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Translated here for the first time into English, Sergio Zatti’s The Quest for Epic is a selection of studies on the two major poets of the Italian Renaissance, Ludovico Ariosto and Torquato Tasso, by one of the most important literary critics writing in Italy today.An original and challenging work, The Quest for Epic documents the development of Italian narrative from the chivalric romance at the end of the fifteenth century to the genre of epic in the sixteenth century.

Zatti focuses on Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, written in the early 1500s, and progresses to Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered, written at the end of the century, but also touches briefly on Boiardo, Ariosto’s great predecessor at the Estense court in Ferrara, as well as on Pulci, Trissino, and many other Italian writers of the period.Zatti highlights the critical debates over narrative form in the sixteenth century that become signposts on the way to literary modernity and the eventual rise of the modern novel. Albert Russell Ascoli’s introduction provides context by mapping Zatti’s criticism and situating it among Italian and Anglo-American literary critical studies, making a case for the contribution this book will have for English-language readers.

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Great 19th-century illustrator’s last major achievement. 108 brooding, surreal illustrations of magnificent, influential Renaissance epic poem. Damsels, knights, grotesque monsters. 208 black-and-white illustrations. Captions, introduction.
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Customer Reviews (3)

Excellent
The album is a combination of two great artists: the writer (Ariosto) and the illustrator (Doré). It worths every dollar we pay!

Consummate illustrations for an epic of chivalry and wonder
Sure, Homer's Odysseus may have known the ways of many cities and the minds of many men, to say nothing of various monsters and enchantresses, but he had nothing on the reader who follows Ariosto's assorted heroes and heroines through the rollicking, raucous, kaleidoscopic, chivalric-epic world of "Orlando Furioso."The prospective reader of that massive opus may turn for an overview or foretaste of its attractions to this comprehensive pictorial treatment by consummate illustrator Gustave Dore.True, Dore may sometimes be thought to slight the satirical, tongue-in-cheek, and light-hearted aspects of the poem in favor of its epic sweep and moody solemnity.But his is a worthy visual accompaniment to one of the most astonishingly rich and splendidly entertaining masterpieces in all of world literature, and to its imagination, romance, sensuality, and adventurousness he certainly does full justice.

A great inspiration for illustrators,...and dreamers.
This book contains a treasure of very atmospheric and detailed scenes. Doré's masterly use of superwide pespectives is an open invitation to explore his detailed and scetched people, landscapes, castles, heroes, battlefields and romantic situations. The illustration settings cover an area as huge as old europe with an ocassional touch of Asia. A particular delight are the morphed human-animal creatures. This book is great for just diving in and imagining yourself in these bizarre environments. enjoy ! ... Read more

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