Genealogies of Fiction: Women Warriors and the Dynastic Imagination in the 'Orlando furioso' - Hardcover

"Establishing contrasts and parallels with little-known works of the vernacular narrative romance tradition, Stoppino displays impressive erudition and performs a service for the critical discussion on Ariosto's poem and on early modern narrative." -- -Ronald Martinez * Brown University * Examines the figure of Bradamante in the chivalric tradition and in Ariosto's Renaissance-era epic. * -The Chronicle Review * "A groundbreaking study of Ariosto's medieval sources that benefits from a vision that brings together gender criticism and source criticism in heretofore unseen ways." -- -Dennis Looney * University of Pittsburgh * This impressive study of the 'Furioso' as illuminated by its little-known medieval sources is thorough and well argued. It forms an important contribution to scholarship on early modern narrative, and will doubtless interest scholars of gender studies as well. * -Renaissance Quarterly *

Genealogies of Fiction is a study of gender, dynastic politics, and intertextuality in medieval and renaissance chivalric epic, focused on Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando furioso. Relying on the direct study of manuscripts and incunabula, this project challenges the fixed distinction between medieval and early modern texts and reclaims medieval popular epic as a key source for the Furioso. Tracing the formation of the character of the warrior woman, from the Amazon to Bradamante, the book analyzes the process of gender construction in early modern Italy. By reading the tension between the representations of women as fighters, lovers, and mothers, this study shows how the warrior woman is a symbolic center for the construction of legitimacy in the complex web of fears and expectations of the Northern Italian Renaissance court.