Word: ariosto
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Those who pick up this allusion to fanciful old tales may move to the head of the class. Lodge sets his swelling cast of characters into frantic motion across what only looks like the contemporary world; in truth, they move through enchanted old paths out of Ariosto, Spenser and the Arthurian legends. As he takes up the pursuit of Angelica, Persse becomes Percival on the trail of the Grail. For Zapp the quest centers on the newly endowed UNESCO chair in literary criticism, a post that pays $100,000 a year, tax free, and carries no duties whatever...
...killer. In truth, the Italian actor has lately been playing against type, most notably as an aged and mellowed Casanova in La Nuit de Varennes. And in The General of the Dead Army, a burlesque, Grand Guignol black comedy, which opened recently in Paris, Mastroianni plays the flamboyant General Ariosto, who does not so much get the woman as argue with her over possession of the remains of her late husband. "In most of my roles," he protests, "I am more often the victim than the conqueror...
ORLANDO BELONGS--with Ajax and Avalon--to a curious breed of proper nouns whose senses have passed over the centuries from the epic to the cheap and commercial. Once the name was instantly recognizable as the hero of Ariosto's 16th-century narrative poem; now it conjures up the strains of "Tie a Yellow Ribbon "Round the Old Oak Tree" and the sun-soaked giant mice of Disneyworld, Florida...
When Handel composed Orlando in 1732, based on the Ariosto saga, his cast of characters consisted of the hero of the title, the Queen of Cathay, an African prince, a shepherdess, and a magician. The setting was simply a nameless forest. "Handel's audience didn't need to be told who Orlando was, as audiences today don't need to be told about Captain Kirk or Mr. Spock," Sellars writes in the production's program notes. "As soon as the characters appeared, the audience had a set of collective expectations, and was ready for action. Thus, I think the logical...