Maja Skowron

Orlando furioso by Ludovico Ariosto as a Poem on Women. Angelica, Marfisa, Bradamante and their heroic epic representation

The article concerns Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, and its interpretation according to which it may be read as a poem about women who break the traditional male monopoly on heroism in the epic literature. The author aims to prove Ariosto’s innovative approach by analyzing Orlando Furioso’s protagonists. Hence the paper is mainly dedicated to three of Ariosto’s characters – Angelica, Marfisa and Bradamante. Those women are presented in a comparative perspective against their traditional prototypes with particular reference to those moments in the poem that render visible Ariosto’s novelty in creating his protagonists. Angelica, Marfisa and Bradamante, especially in contrast with the poem’s male cavalieri seem to be more in line with the canonical representations of heroism.

In the first part of the study, the author presents Ariosto’s Angelica, often interpreted as a mere capricious object of man’s desire. Nevertheless, the character appears as self-aware and confident, striving to make her own decision when it comes to choosing the partner for life. The second part of the article is dedicated to Ariosto’s most canonical virago – Marfisa. Undefeated in the battlefield till the end of the poem, she often breaks her stereotypical comical image and consciously resigns from love. The last part of the study concentrates on Bradamante, who combines both amori and armi: the Christian knight, future founder of the Este noble family despite being in constant pursuit of her lover Ruggero, not sacrificing her passion for chivalry. According to the author of the article, Bradamante should be perceived as the central character of Orlando Furioso, as she carries the main idea of Ariosto’s masterpiece.

Women’s Rules of the Game: A Dispute over Women in the Dialogue Il merito delle donne by Moderata Fonte

This paper concerns Moderata Fonte (Modesta dal Pozzo), a female Venetian writer who lived in the 16th century, and a dialogue she wrote, Il merito delle donne (On the Value of Women), in which seven women gathered in a garden have a lively discussion about men and their flaws. The author of the study presents the book and Fonte’s biography in the context of the early-modern dispute over women (querelle des femmes). She then analyses Il merito delle donne in terms of the functionality of both the genre in which it was written and the convention of play (game) that is relevant to the work, in order to answer the question of the importance of these devices for the topic Fonte raises. Skowron writes about what makes Il merito delle donne different from other dialogues published at the time by women, as well as from Balthazar Castiglione’s famous Book of the Courtier (Il libro del Cortegiano), and in discussing the motif of the play she uses the definition of the ludic element of Johan Huizinga of Homo ludens. She points to the presence of particular determinants of play in Il merito delle donne, wondering how the voluntary basis of the game, limited time and space, imposed rules or a situation different from ordinary life affect the female characters’ freedom to express their opinions in discussion, as well as the reception of the work itself. Il merito delle donne owes its unique character to its form because it allows not only different views in a dispute over women to be presented, but above all it involves the reader in a discussion which does not end with the last page of the dialogue.