Scholars and readers of English Renaissance literature still tend to be hesitant about, or even ignorant of, the work of Ludovico Ariosto and the extent of his influence. Across the language barrier, the Orlando Furioso can seem distant and impenetrable; and Ariosto’s stage comedies, which effectively launched modern European theatre, are often underrated by anglophone historians of theatre. This volume edited by Marrapodi and Jossa will be enormously effective in clarifying aspects of what Ariosto achieved, and most of all in offering views of how English writers reacted to that achievement. The coverage of the book is impressive, ranging from Gascoigne, Spenser, and Robert Greene, through some penetrating treatments of influences on Shakespeare, into seventeenth-century writers, even including Milton. There are also reminders of how an awareness of Ariosto’s work lasted into the Romantic period, and reflections on the task of translating the Italian poet into English. There has been a long scholarly campaign to highlight direct Italian influence on English writers: it was started by Louise George Clubb and has been vigorously continued by Michele Marrapodi. This present volume continues those efforts, but it also innovates—both by broadening the range of English writers covered and by introducing new conceptual approaches.Richard Andrews, Emeritus Professor of Italian, University of LeedsThe twenty-two essays in A Reader’s Research Guide to Ariosto in Shakespeare’s England offer an engaging examination of Ariosto’s impact on Elizabethan and Stuart culture – with a few forays into later moments and a closing reflection on translating Ariosto today. As they address issues of gender, genre, translation studies, and a host of other topics, an impressive cohort of scholars remedy the rather surprising neglect of Ariosto’s presence in English literature and criticism – despite the oft-noted popularity of the Orlando Furioso’s 1591 translation by John Harington, called “the English Ariosto.” Particularly welcome is the focus on Ariosto’s comedies, especially his Suppositi, which prompted one of the first English Renaissance dramas written in prose. Equally welcome is the extensive consideration of the impact of Ariosto’s plays and poem alike on Shakespeare’s varied corpus, from Taming of the Shrew and Midsummer Night’s Dream to Othello. The persuasive demonstrations of Ariosto’s importance for Spenser, Shakespeare, Fletcher, Massinger, Milton, and many others will challenge readers to rethink the early modern English canon by way of exciting connections to Renaissance Italy’s most beloved writer. Kudos to Michele Marrapodi for the wide-ranging introduction and the two editors’ creative approach to Anglo-Italian studies.Jane Tylus, Andrew Downey Orrick Professor of Italian and Professor of Comparative Literature, Department of Italian Studies, Yale UniversityIn the more than three decades since Louise George Clubb’s pathfinding Italian Drama in Shakespeare’s Time (1989), the labor of bringing to light the debts of Elizabethan and later English literature to the most important (and popular) writer of the Italian Renaissance, Ludovico Ariosto, and especially to his romance epic Orlando Furioso, has progressed with gathering momentum. Scholars such as Jane Everson and Michele Marrapodi have documented and explained such debts with articles and collections of studies, creating in effect a new subspecialty of Early Modern literary studies. A Reader’s Research Guide to Ariosto in Shakespeare’s England, edited by Marrapodi and Stefano Jossa, includes an international list of contributors and is more extensive, interdisciplinary, and comprehensive than existing resources, covering not only principal authors such as Gascoigne, Spenser, Greene, and Milton, and embracing epochs from the first Elizabethans to the mid-Sixteenth century, but also offering a variety of methodological approaches. A third of the contributions is dedicated to Ariosto’s presence within Shakespeare’s dramatic works. Publication of the collection may also happily coincide with a forthcoming new translation of the Orlando Furioso by Albert R. Ascoli that will bring Ariosto’s work to a new generation of readers, many of whom will gratefully turn for further enlightenment to this new anthology of studies.Ronald L. Martinez, Professor of Italian Studies, Brown University
