Pich%20Beyond%20the%20Story%20of%20Storytelling - Beyond the story of storytelling: the Narrator as Lover in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso

Oct 17, 2026

Accepted academic article examining Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso through self-reflexive techniques and the figure of the talkative Narrator. The study situates metanarration and metafiction scholarship from earlier critical debates to more recent monographs, then narrows the inquiry to a specific self-reflexive component: constructing the Narrator as Lover at the boundary between epic and lyric. It argues that the Narrator’s supposedly autobiographical events should not be treated as neutral “personal experience,” but as seriously meaningful narrative facts, shaped by his varying stances toward different addressees and topics.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages21

Reading Time32 min

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Beyond the story of storytelling: the Narrator as Lover in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso

Self-reflexive devices and critical reception

Metanarration and metafiction studies

Narrowed focus: Narrator as Lover

Autobiographical framing and narrative seriousness

Addressers, attitudes, and narrative facets

[eprints@whiterose.ac.uk](eprints@whiterose.ac.uk)[ ](eprints@whiterose.ac.uk)[https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk](https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk) Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York Deposited via The University of Leeds. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: [https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/88821/](https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/88821/) [Version: Accepted Version](Version: Accepted Version) Article: Pich, F (2015) Beyond the story of storytelling: the Narrator as Lover in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. The Italianist, 35 (3) . 350-368. ISSN: 0261-4340 [https://doi.org/10.1179/0261434015Z.000000000128](https://doi.org/10.1179/0261434015Z.000000000128) Reuse Items deposited in White Rose Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. They may be downloaded and/or printed for private study, or other acts as permitted by national copyright laws. The publisher or other rights holders may allow further reproduction and re-use of the full text version. This is indicated by the licence information on the White Rose Research Online record for the item. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [eprints@whiterose.ac.uk](eprints@whiterose.ac.uk) including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. Federica Pich Beyond the story of storytelling: the Narrator as Lover in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso Chi salirà per me, madonna, in cieloa riportarne il mio perduto ingegno? che, poi ch’uscì da’ bei vostri occhi il telo che ’l cor mi fisse, ognior perdendo vegno. Né di tanta iattura mi querelo, pur che non cresca, ma stia a questo segno; ch’io dubito, se più si va scemando, di venir tal, qual ho descritto Orlando. Per rïaver l’ingegno mio m’è aviso che non bisogna che per l’aria io pogginel cerchio de la luna o in paradiso; che ’l mio non credo che tanto alto alloggi. Ne’ bei vostri occhi e nel sereno viso, nel sen d’avorio e alabastrini poggise ne va errando; et io con queste labbia lo corrò, se vi par ch’io lo rïabbia.1 It would be hard for any scholar interested in the Orlando furioso, no matter how resistant to metaliterature and theory, to dismiss Ariosto’s pervasive and sophisticated use of selfreflexive devices, which unsettled critics and inspired writers for centuries, from Cervantes to Calvino. Most notably, his talkative Narrator ‘not only forms one of the chief attractions of the poem, but has had great influence on writers as diverse as Spenser and Fielding’.2 The studies partly or wholly devoted to metanarration and metafiction in the poem range from narratological approaches to historical inquiries on the use of entrelacement in the chivalric tradition, from political and moral readings to biographical interpretations, with or without a wider perspective on Ariosto’s other works.3 In particular, after the pivotal work by Durling, the figure of the Narrator has been discussed by Ascoli and Zatti in their major contributions 1 Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando furioso, ed. by Lanfranco Caretti (Turin: Einaudi, 1971), 35.1-2. All subsequent quotations from the poem will be taken from this edition, henceforth referred to as OF. Except for the wellknown linguistic changes implemented after the 1516 edition, no significant variants can be detected for these two stanzas in the other two editions ofthe poem published while Ariosto was alive (1521 and 1532) . 2 Robert Durling, The figure of the poet in Renaissance epic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965), p. 112. 3 Daniela Delcorno Branca, L’Orlando Furioso e il romanzo cavalleresco medievale (Florence: Olschki, 1973), Patricia Parker, Inescapable Romance. Studies in the Poetics of a Mode (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), pp. 16-53, Eugenio Donato, ‘Per selve e boscherecci labirinti: desire and narrative structure in Ariosto’s Orlando furioso’,

FAQs

What is the article’s main focus within Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso?

It focuses on how the Narrator is constructed as a Lover, positioned between epic and lyric, as a specific self-reflexive aspect of the poem.

How does the article relate its topic to earlier scholarship?

It surveys studies devoted to metanarration and metafiction, then notes a shift toward discussing the Narrator in broader monographs on Ariosto rather than only in work focused on the poem.

Why does the article treat the Narrator’s allegedly autobiographical story as significant?

It argues that those events cannot be neutralized as mere “supposed personal experience” and must be taken as seriously meaningful facts in a fictional account.

Oct 17, 2026

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