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Orlando

Literary Character
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The heroic yet love-maddened knight in Ariosto’s epic, whose descent into furor explores the destructive power of unrequited passion.

Detailed Definition
Orlando (Roland) is the chivalric hero of Ludovico Ariosto’s 16th-century epic Orlando Furioso, whose unrequited love for Angelica drives him to madness. His name became synonymous with romantic obsession and the collapse of reason under passion. Poets invoke Orlando to examine the irrationality of love, the fragility of the heroic ideal, and the interplay of fantasy and reality.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, Orlando goes mad: “Reason, lost in love, flies to the stars”; Alexander Pope mocks Orlando’s frenzy in “The Dunciad”: “Orlando raves, and raving dies”; In “Orlando Furioso,” Angelica’s abandonment drives him to tear up trees and howl at the moon; Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered contrasts Orlando’s madness with Rinaldo’s restraint; Byron references “Orlando’s passion” in Don Juan as emblematic of romantic excess; Matthew Arnold cites Orlando as a symbol of chivalric ideals undone by emotion in “Empedocles on Etna.”
Additional Notes
Orlando (Roland) is the hero of Ariosto’s “Orlando Furioso,” whose unrequited love for Angelica drives him to madness—hence “furioso.” The poem parodies chivalric romance while celebrating poetic invention. Orlando’s madness (losing reason for love) contrasts with his earlier valor, illustrating Renaissance tensions between passion and rationality. Later poets (Byron, Pope) use him to critique romantic idealism. Students should note Ariosto’s ottava rima and narrative digressions, which influenced Spenser and Milton. Orlando is key for studying the romance epic, metafiction, and the psychology of love. Related terms: chivalry, madness, intertextuality.
Also Known As
Roland Paladin of Charlemagne Hero of Roncesvalles Orlando Furioso
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