth, it is no more at all:
Ne is the earth the lesse, or looseth ought,
For whatsoever from one place doth fall
Is with the tide to another brought:
For there is nothing lost, that may be found if sought.”
Bk. V, II, 39.

[Becky]

A half remebered quote from somewhere, in which a person from keats time period (I think) said they were abandoning spenser et al as they were only pleasing to women. Or something like that. I paraphrase.

If anyone can tell me were I got that from, I'd be much obliged.

Anyway, I can see why women of that time would like Ariosto. His female characters are amazingly strong for his time...maybe they were an inspiration to keats, who also has amazingly strong women.

You can get Ariosto from amazon. There is some debate about Guido Waldman's translation, but I liked it, I got mine's from my local library...and so far, I think I'm the only one who's read that copy, and whenever i mention him in polite conversation, there's an ominous silence. No wonder the days of chivalry are over!

[Becky]

You see! Exactly!

[Fred]

His female characters are amazingly strong for his time...maybe they were an inspiration to keats, who also has amazingly strong women.

do you really think keats's women are strong??
I mean look at a few examples the nymph: in lamia hiding
Isabella: went crazy (maybe somthing like ophelia Keats seemed a great lover of shakespear)
Lamia: Sort of gave in easily to whats his names big wedding idea even though she knew it was likly to kill her
umm cant think of other names off the top of my head but point is were they strong??

Then again they werent as pathetic as say Richardson's Pamela who was a very strong charater and was supposdly a model of virtue and personal strength for women so maybe you are right.

[Becky]

Keats characters are similar to the enchantresses of Ariosto who capture men, cant remember her name of the top of my head either, but just like in Ariosto, these women have to be defeated for 'decency' to be restored. It is in their defeat, and in the hero's weaknesses, that the moral lies.

More generally, Keats focus on women in his poems, and perhaps i was referring to this more than their actual characteristics themselves, are similar in part to Ariosto's. Bradamant, for instance, is a female knight who goes into battle, or at least chivalric challenges, with men, and much of the plot deals with similar female knights, who court other knights, their 'equals', though we shouldn't push the equality too far. This emphasis on active women, even on women active in their passivity, if you see what I mean, that is I feel important.

[Fred]

Ok this is a wierd question but never before having read ( that sentence sounds wierd ) Ariosto. I sort of looked around is this
Ludovico Ariosto we are talking about and what are the names of these poems so i can see if i can find them.
thanks

[Saturn]

Yes, you've got the right peron and the poem is called Orlando Furioso.

[Fred]

Right thanks I think I can find it on the Online books page so Ill just go read that now.. Err maybe not but I will defintlly begin it.

[Saturn]

I haven't even read it yet

[Fred]

You can read the book as an electronic text for free on either of these 2 web pages
a) www.blackmask.com
b) The free Online book page. just google it I cant remember the address

But it is very long isnt it (46 cantos). And apparantly Ariosoto's was only a completion of an earlier work and starts halfway through the story

[Saturn]

I think I'll wait until I find it in a real book rather than stare at a computer screen for hours ta, thanks

[Fred]

that makes sense have you tried amazon??

[Saturn]

I can't order stuff online, and besides I'm not that desperate to read it - I like finding things by chance in dusty old second-hand bookshops

I'll find it one day.

[Becky]

Yep, he's continuing and probably slightly reinterpreting Tasso for a 'modern' audience...at least, i think its Tasso.... Modern is still medieval, though... and you can buy Tasso on Amazon too, i know because they keep trying to sell it to me.

I would prefer buying such things in dusty second-hand bookshops, but they are in short supply in my neck of the woods.