These descriptions outweigh its faults,--the taking up the
story of Boiardo without an explanation of the situation, the lack of
unity, and the failure to depict character; for with the exception of
Bradamant and Rogero, Ariosto's heroes and heroines are very much alike,
and their conversation is exceedingly tiresome.
The Furioso is written in the octave stanza, and originally consisted of
forty cantos, afterwards increased to forty-six.
The poem is the work of a practical poet, one who could govern a province.
It is marred by an over-profusion of ornament, and contains no such lofty
flights of fancy as are to be found in the Jerusalem Delivered. To this,
no doubt, it owes, in part at least, its great popularity, for the poet's
poem is never the people's poem.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.
Dublin University Magazine, 1845, xxvi., 187-201, 581-601, xxvii., 90-104;
Retrospective Review, 1823, viii., 145-170, ix., 263-291;
William T. Dobson's Classic Poets, 1879, pp. 186-238;
Leigh Hunt's Stories from the Italian Poets, n. d. vol. ii., pp. 134-151;
William Hickling Prescott's Italian Narrative Poetry. (See his
Biographical and Critical Miscellanies, 1873, pp. 441-454);
M. W. Shelley's Lives of the most eminent Literary and Scientific Men of
Italy, Spain, and Portugal, 1835, pp.
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