Luca Zipoli, Department of Transnational Italian Studies, Bryn Mawr College
[The upper-level undergraduate course “Love, Magic, and Women Warriors: Renaissance Italian Epic,” designed and taught by Luca Zipoli, led to a symposium exhibition, Epic Afterlives, in which students presented their senior thesis projects (organized by Zipoli in collaboration with the college’s Special Collections).]
This course offers an overview of one of the great literary traditions of Renaissance Italy: that of chivalric poems narrating tales of war, love, and magic. Our readings will center on the two established masterpieces of the tradition, Ludovico Ariosto’s romance Orlando furioso (The Madness of Orlando; 1532) and Torquato Tasso’s epic Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered; 1581), but we will also look at a series of much lesser-known works by a queer and “irregular” author (Luigi Pulci), who inaugurated this genre in Florence, and by female poets of the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries (Moderata Fonte and Margherita Sarrocchi), who draw on Ariosto’s and Tasso’s texts for inspiration. Thematically, the course will focus on questions of diversity in political and religious ideologies, differing treatments of love and conceptions of the heroic, and the representation of sexuality and gender, which is exceptionally fluid and interesting in these works. The course is taught in English and is accessible also to students without a background in Renaissance literature and with no knowledge of Italian. Students who are interested to take this course towards a major in Italian will complete their assignments in Italian and will participate in an extra hour in Italian.
| Attendance and contribution | 20% |
| In-class presentations | 20% |
| Response papers | 20% |
| Midterm exam | 20% |
| Final paper | 20% |
- Contribution to the class: Please come prepared to ask questions and share with the class your insights on the assigned readings.
- Mini-presentations: 7-10 minute presentations focusing on one aspect of one of the texts assigned for the week.
- Weekly response papers (200-300 words): to be posted on the course’s online discussion board by noon on Tuesdays.
- Midterm paper (5 pages): close reading and analysis of an excerpt from one of the texts we discussed in class, due at the end of week 6.
- Final research paper (12-15 pages): Due at the end of the last week of classes.
SECTION 1: PRECURSORS
Week 1
| Contexts: classic epic | ||
| August 30 | Presentation of the course | |
| September 1 | Homer, Iliad, Bk 22 [Hector’s death] | Clarke, Michael, 2004, “Manhood and heroism” |
Week 2
| Contexts: classical epic | ||
| September 6 | Homer, Odyssey Bk 10 [Circe] | Felson, Nancy, and Laura M. Slatkin, 2004, “Gender and Homeric Epic” |
| September 8 | Virgil, Aeneid Bks 1 and 4 [Dido] | Oliensis, Ellens, 1997, “Sons and Lovers: Sexuality and Gender in Virgil’s Poetry” |
Week 3
| Contexts: medieval epic and romance | |
| September 13 | Chanson de Roland, laisses 80-95 (LXXX-XCV; lines 1017-1260) [opening of the battle]; laisses 130-176 (CXXX-CLXXVI; lines 1713-2394) [to Roland’s death]; 268-69* (CCLXVIII-CCLXIX; lines 3723-3733) [Aude’s death] (*274-75 in Penguin edition) |
| September 15 | Chrétien de Troyes, The Knight of the Cart, 539-1552 [Lancelot’s feat of chastity] |
SECTION 2: PULCI AND BOIARDO
Week 4
| Pulci’s Morgante, Boiardo’s Orlando innamorato | ||
| September 20 | Pulci, Il Morgante, cantare 1, 1-60; cantare II, 8-17; cantare 18, 112-200; cantare 19, 140-155; cantare 20, 31-57. | Mark Davie, 1997, Half seriuos rhymes (excerpts) |
| September 21 | Boiardo, Orlando Innamorato, Bk 1, Canto 1; Canto 2, 1-18; Canto 18 | Jo Ann Cavallo, 1993, Boiardo’s Orlando innamorato: an ethics of desire (excerpts) |
SECTION 3: ARIOSTO
Week 5
| Ariosto, Orlando furioso: quests, labyrinths and gender trouble | ||
| September 27 | OF, Canto 1 [opening; Angelica, Rinaldo, Ferraù and Bradamante]; Canto 2, 1-57; Canto 3, 66-71; Canto 4, 11-50 [Ruggiero, the hippogriff and Atlante’s castle] | Carnes-Ross, Donald S. 1966. “The One and the Many: A Reading of Orlando Furioso, Cantos 1 and 8” |
| September 29 | OF, Canto 32; Canto 33, 59-76 [Bradamante; Rocca di Tristano]; Canto 37 [Ruggiero, Marfisa e Bradamante; Marganorre] | Shemek, Deanna. 1989. “Of Women, Arms, Knights, and Love: the querelle des femmes in Ariosto’s Poem.” |
Week 6
| Ariosto, Orlando furioso: magic and travels | ||
| October 4 | OF, Canto 6, 16-Canto 8, 21 [Ruggiero]; Canto 8, 69-91 [Orlando’s quest]; Canto 10, 35-69 [Alcina]; Canto 10, 91-115, Canto 11, 1-28 [Ruggiero and Angelica; against firearms] | Javitch, Daniel, 1980, Cantus Interruptus in the Orlando Furioso |
| October 6 | OF, Canto 11, 15-21; Canto 12, 4-65; Canto 13, 44-54, 74-79; Canto 15, 10-15; Canto 22, 4-23 [Atlante’s palace of illusion; Astolfo, the magicbook, and the hippogriff]; Canto 34, 44-end; Canto 35, 1-30 [Astolfo on the moon] | Parker, Patricia, 1979, Inescapable Romance: Studies in the Poetics of a Mode, chap. 1 |
FALL BREAK – OCTOBER 7-16 (NO CLASS)
Week 7
| Ariosto, Orlando furioso: love, sex and betrayal | ||
| October 18 |
OF, Canto 18, 165-19, 15 [Cloridano and Medoro]; Canto 19, 16-42 [Angelica and Medoro]; Canto 23, 100-end; Canto 24, 1-14; Canto 29, 35-end; Canto 30, 1-15; Canto 39, 36-61 [Orlando’s madness and cure]
Virgil, Aeneid, Bk 9, 1-453 [Eurialus and Nisus] |
Wells, Marion A. 2007, The Secret Wound: Love-Melancholy and Early Modern Romance, 96-126 |
| October 20 | OF, Canto 25, 17-71 [Ricciardetto e Fiordispina]; Canto 28, 86-102; Canto 29, 1-39 [Rodomonte and Isabella]; OF, Canto 42, 60-104; Canto 43, 1-51 [Rinaldo and the knight of the cup]. | Benson, Pamela J., 1992, The Invention of the Renaissance Woman: the Challenge of Female Independence in the Literature and Thought of Italy and England, 101-09 |
Week 8
| Ariosto, Orlando furioso: war and love | ||
| October 25 | OF, Canto 4, 51-end; Canto 5; Canto 6, 1-16 [Ariodante-Ginevra-Rinaldo]; Canto 8, 51-68; Canto 9, Canto 10, 1-34 [Olimpia-Bireno-Orlando, against firearms] | Murrin, Michael, 1994, History and Warfare in Renaissance Epic, 80-92 |
| October 27 | OF, Canto 14, 65-end [Rodomonte]; Canto 15, 1-9; Canto 16, 17-28; Canto 17, 1-17; Canto 18, 8-25 [siege of Paris]; Canto 43, 186-199 [Ruggiero’s christening]; Canto 46, 1-19; 76-140 [Rodomonte and Ruggiero, the end] | Durling, Robert, 1965, The Figure of the Poet in Renaissance Epic, 132-50 |
SECTION 3: TASSO
Week 9
| Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata: sex and magic | ||
| November 1 | GL, Canto 1; Canto 3, 1-20; Canto 4; Canto 5, 60-end | Zatti, Sergio. 2006. The Quest for Epic: from Ariosto to Tasso, 95-113 |
| November 3 | Canto 7, 23-36; Canto 10, 59-71; Canto 14, 50-71; Canto 15, 42-end; Canto 16 [Rinaldo and Armida]; Canto 17, 33-53; Canto 20, 61-70; 109-136 | Gough, Melinda J. 2001. “Tasso’s Enchantress, Tasso’s Captive Woman” |
Week 10
| Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata: love, madness, and errancy | ||
| November 8 | GL, Canto 1, 45-49; Canto 2, 38-40; Canto 3, 21-31; Canto 6, 26-27; Canto 12 [Tancredi and Clorinda]; Canto 13, 1-49 [cfr. Dante, Inferno 13] | Wells, Marion A. 2007. The Secret Wound: Love-Melancholy and Early Modern Romance, 136-78 |
| November 10 | GL, Canto 3, 12-20; Canto 6, 55-end; Canto 7, 1-22 [Erminia among the shepherds]; Canto 18, 57-60; Canto 19, 57-119 | Stephens, Walter. “Trickster, Textor, Architect, Thief: Craft and Comedy in Gerusalemme Liberat.” |
Week 11
| Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata: war | ||
| November 15 | GL, Canto 9; Canto 10, 1-28 [Solimano]; Canto 20, 1-60; 71-108; 137-144 [the end] | Zatti, Sergio. 2006. The Quest for Epic: from Ariosto to Tasso, 135-59 |
| November 17 | Visit to the Rare Collections of Canaday Library (Marianne H. Hansen) | |
SECTION 4: FOLLOWERS
Week 12
| Women’s writing in Renaissance Italy | |
| November 22 | Cox 2008, xi-xxiii, 131-65; Cox 2011, 164-69 |
| THANKSGIVING BREAK – NOVEMBER 24-27 (NO CLASS) | |
Week 13
| Moderata Fonte, Il Floridoro: sex, valor, and Circe revisited | ||
| November 29 |
Floridoro, Canto 1, 1-49, 97-end; Canto 2, 1-41; Canto 3, 10-50; Canto 4, 1-5 [Risamante]; Canto 5, 41-47; Canto 7, 1-45; Canto 8, 51-end; Canto 9, 1-39; Canto 10, 48-end; Canto 11, 1-85 [Floridoro] Ariosto, OF, Canto 2, 65-end; Canto 3, 1-24 [for comparison with Risamante episode] |
Cox, Virginia, 2011, The Prodigious Muse: Women’s Writing in Counter-Reformation Italy, 177-82, 186-89 |
| December 1 | Floridoro, Canto 2, 44-53; Canto 5, 1-41; Canto 7, 46-end; Canto 8, 1-51; Canto 11, 89-end; Canto 12, 1-35; Canto 13, 1-42 | Cox 2011, 183-84 |
Week 14
| Sarrocchi, La Scanderbeide: sex and valor, and the war of faiths | ||
| December 6 | La Scanderbeide, Canto 3, 55-60, 79-87, 103-05; Canto 13; Canto 15; Canto18, 90-104; Canto 22, 83-100 | Cox 2011, 169-77, 182-183, 194-96 |
| December 8 | La Scanderbeide, Canto 5; Canto 7, 84-end; Canto 23 | Russell, Rinaldina. 2006. “Margherita Sarrocchi and the Writing of the Scanderbeide” |
LISTS OF READINGS
Required readings
Homer, 2003, Iliad, Translated by E.V. Rieu, revised by Peter Jones and D. C. H. Riew, with an introduction by Peter Jones, Harmondsworth, Penguin.
Homer, 2006, The Odyssey, Translated by Robert Fagles, with an introduction and notes by Bernard Knox, Harmondsworth, Penguin.
Homer, 2018, The Odyssey. Translated by Emily R. Wilson. New York, London: W. W. Norton. Written in iambic pentameter verse.
Homer, 2023, The Iliad. Translated by Emily R. Wilson. New York, London: W. W. Norton. Written in iambic pentameter verse.
Virgil, 1990, The Aeneid, Translated by David West, Harmondsworth and New York, Penguin
Anon., The Song of Roland, 1990, Translated by Glyn Burgess, Harmondsworth and New York: Penguin.
Chrétien de Troyes, 1991, Arthurian Romances, Translated with an introduction and notes by William W. Kibler, Harmondsworth and New York, Penguin
Pulci, Luigi, 2000, Morgante: the Epic Adventures of Orlando and His Giant Friend Morgante, edited by Edoardo Lebano and translated by Joseph Tusiani, Bloomington: Indiana University Press
Boiardo, Matteo Maria, 1989, Orlando Innamorato, Translated by Charles Stanley Ross, with a foreword by Allen Mandelbaum, Berkeley, University of California Press.
Ariosto, Ludovico, 2008, Orlando furioso, translated by Guido Waldman, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Tasso, Torquato, 2000, Jerusalem delivered, translated by Anthony M Esolen, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press.
Fonte, Moderata, 2006, Floridoro: a Chivalric Romance, Edited by Valeria Finucci and Julia Kisacky, Translated by Julia Kisacky, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Mucchi Sarrocchi, Margherita, 2006, Scanderbeide. The Heroic Deeds of George Scanderbeg, King of Epirus, edited and translated by Rinaldina Russell, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Optional / Recommended readings (secondary bibliography)
Clarke, Michael, 2004, “Manhood and heroism”, in The Cambridge Companion to Homer, ed. Robert Fowler, 74-90, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Ascoli, Albert Russell, 2016. Ariosto’s Bitter Harmony: Crisis and Evasion in the Italian Renaissance. Princeton: Princeton Legacy Library.
DeCoste, Mary-Michelle, 2009. Hopeless Love: Boiardo, Ariosto, and Narratives of Queer Female Desire. Toronto: Toronto Italian Studies.
DeCoste, Mary-Michelle, 2004. “Knots of Desire: Female Homoeroticism in Orlando furioso 25”. Queer Italia. Same-Sex Desire in Italian Literature and Film. Edited by Gary P. Cestaro. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 55-69.
Felson, Nancy, and Laura M. Slatkin, 2004, “Gender and Homeric Epic”, in The Cambridge Companion to Homer, ed. Robert Fowler, 91-114, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Oliensis, Ellens, 1997, “Sons and Lovers: Sexuality and Gender in Virgil’s Poetry”, in The Cambridge Companion to Virgil, ed. Charles Martindale, 282-311, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Mark Davie, Half-serious rhymes: the narrative poetry of Luigi Pulci, Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 1998.
Cavallo, Jo Ann, Boiardo’s Orlando innamorato : an ethics of desire, Rutherford, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, London, Cranbury, N.J., Associated University Presses, 1993.
Cavallo, Jo Ann, “Italian Chivalric Literature and Digital Humanities,” Tirant, 26 (2023), pp. 125-139.
Carnes-Ross, Donald S, 1966, “The One and the Many: A Reading of Orlando Furioso, Cantos 1 and 8”, Arion 5: 195-234 (Part I).
Shemek, Deanna, 1989, “Of Women, Arms, Knights, and Love: the querelle des femmes in Ariosto’s Poem”, MLN, 104/1: 68-97.
Parker, Patricia, 1979, Inescapable Romance: Studies in the Poetics of a Mode, Princeton, Princeton University Press.
Wells, Marion A, 2007, The Secret Wound: Love-Melancholy and Early Modern Romance, Stanford, Stanford University Press.
Murrin, Michael, 1994, History and Warfare in Renaissance Epic, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Durling, Robert, 1965, The Figure of the Poet in Renaissance Epic, Cambridge, Mass, Harvard University Press.
Benson, Pamela J, 1992, The Invention of the Renaissance Woman: the Challenge of Female Independence in the Literature and Thought of Italy and England, University Park, PA, Penn State University Press.
Zatti, Sergio, 2006, The Quest for Epic: from Ariosto to Tasso, Toronto, University of Toronto Press.
Gough, Melinda J., 2001, “Tasso’s Enchantress, Tasso’s Captive Woman”, Renaissance Quarterly, 54/2: 523-52.
Finucci, Valeria, ed. 1999, Renaissance Transactions: Ariosto and Tasso, Edited by Valeria Finucci. Durham and London, Duke University Press.
Russell, Rinaldina, 2006, “Margherita Sarrocchi and the Writing of the Scanderbeide”, In Sarrocchi 2006 (see above in “Primary,”) 1-57.
Cox, Virginia, 2011, The Prodigious Muse: Women’s Writing in Counter-Reformation Italy, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press.
Teaching Wolrd Epics, edited by Jo Ann Cavallo, 2023 (New York: The Modern Language Association of America).
Teaching the Italian Renaissance Romance Epic, edited by Jo Ann Cavallo, 2018 (New York: The Modern Language Association of America).
Giammei, Alessandro, 2024, Ariosto in the Machine Age (Toronto: Toronto University Press).
Digital Humanities / WebSites
World Epics, https://edblogs.columbia.edu/worldepics/
National Epics, https://nationalepics.com/#/
Charlemagne: A European Icon, https://www.charlemagne-icon.ac.uk/
eBOIARDO. Epics of Boiardo and Other Italian Authors: a Resource Database Online, https://edblogs.columbia.edu/eboiardo/
The Orlando Furioso Atlas, https://www.furiosoatlas.com/
Tasso in Music Project, https://www.tassomusic.org/
Puppet plays, https://puppetplays.eu/en
French of Italy, https://frenchofitaly.ace.fordham.edu/
RIALFrI – Digital Repertory of Medieval Franco-Italian Literature: https://www.rialfri.eu/en/. For Franco-Italian.
Torquato Tasso Portal, https://www.torquatotasso.org/
Ludovico Ariosto Portal, https://www.ludovicoariosto.org/
Galassia Ariosto, http://www.galassiaariosto.sns.it/. Available only upon authorization and through a VPN.
L’Orlando furioso e la sua traduzione in immagini, http://www.orlandofurioso.org. Available only upon authorization and through a VPN.
GRIFO Gathering and Researching Images From the Orlando Furioso. Currently under construction.
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