The raging Roland

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Cover picture of an edition from 1536
Orlando Furioso , 1551

Der Rasende Roland is the title of the German translation of the verse epic Orlando furioso by Ludovico Ariosto , which first appeared in print in Ferrara in 1516 .

General

Ariost worked on his main work from 1505 and published a first version in 1516; two further, each revised versions followed in 1521 and 1532. The epic initially consisted of 40, in the last version of 46 chants with a total of 4822 stamps or 38 576 verses.

The Rasenden Roland is actually a continuation of the unfinished Love Roland (Italian: Orlando innamorato ) by Matteo Maria Boiardo from 1494. The plot of the two epics is quite complex: The background is the wars of Charlemagne against the Saracens , as they found their expression in the old French Roland song and related legends. Various Christian and pagan kings and knights appear, beautiful and sometimes fighting ladies, magicians and sorceresses and mythical animals. Numerous storylines run through the lover and the mad Roland .

action

The main character Roland - model is the Franconian Margrave Hruotland - is passed off as Charlemagne's nephew . When Angelica, a Chinese princess, who is as beautiful as she is magical, comes to the court of Emperor Charles, most knights fall in love with her on the spot. Roland even goes mad because of his love. The British Prince Astolfo undertakes a trip to the moon on his hippogryph , where all objects that have been lost on earth are located. There he finds Roland's mind in a bottle and brings it back to its owner.

This is just one of three main storylines. In addition, and in between, it is always about the war between Charlemagne and the Saracen Agramante as well as the genealogy of the noble Este family . Ariostus, who was in the service of the Este (he dedicated the work to Cardinal Ippolito I. d'Este ), wrote them a family tree based on important figures from the epic and going back to the mythical Hector of Troy .

reception

Ariost's poetry had a great influence on Italian literature , on the French theater and on William Shakespeare , for example in The Taming of the Shrew . The epic El Bernardo by Bernardo de Balbuena , written in Mexico and printed in Madrid in 1624 , which is considered the masterpiece of the Hispanic Baroque epic, is influenced by Ariosto.

The verse epic also provided the basis for several music-dramatic works, including Roland (1685) by Jean-Baptiste Lully , Orlando generoso (1691) by Agostino Steffani , Orlando finto pazzo (1714) and Orlando furioso (1727) by Antonio Vivaldi , Il Ruggiero by Johann Adolf Hasse , Orlando (1732), Ariodante and Alcina (both 1735) by Georg Friedrich Händel and Orlando paladino (1782) by Joseph Haydn .

In 1762, the poem La coronazione di Medoro , written by Giambattista Marchitelli , appeared and in 1828 the continuation of the cycle, Medoro Coronato, by Gaetano Palombi .

The raging Roland (illustration by Gustave Doré )

The work was less well received in the German-speaking world. Many people expressed their admiration for the Orlando furioso , including Wieland , Goethe , Friedrich Schlegel , Schelling , Hegel , Jacob Burckhardt , Gottfried Keller , Ernst Jünger and Karl May , but translations were initially in short supply. A first (partial) translation into German by Diederich von dem Werder appeared exactly one century after the original (1632–36); the last is by Alfons Kissner from 1908 (revised 1922). The rhymed adaptation by Johann Diederich Gries from 1808 (revised version 1827/28) is considered the best .

As a tribute to the Italian master, Josef Viktor Widmann published the first edition of his knight verse epic in twelve songs or 573 stanzas Kalospinthechromokrene or the miracle fountain of Is (1871) under the pseudonym "Messer Lodovico Ariosto Helvetico".

In 2002 a novel-shaped free retelling of Rasenden Roland by Thomas RP Mielke was published and in 2004 the German translation of a brief retelling originally written by Italo Calvino for Italian radio in 1970, along with a selection of longer passages from the original (in the German version in the adaptation by Gries).

expenditure

(in chronological order, with external links to digital copies in the Internet Archive or on Google Books )

Audio book

Literary adaptations

Radio play adaptation

literature

Web links

Commons : The raging Roland  album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Orlando furioso  - Sources and full texts (Italian)
Wikisource: Ludovico Ariosto  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. Info page on the radio play on wdr.de, accessed on April 7, 2020.