Traduire la folie amoureuse : l’Arioste en France, de la Renaissance à Yves Bonnefoy

From the time of the Renaissance, the French have trans- lated ariosto’s Orlando furioso. But, instead of functioning as poetry proper, the text, as translated, has become a source of inspiration for novels. Bonnefoy’s reading of this poem is original in at least two re- spects: namely, the interpretation of angelica and Medoro’s love; and, too, the explanation of orlando’s madness. the translation thus offers new insights into the text. in fact, as Bonnefoy sees it, orlando is the victim of a sort of madness of language, in that he is incapable of find- ing words that adequately conjoin the corporeal and the cerebral di- mensions of his own identity. the challenge thus becomes not merely the translation of the poem itself, but a translation that successfully re- veals the causes of the protagonist’s madness.