Lodovico Ariosto’s Influence On The Renaissance Essay

Lodovico Ariosto is one of the great humanists of the Renaissance. He was poet from Italy who had a large impact on the Renaissance. Ariosto was born September 8, 1474 in Reggio Emilia Italy. He grew up in a neighboring city Ferrar and had a good education. His first teacher was Luca Ripa, who was a humanist and he taught Ariosto grammar and rhetoric. Ariosto’s father forced him to study law and he didn’t like it all, but his education came to an end when his father died in 1500. After his father’s death he had to help support the family so he joined the military.

Ariosto commanded a bordered fortress in the military, but when he returned home he was put in service for the Cardinal. In 1505 he began to write poems in Italian which included occasional poems, sonnets, and stanzas in the style of Petrarchism. He became one of the great humanists of the Renaissance and the person who had a lot of influence on him was Gregorio da Spoelto. Ariosto had a lot of impact on the Renaissance in Italy with his poetry. He wrote the great romance Orlando Furioso which is considered a masterpiece.

Many people say that Ariosto is responsible for kickstarting the modern theatre in Europe. He also wrote lyric poetry in Latin and Italian. Ariosto always remained a very active writer who reflected the political, biographical, and general aspects of humans. Ariosto had a lot of influence on the Renaissance in Italy with his poetry. Although he is a famous poet, he is also known for the impact he had on the Italian theatre. Ariosto was a humanist so he brought a lot of change as well. He not only had a large impact on the Renaissance, but he also had an impact on poetry and drama for future generations.

Three major contributions Ariosto made to society are his creation Orlando Furioso, the reviving the Italian theatre, and his impact on poetry. Ariosto wrote the poem Orlando Furioso, which had a lot of impact on society. This is one of his major contributions to society because this poem is considered a masterpiece by many. The poem contains many Renaissance themes including madness, fidelity, and love. The great work contains fiction in which “the poet as minstrel or cantastorie recites the poem before his patron, Ippolito, a guise maintained after Ippolito dismissed Ariosto in 1517 and even after his former patron died in 1520.

The minstrel’s voice lends the narrative the air of a medieval romance, while the backdrop of war provides the poem with an epic setting” (Grendler 1). The protagonist tries to complete his heroic goal but falls into the madness. Ariosto is a humanist so this is an example of how he changed the way how works are made. Instead of the protagonist achieving his goal and becoming the hero like every other tale, the protagonist faces more adversity making it more of an unlikely goal to achieve. Although Orlando Furioso didn’t become famous until Ariosto’s death, it became one of the best selling poems for a long time.

He not only contributed to his time with this masterpiece, but he also contributed to people of future generations because the poem sold into the next century. Ariosto’s Furioso began to influence Trunzo 3 different classical poems, and “European illustrators and painters from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, including Annibale Carracci, Guido Reni, Peter Paul Rubens, Nicolas Poussin, and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo” (Grendler 1). They were influenced because the poem has detailed descriptions and it shows Ariosto’s appreciation and love for art.

The poem also contains classical harmony which contributed to Italian society because art in Italy was dominated by that when Ariosto was still alive. Ariosto’s great work has also contributed to society because it is known that some artists have used Orlando Furioso as an influence for their works including paintings and ceramics. This poem is so influential in society because many people have used it as material for their own works such as “musicians, playwrights, nondramatic authors, and at least one landscape designer” (Andrews 1).

People are so captivated by Ariosto’s poem that they have a desire to use it as influence for their own works which shows how much this one poem has really contributed to society. Also, other European writers and authors have tried to rewrite or make a parody about Orlando Furioso by getting into the depths of the plots and character in the poem. This is just another example of how this poem has contributed to society because other writers are influenced by this poem so they feel a need to write about it themselves. Some of these writers are so interested in Ariosto’s work that they want to elaborate it.

Ariosto has been said to have become famous from this great poem and it mostly true because he has inspired so many other writers, authors, and artists of all kinds. Many Europeans referred to Orlando Furioso as a source of inspiration, so it can most definitely be considered a major contribution to society. Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso is considered a classical work and by 1600 there had been hundreds of copies Trunzo 4 published. Ariosto contributed to society by making this poem because it influenced the works of so many other artists, and it has inspired many people of his time and especially after he died.

Another major contribution Ariosto made to society was his impact on theatre and how he helped revive the Italian theater with his dramas. Many have said that Ariosto is responsible for kickstarting European theatre. He modelled his stage comedies from Plautus and Terence, and these comedies include Cassaria, Il negromante, La lena, I suppositi, and I studenti. Cassaria hit the surface in 1508 and in 1509 I suppositi was performed in Ferrara for the first time. Ten years from the debut I suppositi was acted in the Vatican. In fact, even Shakespeare used one of Ariosto’s translated comedies as a source for his work.

Ariosto not only impacted the European Theatre, he impacted other writers as well. Ariosto’s work was inspired by contemporary life and would eventually set the foundation for European Comedy. Duke Ercole 1 of Ferrara set up good audiences for Ariosto because he sponsored translated Roman Comedy at festivals. Ariosto’s success didn’t happen immediately because the plays did not get the audience’s excitement and interest as they had planned. These plays were translated in laborious verse and other Italian writers began to follow Ariosto’s steps.

Some of these writers included Grasso, Bibbiena, and Machiavelli. Then a new model was created that “used a dramatic language which was mimetic rather than symbolic or poetic, in a fixed outdoor urban setting, and deriving its plot mechanisms and characters equally from Roman comedy and from scurrilous medieval novella” (Gale 1). Ariosto didn’t have a huge impact on European Theatre at first but it would soon change. Ariosto Trunzo 5 actually wrote two more comedies later on in the 1520s and he was one unfinished comedy due to his death. He was always actively writing even until the day he died.

The comedies he wrote in later part of his career were all written in a blank verse and he even changed some previous works into this style. Although his comedies are very nice and smart, they also contain a lot of satire. Ariosto contributed to the Renaissance because “he is responsible for establishing prose dramatic texts on the Italian stage” (Gale 1). Ariosto was a well known playwright because of his enthusiasm which inspired others around him. Ariosto had a large impact on European theatre during the Renaissance and he will always be remembered for all of his great works.

Ariosto most importantly was known as a poet and he had a huge influence on poetry during the Renaissance. He is one of the most well known humanists in the Renaissance because he expressed humanism in his poems. His poems contain many “values of the world of chivalry, such as love and fidelity. It influenced Cervantes, Spenser, and Shakespeare” (Gale 1). Not only did his poems provide support for humanism in the Renaissance, they also inspired some of the greatest poets and writers of that time. It is very remarkable that Ariosto’s work was admired by shakespeare because he is considered the greatest writer and playwright of all time.

Just like his comedies, Ariosto wrote poems until the day he couldn’t because he finished his great narrative poem right before he died. This just shows his dedicated to his work and is a main reason why he had so much impact on the Renaissance with his poems. Ariosto may have been a humanist, but he did use satire in some of his poems to show the flaws in humanism. He had a humanist education, but “he attacked humanists as being immoral and suggested that their teachings were incomplete and sterile” (Andrews 1). This just shows his ability so see both sides of a subject.

In Trunzo 6 fact, this is very interesting and impressive because he is able to see the other side of an opinion when he grew up with a certain view of life. This satire in his poems about humanism actually impacted the Renaissance in a different and more negative way because the Renaissance promoted the movement of humanism. Orlando Furioso was Ariosto’s most well known poem, but he did write other types of poetry including lyric poetry. His lyric poetry was written in Latin and Italian and it was very respectable work during the Renaissance.

Ariosto was known as poet for a reason and his poetry not only impacted the Renaissance, it had great influence on other people and is still recognized today. Ariosto impacted and contributed to the Renaissance and society with his creation of Orlando Furioso, starting Italian theatre, and his influential poetry. Ariosto is one of the most well known poets from the Renaissance because of his use of humanist views in his poems and his satirical views of humanism in his poems. His works inspired many other writers including William Shakespeare. Ariosto brought a lot of change ith his poetry, but especially with theatre. He is responsible for reviving the Italian theatre and shaping the European theatre during the Renaissance. He wrote many comedies which contained satires and they became very popular. Ariosto was a humanist, but he wasn’t afraid to write satirical views of humanism which made his writings very interesting.

The poem he most famous for is definitely Orlando Furioso because it is still remembered and admired by people today. Ariosto is a very interesting individual because he was in the military before e began to write his masterpieces. This just shows how Ariosto was well rounded, he wasn’t just a writer his whole life. Ariosto’s impact on drama Trunzo 7 would change the way the European theatre progressed. The Renaissance was the movement of humanism and Ariosto definitely contributed to this because most of his poems and dramas included humanistic values. Ariosto died in 1533, but he wrote poems until he past away, which showed his great dedicated to his work. Many consider Ariosto “the greatest narrative poet of the Italian Renaissance” (Encyclopedia of World Biography 1).