Serious Play: Desire and Authority in the Poetry of Ovid, Chaucer, and Ariosto

Leonard Hastings Schoff Lectures

by Robert W. Hanning

Ovid, Chaucer, and Ariosto, premodern Europe's three greatest comic poets, found abundant cause for laughter in the foibles and follies of human desire. Yet they also excelled at the dangerous game of skewering the elites on whom they depended for patronage. The resulting depictions of addled lovers and rattled rulers create a unique dynamic of trenchant critique wrapped in amusing, enlightening, and disturbing fantasy, an achievement hailed as serio ludere , serious play, by Renaissance theorists.

Through an imaginative analysis of Ovid's amatory poetry, Chaucer's dream poems and excerpts from the Canterbury Tales , and Ariosto's epic Orlando Furioso , Robert W. Hanning illuminates the contrast and continuities in often hilarious, always empathetic representations of bungled desire and thwarted political authority. He also documents the response of all three poets to the "authority" of cultural predecessors and poetic convention. Each poet lived through exciting times (Augustan Rome, late-medieval London, and high-Renaissance Italy, respectively) and their outsider-insider status links them as memorable speakers of comedic truth to power. Providing fresh perspectives on Ovid, Chaucer, and Ariosto within their rich historical moments, Serious Play isolates the elements that make their work so appealing centuries after they lived, observed, and wrote.

312 pages, Hardcover

First published August 31, 2010

Reviews

[Adam McPhee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really enjoyed the Ovid section, felt like I got a good primer out of it and want to read more on him soon. Skipped the Chaucer section because he's not my guy (someday, I keep telling myself). Obviously read this for Ariosto. Found it okay but maybe not as insightful as I've liked. Still, not bad. Wish the book had got in a bit more into the theory of serious play (interested in recommendations if you're reading this and know of any). A bunch of stuff I mean to look further into. The concluding section about TV audiences was a bit odd. Overall found this a useful book.

[Cam Blain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hanning's ideas and prose are entertaining, insightful, and light-hearted. I enjoyed the selection of authors and works, and Hanning's analysis does not disappoint!