Orlando Furioso (Canti 13-20)

These cantos contain one of literature's most devastating breakdowns. Orlando, the mightiest knight of Christendom, has spent the poem pursuing the beautiful Angelica, only to discover she has married the young soldier Medoro, carving their love into trees and stones across the landscape. What follows is a descent into madness rendered with hallucinatory intensity: Orlando tears off his armor, hangs his shield on a tree like a man about to hang himself, and roams the forest screaming her name, a figure of tragic absurdity. Meanwhile, Ariosto weaves additional threads of war and romance with effortless virtuosity. The poem's ironic, playful voice coexists with genuine anguish, creating a work that is both comic and devastating. Written in octava rima with a musicality that defies translation, these cantos represent Renaissance poetry at its most ambitious, simultaneously honoring and subverting the chivalric tradition. This is the section that influenced everything from Shakespeare to Milton to Kafka, and it remains startlingly modern in its psychological depth.