Structure And Ideology In Boiardo S Orlando Innamorato

Jo Ann Cavallo challenges the traditional tendency to view the Orlando Innamorato as "pure entertainment" and argues instead that the poem embodies the principal elements of fifteenth-century Humanist poets.

This edited collection explores the image of the wound as a ‘cultural symptom’ and a literary-visual trope at the core of representations of a new concept of selfhood in Early Modern Italian and English cultures, as expressed in the two complementary poles of poetry and theatre. The semantic field of the wounded body concerns both the image of the wound as a traumatic event, which leaves a mark on someone’s body and soul (and prompts one to investigate its causes and potential solutions), and the motif of the scar, which draws attention to the fact that time has passed and urges those who look at it to engage in an introspective and analytical process. By studying and describing the transmission of this metaphoric paradigm through the literary tradition, the contributors show how the image of the bodily wound—from Petrarch’s representation of the Self to the overt crisis that affects the heroes and the poetic worlds created by Ariosto and Tasso, Spenser and Shakespeare—could respond to the emergence of Modernity as a new cultural feature.

Review: "Conceived and produced in association with the Renaissance society of America, this work presents a panoramic view of the cultural movement and the period of history beginning in Italy from approximately 1350, broadening geographically to include the rest of Europe by the middle-to-late-15th century, and ending in the early 17th century. Each of the nearly 1,200 entries provides a learned and succinct account suitable for inquiring readers at several levels. These readable essays covering the arts and letters, in addition to everyday life, will be appreciated by general readers and high-school students. The thoughtful analyses will enlighten college students and delight scholars. A selective bibliography of primary and secondary sources for further study follows each article."--"Outstanding reference sources 2000", American Libraries, May 2000. Comp. by the Reference Sources Committee, RUSA, ALA.