Canto IV

In Canto IV Ariosto deploys a new narrative language, consisting both in the recovery of Humanism’s intellectual and moral lessons and in the continuation of Orlando innamorato under a different compositional principle, in competition and, as it were, in a duel with Boiardo. Whereas the Boiardian world revolves around a game of antinomies, Ariosto’s interest lies in the mutability of «pretending», the unstable, ironic logic of the «opposite» and the ambiguous and complex nature of «fiction». Thus the «fictitiousness» of the writing becomes both an ironic reflection of reality and a means of distancing it, allowing the writer more freedom to play with it in his dialogue with the reader. Canto IV features a newly defined concept of literary space, which it shares not only with the rest of the poem but also with the great modern novel.