Fiordispina’s English Afterlives

2019 ◽  
pp. 125-144
Author(s):  
Ita Mac Carthy
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Desire ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Relevance Theory ◽  
Minor Characters ◽  
John Gay ◽  
Orlando Furioso

This essay examines the fortunes in English literature of one of Ariosto’s minor characters, the Spanish princess Fiordispina. It focuses, in particular, on the very different ways in which English authors Sir John Harington and John Gay cope (or fail to cope) with the abundant gender confusion and free-floating sexual desire of the Fiordispina episode in the former’s Orlando Furioso Translated into Heroical Verse (1591) and the latter’s ‘The Story of Fiordispina’ (c. 1720) and Achilles: A play (1732). Framed by Ali Smith’s reflections in Girl Meets Boy (2007) on rewriting old stories for new circumstances, it draws on relevance theory and offers new readings of how Harington and Gay amplify, abridge or alternatively alter the original in accordance with their need to be relevant to the readers for whom they write.

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