Ariosto’s Astute Arrogance: The Construction of the Comic City in <i>La Lena</i>
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This essay interrogates Ludovico Ariosto’s theatrical poetics by charting his developing sense of the theatrical space and his embrace of the contemporary. From an initial appropriation of Roman stage models to a more nuanced appreciation of the comic possibilities afforded through a modernizing use of the contemporary city as more than a mere backdrop, Ariosto inscribed his native Ferrara in comic form, at once a subversive antithesis to the idealized courtly city and a repository for comedic potentialities. This is most evident in two of his comedies: Il Negromante (1520; 1528) and, in particular, La Lena (1528), in which Ferrara (both named and unnamed) assumes an increasingly important role in the construction of the “comic city.” Ultimately, Ariosto’s transformation of theatrical tradition may be located in his interrogation and satirization of the vices and mores of Ferrara, resulting in the creation of one of the finest plays of the Italian Commedia erudite. Cet essai examine la poétique théâtrale de l’Arioste en retraçant le développement du sens de l’espace théâtral dans son oeuvre et la manière dont il est lié à son époque. L’Arioste s’approprie d’abord les modèles romains de décors de scène, pour ensuite en explorer les possibilités comiques par une appréciation plus nuancée de la représentation de la ville, qui dépasse le fond de scène. Ainsi, il inclut sa ville d’origine, Ferrare, dans la forme comique, ce qui en fait à la fois une antithèse subversive de la ville de cour et une source de possibilités pour la comédie. Cet aspect s’observe en particulier dans deux comédies: Il Negromante (1520 et 1528) et, davantage encore, dans La Lena (1528), dans lesquelles Ferrare (nommée ou non) prend une importance croissante dans la construction de la « cité comique ». Enfin, les transformations que fait subir l’Arioste à la tradition théâtrale s’observent dans sa mise en cause et sa satire des moeurs et des vices de Ferrare, ce qui donne le jour aux meilleures pièces de théâtre de la « comédie savante » italienne.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.007 | 0.021 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.009 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".