Half-Serious Rhymes The Narrative Poetry of Luigi Pulci

by Davie, Mark

• ISBN13: 9780716526018
• ISBN10: 0716526018
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-12-24
• Publisher: Irish Academic Press

Summary

Byron, in Don Juan, called Pulci (1432���±84) ���«sire of the half-serious rhyme���­, and modelled his style on Pulci���­s major work, the Morgante. The phrase identifies the ambivalent quality of Pulci���­s verse, which was his distinctive legacy to the ���«romantic epic���­ of the renaissance, a genre he effectively initiated. Half-Serious Rhymes examines the nature of that ambivalence, tracing its origins in the circumstances in which Pulci wrote and the conflicting expectations of his audience at a time of rapid cultural change; more generally, it seeks to increase our understanding of Pulci���­s poetic technique, which inevitably brings it into the debate about his relation to and use of his sources (most conspicuously the anonymous Orlando Lauren-Ziano).

Table of Contents

Preface	p. 7
Introduction: Pulci's Half-Serious Rhymes	p. 13
Point of Departure: Orlando Rifatto	p. 33
Brunoro's Feast	p. 34
Astolfo on the Scaffold	p. 41
Rinaldo in Love	p. 51
The Limits of Rewriting: The Margutte Episode	p. 65
Margutte	p. 65
Sosia	p. 74
Florinetta	p. 80
Spectacle into Poetry: La Giostra di Lorenzo de' Medici	p. 93
The Combatants	p. 96
The Joust	p. 104
False Starts: The New Morgante and the Ciriffo Calvaneo	p. 115
The Gathering Storm	p. 115
The Return of Antea	p. 127
The Ciriffo Calvaneo	p. 134
History or Romance? Roncevaux and Charlemagne	p. 145
Arnaldo	p. 145
Alcuino	p. 154
Poliziano	p. 162
Selected Source Texts	p. 171
Orlando, vi. 1-36	p. 172
Orlando, XXXI. 16-XXXII. 6	p. 180
Driadeo d'amore, II. 5-15	p. 186
Bibliography	p. 189
Index of References to the Principal Texts	p. 195
Index of Names	p. 197
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