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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
In four pages this comparative analysis examines how the character of Orlando in Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso parodies the ideal knight embodied by Roland in the French poem Song of Roland. Three sources are listed in the bibliography.
Page Count:
4 pages (~225 words per page)
File: TG15_TGrolando.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
Latin term parodia, the Greeks defined parody as " a narrative poem, of moderate length, in the metre and vocabulary of epic poems, but treating a light, satirical, or mock-heroic
subject... to comic effect" (Dentith 10). While today, anything or anyone can be subjected to parodying or mocking, the Greeks were insistent that this was most effectively showcased
in the epic poem genre. Not surprisingly, both the Song of Roland and Ludovico Ariostos Orlando Furioso were classical epic poems that featured knights as their respective protagonists. However,
this is where the similarity essentially ends since the Song of Roland took the chivalric code so seriously that it is considered the origin of the ideal knight concept, while
Orlando Furioso comically mocks this concept throughout its 48 cantos. Ariostos parody succeeds because he pokes fun at a subject with which he knows his sixteenth-century readers are well
familiar. Much had changed between the twelfth-century Song of Roland and the 1532 publication of Orlando Furioso. The armor protecting the knight ideal was starting to show
some tarnish, which made it ripe for parody. During the Middle Ages, there was no more illustrious or proud title than that of knight. He was the kings representative in
battle, and his role as the protector of freedom was assumed with honor and uncompromising loyalty. The code of chivalry was a moral doctrine of duty and conduct a
knight was expected to embody for as long as there was breath in his body. In Song of Roland, the knights only priority was service to the French King
Charlemagne (Charles). Roland is the perfect blueprint for the feudal knight; he is a proud servant of Charlemagne and a loyal defender of Christianity. To Roland, they
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