Essay Proposal

The focus of this paper will be on how Ariosto uses his characters in Orlando Furioso to complicate gender oppositions by blurring conventional gender depictions in the martial epic and courtly romance genres that are incorporated in the narration. Comparisons of how the characters in the story perform their gender will be drawn specifically between the female characters of Bradamante and Angelica as well as several of the male knights that appear in cantos one through four. The paper will look at how these characters blur the line that separates women and men into different spheres, whether they partake in or reject gendered stereotypes, either in appearance or through their actions, and how successful they are in accomplishing this.

Deanna Schemek's article will help to shape the paper in that it comments on how Ariosto does not assign characters to spheres of action based on gender. To help analyze the gendered nature of Angelica and the knights, Sacripant, Orlando and Rinaldo, I will be refering to an article by James Sims, who comments on their actions and reactions as being a result of their gender. Charles Ross and Ita Mac Carthy's articles examine whether Bradamante is successful in breaking conventional ideas about knighthood and womanhood. Mac Carthy's article also examines what constitues gender, and how Ariosto's use of cross dressing opens debates of whether gender is more than biological. This biological debate stems from the feminist theory of querelles des femmes from the 15th century. Joan Kelly's article provides a basic background knowledge of how this theory began and what it entails.
Works Cited

Kelly, Joan. "Early Feminist Theory and the "Qurelles des Femmes", 1400-1798." Signs 8.1(1982): 4-28. JSTOR. Simon Fraser U Lib 8 July 2008.

Mac Carthy, Ita. "Marfisa and Gender Performance in the Orlando Furioso." Italian Studies60.2 (2005): 178-95. MLA International Bibliography. Simon Fraser U Lib 8 July 2008.

Ross, Charles. "Ariosto's Fable of Power: Bradamante at the Rocca di Tristano." Italica 68.2(1991): 155-75. JSTOR. Simon Fraser U Lib 8 July 2008.

Shemek, Deanna. "Of Women, Knights, Arms, and Love: The Querelles des Femmes in Ariosto'sPoems." Italian Issue 104.1 (1989): 68-97. JSTOR. Simon Fraser U Lib 8 July 2008.

Sims, James H. "Orlando Furioso in Milton: Heroic Flights and True Heroines." ComparativeLiterature 49.2 (1997): 128-50. JSTOR. Simon Fraser U Lib 8 July 2008.