Wood, Garden, locus amoenus in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso

Abstract

Wood, Garden, locus amoenus in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso Eduardo Saccone The subject of this paper is very limited: to the presence and function of the garden in Ariosto’s poem; more precisely—as mentioned in the title—to the relation between wood and garden in the Orlando furioso. I will attempt to be even more precise later on, when I will try to further clarify my use of the terms garden and wood. For a start, it is obvious that to raise the question of gardens in a literary text means to address the more general question of space: of literary space and its textual function. In particular—and again quite obviously—garden, Garten, giardino, *hortus gardinus refer to a space which is supposed to be (relatively) closed, limited, enclosed and sheltered. The dialectic open/closed is clearly relevant here. Actually, it may end up being the most relevant feature here, and one fraught with meaning. In the meantime let me add that in our case, if the issue of the (relative) enclosure seems important, another element or aspect is equally interesting, and generally not absent from the construct: and this is the amenity of the place. It appears to be essential that the locus be also amoenus: pleasurable, a pleasance. Both locus amoenus and garden in Ariosto’s poem have not gone unnoticed. To limit myself to the most prominent and obvious entries in the bibliography, Curtius in the chapter of European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages devoted to The Ideal Landscape lists under the rubric on “Epic Landscape” at least three examples from romance poetry, in which the locus amoenus in the form of a verger (the orchard or plantation) appears in the midst of the wilderness. One of them is [End Page 1] from the Orlando furioso’s first canto. There Angelica is shown fleeing through a wild forest. Fugge tra selve spaventose e scure, per lochi inabitati, ermi e selvaggi. (I, 33) [Through dark and terrifying woods she flees, In lonely, wild, uncultivated places.] (transl. B. Reynolds, Penguin Classics) As Curtius writes, “Lo and behold! in the midst of these terrifying woods, there is ‘un boschetto adorno’ (I, 35), with a gentle breeze, two clear brooks, lawn, shade . . . In these three examples from Romance poetry [the Romance of Thebes, the epic of the Cid, and Ariosto’s Furioso] the locus amoenus is embedded in the wild forest of the romance of chivalry.” 1 A. Bartlett Giamatti is, of course, the other scholar who has published in 1966 a whole book on the subject of the Earthly Paradise and the Renaissance Epic, which contains the larger part of a long chapter devoted to Ariosto. 2 The chapter, that arrives at important conclusions, deals in detail with the topic of the garden, even more specifically with “that particular kind of earthly paradise, the enchanted garden” (5), which is said to be characteristically Renaissance: “the beautiful place, sought for centuries”—inhabited, or rather ruled not by Eve but by a descendant of Homer’s Circe—becomes a trap to be avoided” (6). As the critic concludes, “the more attractive [these gardens] appear, the more dangerous they are” (ibid.). The garden analysed at length by Giamatti is the one to be found in cantos VI and VII of the poem, containing the description of Alcina’s kingdom, which is also contrasted, as intended by the poet, with that other paradise, the one ruled over by Alcina’s sister Logistilla in canto X. Only fleeting attention is devoted by the American scholar to the other garden of scope in the poem, the true earthly paradise (canto XXXIV, 48ff), about which Giamatti does not have much to say. What can be added—if anything can be added at all—to the considerations and the conclusions reached by these two authors, [End Page 2] and in particular to those arrived at by Giamatti, who manages to relate his critical analysis of this particular topic to what is for him the very subject of the poem, the “gap between the surface and the substance [...], between seeming order and felt mutability” (138)? Now, one may disagree with the critic, but must—I think...