Ludovico Ariosto - Poetic Style

Poetic Style

Throughout Ariosto's writing are narratorial comments dubbed by Dr. Daniel Javich as "Cantus Interruptus". These sections are short breaks in the text in which the narrator destroys the fourth wall and talks directly to the audience. Ariosto uses it throughout his works.

For example, in Canto II, stanza 30, of Orlando Furioso, the narrator says:

But I, who still pursue a varying tale,

Must leave awhile the Paladin, who wages

A weary warfare with the wind and flood;

To follow a fair virgin of his blood.

Some have attributed this piece of metafiction as one component of the "Sorriso ariostesco" or Ariosto's smile, the wry sense of humor that Ariosto adds to the text.

In explaining this humor, Thomas Greene, in Descent from Heaven, says,

the two persistent qualities of Ariosto's language are first, serenity - the evenness and self-contented assurance with which it urbanely flows, and second, brilliance - the Mediterranean glitter and sheen which neither dazzle nor obscure but confer on every object its precise outline and glinting surface. Only occasionally can Ariosto's language truly be said to be witty, but its lightness and agility create a surface which conveys a witty effect. Too much wit could destroy even the finest poem, but Ariosto's graceful brio is at least as difficult and for narrative purposes more satisfying.