"Most of the leading and well-known scholars of the Italian Renaissance are represented here with their sundry and complementary viewpoints. . . . The presence of so many different critical voices conveys a sense of this volume as a "summa" of current Renaissance criticism."--Giuseppe Mazzotta, Yale University

Valeria Finucci is Associate Professor of Italian at Duke University. She is the author of The Lady Vanishes: Subjectivity and Representation in Castiglione and Ariosto and the coeditor of Desire in the Renaissance: Psychoanalysis and Literature.

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Ariosto, Tasso, and Storytelling / Valeria Finucci
I. Crossing Genres
Two Odysseys: Rinaldo's Po Journey and the Poet's Homecoming in Orlando furioso / Ronald L. Martinez
The Grafting of Virgilian Epic in Orlando furioso / Daniel Javitch
Tasso's Armida and the Victory of Romance / Jo Ann Cavallo
II. The Politics of Dissimulation
Epic in the Age of Dissimulation: Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata / Sergio Zatti
Trickster, Textor, Architect, Thief: Craft and Comedy in Gerusalemme liberata / Walter Stephens
"Un cosi valoroso cavalliero": Knightly Honor and Artistic Representation in Orlando furioso, Canto 26 / Katherine Hoffman
III. Acting Out Fantasies
The Masquerade of Masculinity: Astolfo and Jocondo in Orlando furioso, Canto 28 / Valeria Finucci
Romance as Role Model: Early Female Performances of Orlando furioso and Gerusalemme liberata / Eric Nicholson
"Dal rogo alle nozze": Tasso's Sofronia as Martyr Manque / Naomi Yavneh
Writing beyond the Querelle: Gender and History in Orlando furioso / Constance Jordan
Index
Contributors