The Choice of Odysseus: Homeric Ethics in Renaissance Epic and Opera (Classical Presences)

Cover
Classical Presences
The Choice of Odysseus: Homeric Ethics in Renaissance Epic and Opera
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Contents
Note on Texts and Translations
Introduction
	The Choice of Odysseus (I): Homeric Alternatives to Virgilian Paradigms
	The Choice of Penelope: Odyssean Marriage as Epic Matter and Epic Telos
	The Choice of Odysseus (II): A New (Old) Reading of Odyssey 7
	Parenthesis: Counter factual Narratives and Heroic Prudence
	The Choice of Odysseus in Renaissance Epic
1: Speaking with Homer: Authorizing Conversations and Dream Visions in Petrarch and Poliziano
	Petrarch
	Poliziano
2: Ariosto’s Fractured Odysseys: Allusive Interlace and the Limits of Exemplarity in Orlando furioso
	From Poliziano to Ariosto: Humanism and the Schoolroom
	A Case Study in Odyssean Failure: Norandino
	Unending Odysseys: Medoro, Angelica, Orlando
	The Choice of Odysseus: Rinaldo
	Ariosto’s Odyssean Endings: Bradamante, Ruggiero, Leone
3: From Public Duty to Private Pleasures: Odyssean Eros and Heroism in Gerusalemme liberata
	Theory and Practice, Renaissance and Modern
	Homer’s Armida: From Circe to Nausicaa
	Rinaldo’s Choice of Odysseus
	Rinaldo’s Odyssean Education: Allusion and Allegory
	Tasso’s Odyssean Ending
	Epic Romance?
4: Spenser’s Legends of Sōphrosunē: Temperance, Chastity, and Odyssean Eros in The Faerie Queene
	Moral Allegory and the Problem of Temperate Pleasure
	Guyon’s ‘Choice of Odysseus’: The Rejection of Eros
	Siren Pleasures
	The Destruction of Eros: The Legend of Temperance and the Bower of Bliss
	The Recovery of Odyssean Eros: The Legend of Chastity
	Fugitive Eros: Second Thoughts
5: The Choice of Penelope: Exemplary Women and Exemplary Marriage in Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria
	Setting the Scene: Duelling Prologues
	From Clever to Chaste: Penelope’s Exemplary Web and the Nature of Homophrosunē
		Penelope’s Astutia Celebrated
		Penelope’s Astutia Censored
	Unweaving and Reweaving: Rehabilitating Penelope in Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria
	From Page to Stage: Restoring Homophrosunē to Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria
	The Choice of Penelope: Exemplarity in Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria
6: Milton’s Odyssean Ethics: Arminian Theology and Homeric Heroism in Paradise Lost
	Openings: Odyssey 1 and Paradise Lost 3
7: Falling into Epic: The Choice of Odysseus and the Road to Redemption in Paradise Lost
	Setting the Odyssean Scene: Eden and Scheria
	The Choice of Odysseus in malo: Satan’s Seduction of Eve
	The Choice of Odysseus in bono: Adam’s Fall
	Milton’s Odyssean Marriage: Homophrosunē and Female Heroism after the Fall
	The Sinews of Ulysses: Odyssean Epic as Postlapsarian Idea
Bibliography
	Primary Sources
Index