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Title: Orlando Furioso, Part One (Penguin Classics) by Ludovico Ariosto, Barbara Reynolds, Lodovico Ariosto ISBN: 0-14-044311-8 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: August, 1975 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.91 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A True Classic
Comment: Orlando Furioso is a classic story that has often been overlooked by the average reader. We follow Charlemagne's paladins as they traverse the world, pagan and Christian, looking for adventure, fame, and love. They end up in many fascinating places such as enchanted castles, Hades, and on the moon with St. John the Apostle. Their adventures bring them into contact with fascinating people, incredible beasts, and magic weapons. They engage in sword fights and duels, convert the Muslims, and fall in love. The story centers on Orlando and other pagan and Christian knights as they try to win the love of Angelica, a Saracen Princess. Meanwhile, a war between the Christians and Muslims is going on. These events are a continuation of the story told in Orlando Innamorato by Boiardo, which came before this poem. Ariosto, however, has given us a sequel that in many ways surpasses its predecessor. Orlando Furioso is a story of epic proportions that is subtly funny, never boring, and always beautiful. To the basic themes of chivalry and love, Ariosto has added elements of allegory, irony, and even prophecy to make an enchanting masterpiece. The stories contained are similar to the Arthurian legends, only with more humor and excitement. I agree with C.S. Lewis when he wrote: "Our oblivion of these poets (i.e. Boiardo and Ariosto) is much to be regretted...because it robs us of a whole species of pleasures and narrows our very conception of literature."
For some reason amazon.com links this review to both the Reynolds and the Waldman translations, but they are different books. Although the previous part of my review is valid for any translation, this part is only relevant for the Waldman version. I have not read the one by Reynolds. This translation is in prose, meaning it loses some of the original spirit of Ariosto. However, by doing this Waldman makes the stories much easier to read and more accessible for the average person, who usually does not read poetry. I really enjoy the prose rendering; it has been done beautifully. If you love poetry and/or want a translation closer to the original Italian, then perhaps you should buy another version. One benefit though, is that this edition is complete in one volume and unabridged. Also, there is an introduction and an index of characters and their adventures. Unfortunately, there are no annotations. Overall, this is an excellent book that I think everyone should read at least once. It is a classic!
Rating: 5
Summary: Praise for Waldman's translation
Comment: Easy enough to refer to a prose translation as "appropriate for the masses," but the fact remains that when a translator is freed from the necessity of forcing a poem to conform to rhyme and meter in a second language, he has access to a broader range of vocabulary and is therefore more able to remain true to the spirit of the original (as Waldman deftly explains in his introduction). Is it any wonder that this work has received so little attention in America when past translations have been so hidebound and pedagogical? Orlando Furioso is anything but a sing-songy, staid old verse.
In Waldman's translation are to be found both the idealised virtues of chivalry and sometimes startlingly lowbrow humor, all wrapped up in an epic tale of adventure, romance and magic. By providing an unabridged translation (another shortcoming of more traditional editions), and by attempting to capture the true flavor of the work rather than slavishly abiding by the dictates of classical poetic rules, he has presented to English readers for the first time a tale that rivals the epics of Homer in its scope and aspiration. And for sheer entertainment value (coupled with the elitism of Ariosto's sly jabs at the very people for whom the work was composed), this work is all but impossible to beat-- his original audience, after all, was not the literati, but the idle rich.
Rating: 4
Summary: Powell's Orlando
Comment: 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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Title: Jerusalem Delivered: Gerusalemme Liberata by Torquato Tasso, Anthony M. Esolen ISBN: 0801863236 Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr Pub. Date: September, 2000 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: The Faerie Queene (Penguin Classics) by Edmund Spenser, Thomas P. Roche, C. P. O'Connell ISBN: 0140422072 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: July, 1988 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: DoreÂs Illustrations for AriostoÂs "Orlando Furioso" by Gustave Dore ISBN: 048623973X Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 01 April, 1980 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Amadis of Gaul: A Novel of Chivalry of the 14th Century Presumably First Written in Spanish by Garci Rodriguez De Montalvo, Herbert Behm, Edwin Place ISBN: 0813190347 Publisher: University Press of Kentucky Pub. Date: January, 2003 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (Penguin English Library) by Philip, Sir Sidney, Maurice Evans ISBN: 014043111X Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: December, 1977 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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