All entries for Sunday 29 November 2009
November 29, 2009
Rodomontade
I don’t know if anyone was listening to Morrissey on Desert Island Discs this morning but he and Kirsty Young were, at one point, trying to remember what ‘Rodomontade’ means.
Hester Pulter (who we’ll be looking at after Christmas) uses the term in her romance, ‘The Unfortunate Florinda’. It’s a reference to a character from two other romances: Rodomont, a Turk and king of Algeria, appears in Bioardo’s Italian epic poem Orlando Innamorato and in Ariosto’s continuation of Bioardo’s poem Orlando Furioso, which was translated into English by James Harington, queen Elizabeth’s godson, and the father of Pulter’s brother-in-law, John Harington. As a character Rodomont is a vainglorious braggart and the name ‘Rodomont’ came to be used as a term for a boaster or a braggart (OED) while the term ‘Rodomontade’ was used to refer to boastful behavior (OED).
The image above is an illustration of Rodomont from a c16th edition of Orlando Furioso. For more pictures click here.
Alice Eardley
29 Nov 2009 13:42
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