Language and Style in a Renaissance Epic : Berni's Corrections to Boiardo's 'Orlando Innamorato'

Abstract

When, a generation later, Francesco Berni rewrote Boiardo's incomplete epic Orlando Innamorato, his contemporaries were not all convinced, and some considered it a usurpation. But Berni's aim was to modernise the text, introducing for example references to the Sack of Rome of 1527, which he had witnessed first hand, and his ambition was not to alter or reshape Boiardo's construction, but to enhance his expression. Woodhouse's study examines Berni's stanza-by-stanza rewriting to demonstrate that his aims are, in large measure, both consistent and clearly definable. This book, originally published in paperback in 1982 under the ISBN 978-0-900547-81-2, was made Open Access in 2024 as part of the MHRA Revivals programme.