Orlando Furioso (Oxford World's Classics) Paperback – August 1, 2008

(A review of "Orlando Furioso: Translated into English Heroical Verse by Sir John Harington," edited by Robert McNulty for Oxford University Press.)

In "The Allegory of Love," while leading up to his epoch-making exposition of Spenser's "The Faerie Queene," C. S. Lewis writes several exuberant pages on one of the most important influences on Spenser's poem, Ludovico Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso." Those pages kindled in my teenage self an unquenchable thirst to track that mysterious masterwork down in English so that I, too, could revel in it.

For some time, however, the only options I could get a hold of were dusty nineteenth-century reprints of the earlier nineteenth-century translation by William Stewart Rose. Rose wrote in the ottava rima stanza of the original, and some writers I respect have praised his version, but I found it suffocatingly turgid; time after time, it put a damper on a any still-smoldering enthusiasm and smothered any attempt to read further than a few pages.

Then, finally, I got a look at the Elizabethan translation, also in ottava rima, by Sir John Harington, and felt like Keats getting his first look at Chapman's Homer. Harington's narrative is racy, his lines and stanzas are lively, sparkling, witty, fluently readable. Further, while the prudish Rose glosses over "indelicate" details, even refusing to translate stanza after stanza or page after page, Harington dives into such matters with delectable gusto. His version is not one of the very greatest English verse translations, as is the contemporary version of Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered" by Edward Fairfax; his elan does at times subside into plodding pedestrian dullness. But compared to Rose's version, his was an electrifying revelation.

Since those teenage years, I've been able to read or browse through the prose translations by Allan H. Gilbert (excellent) and Guido Waldman (almost as good), the couplet version by John Hoole (passable enough if you prefer couplets), the ottava rima translation by Barbara Reynolds (another all-time-great verse translation), and the recent, much looser and less scrupulous ottava rima rendering by David R. Slavitt (some people really like it, and sometimes I can see why). If you had unlimited, equally easy access to all of these, I suppose Waldman would be the way to go among prose translations (Gilbert's pages being laid out for reference rather than reading), and Reynolds definitely among verse. Hoole, Rose, and Slavitt, I think, are artifacts peculiar to their moments in time, worth consulting as a matter of curiosity, or if, like me, you have an obsessive interest in comparing every available translation of a particularly prized work.

But Harington is still worth reading on his own merit. He is more willing to take liberties and go his own way than any of the other translators except Slavitt, but his taste is (I think) much more reliable than Slavitt's, and certainly much closer to that of Ariosto and the English Renaissance authors whom Ariosto influenced. Even in the twenty-first century, Harington's translation really is one you might want to venture into--and, if you have the money, the Oxford edition by Robert McNulty is far and away the best vehicle in which to explore it. The historical introduction is informative; the text is reset in modern type and very legibly reproduced (along with the original illustrations and Harington's extensive editorial apparatus, largely adopted from sixteenth-century Italian editions); variant readings from the three sixteenth- and seventeenth-century editions are duly tabulated and incorporated where appropriate. I recommend McNulty's edition wholeheartedly.

But, for Amazon customers on a tighter budget, I'd like to mention some alternatives. First, there is a compact paperback selection (including some of the illustrations but none of the apparatus) from 1963, with a fine introduction by Rudolph Gottfried, long out of print but not hard to find on Amazon. Second, there is a sturdy hardcover issued by Centaur Press in 1962, including the complete translation (but omitting both illustrations and apparatus), along with a terse synopsis, a character list, and a solid introduction by Graham Hough; again, it is long out of print, but not hard to find. (There was also a facsimile edition from Da Capo Press, which was not particularly legible and is now very hard to come by.)

Nowadays there are even free, digital alternatives. From Google Books (most conveniently accessed via the Google Play Books app), there is a complete facsimile including the illustrations and apparatus: "Orlando Furioso: In English Heroical Verse, by Sr. Iohn Harington of Bathe Knight Richard Field, 1607"; a wonderful resource for consultation, but not easy on the eyes over the long haul. (You'll also find the 1591 and 1634 editions on the Internet Archive.) From LibriVox there is a complete free audiobook of the translation (without the apparatus) read by Thomas A. Copeland; the performance is quite good for a non-professional offering, though it's often clear that recording conditions left something to be desired. Finally, at lulu.com, a very legible reading text of the translation without illustrations or apparatus is available as a free download.

Orlando Furioso
Sir John Harington's translation of Orlando Furioso (Centaur classics)

In the original Italian, this book is written in couplets. I found the poetic couplet translations too often stretch the meaning, and this prose version better captures the spirit of this classic epic poem. On the surface, it may appear to be an inane, medieval romantic fantasy, but underneath there are many archetypal representations relevant to our psychological understanding of people today. I can recommend this book to anyone interested in classic Epics, the source material for several operas, or a deeper understanding of the human psyche. Basically it’s bedtime stories for adults. Enjoy.

Easy enough to refer to a prose translation as "appropriate for the masses," but the fact remains that when a translator is freed from the necessity of forcing a poem to conform to rhyme and meter in a second language, he has access to a broader range of vocabulary and is therefore more able to remain true to the spirit of the original (as Waldman deftly explains in his introduction). Is it any wonder that this work has received so little attention in America when past translations have been so hidebound and pedagogical? Orlando Furioso is anything but a sing-songy, staid old verse.
In Waldman's translation are to be found both the idealised virtues of chivalry and sometimes startlingly lowbrow humor, all wrapped up in an epic tale of adventure, romance and magic. By providing an unabridged translation (another shortcoming of more traditional editions), and by attempting to capture the true flavor of the work rather than slavishly abiding by the dictates of classical poetic rules, he has presented to English readers for the first time a tale that rivals the epics of Homer in its scope and aspiration. And for sheer entertainment value (coupled with the elitism of Ariosto's sly jabs at the very people for whom the work was composed), this work is all but impossible to beat-- his original audience, after all, was not the literati, but the idle rich.

A great addition to my bookcase full of Epics! A welcome read not always as familiar to some students of literature perhaps as more commonly-mentioned titles, but well worth the time and money investment.

Too dense. The prose and small print don't let the poetry breathe. There's not a sense of fun like there should be in this poem.

This translation into English is delightful! He has captured the marvelous nonsense of the convoluted epic deliciously with great humor.
I was part of an epic telling of the whole story. Everyone soon was into the spirit of the tale with their individual parts and personal sense of humor added to the whole. There is romance, requited love, knights, shipwrecks, damsels in distress all with a Commedia dArte flavor.

A brilliant work, brilliantly translated to prose. I recently purchased the Kindle edition as the third in a series having worn out two paperbacks over the past twenty years. FYI, “Orlando Furioso” was the inspiration for the 1983 film “Hearts & Armor,” one of whose stars was former “Charlie’s Angel,” Tanya Roberts.

While browsing for a prose translation of Orlando Furioso, I was very happy to see that the "Kindle Edition" button on this page. What do I see upon opening it? It's just just a text copy of William Stewart Rose's translation from 1843! Not the Waldman at all. To make matters worse, the Rose edition is already available for FREE in the Amazon classics section, as a far superior copy that includes an introduction and summary of Orlando Innamorato.

Buyer beware. I'm quite unhappy with Amazon for linking two wildly different books as if they were the same edition. These products are NOT the same at all.