Orlando Furioso 奧蘭多富里奧梭(1532) Ludovico Ariosto 阿里奧斯托(1474-1533) Italy

The chivalric epic “Orlando Furioso” by Ludovico Ariosto is considered to be one of the most famous works of Italian and European literature. It consists out of 46 cantos and it was written in Italian using octave and hendecasyllable. It was firstly published in 1516 and it had 40 cantos. The author worked and changed the epic poem and after the second publication in 1521, he published the last one that was expanded and perfected in 1532. There isn’t a single plot to follow up with and there is a variety of characters. As the three main plots of the epic poem, we can extract Orlando’s love for Angelica, the war between Charlemagne and the Saracens and the love between Ruggiero and Bradamante. The plot is actually a sequel to the epic “Orlando Innamorato” written by Boiardo. Ariosto took over many characters and their characteristics. If we take the themes of the epics in consideration Ariosto’s epic is older than Boiardo’s because the chivalric epics were popular in the medieval France and from there they came to Italy. Also, the caroling cycle was very famous in Italy and many Italian epic poems were inspired by the French epics. “Orlando Furioso” had many publications and translations. His parts are often elaborated in the works of other Italian and some Spanish writers.