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- In sharp contrast to the spiritual guidance provided
Dante by Beatrice in the Divine Comedy, covered
in "The Formation of a Western Literature", Petrarch's
Laura is an ambiguous figure who alternately plays the role
of divine guide and earthly temptress (see
pages 1836–1962 in volume B).
- In the Rime Sparse, Petrarch refers to a number
of Ovidian figures such as Narcissus and Echo, Medusa and
Pygmalion. See the Metamorphoses, covered in "The
Roman Empire" (see pages 1134–1182
in volume A).
- The final chapter of Machiavelli's The Prince
includes an exhortation to liberate Italy and a final prophecy.
It is more imaginative than scientific, belonging to the
tradition of poetic visions in which the present state of
decay is lamented and hope of future redemption is expressed,
as in canto 6 of Dante's Purgatorio, covered
in "The Formation of a Western Literature" (see
pages 1942–1959 in volume B).
- The titular character of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso
is taken from Count Matteo Maria Boiardo's Orlando
Innamorato but ultimately derives from the
Song of Roland, covered in "The Formation of a
Western Literature" (see pages
1702–1767 in volume B).
- In Orlando Furioso, the Spanish princess Fiordispina
mistakes the famous woman warrior Bradamante for a man.
Ovid raised similar questions about love, sexuality, and
gender in his story about Iphis and Ianthe. See the Metamorphoses,
covered in "The Roman Empire" (see
pages 1161–1165 in volume A).
- Marguerite de Navarre's Heptameron follows
the narrative structure of Boccaccio's Decameron,
covered in "The Formation of a Western Literature"
(see pages 1965–1991 in volume
B). Both take their cues from earlier works of non-Western
literature such as the Thousand and One Nights,
covered in "The Rise of Islam and Islamic Literature"
(see pages 1566–1618 in volume
B), and Somadeva's Kathasaritsagara,
covered in "India's Classical Age" (see
pages 1342–1350 in volume B).
-
The patterns of familial conflict within the larger pattern of the
polis inherent in Hamlet can be detected in the
Sophoclean dramas Oedipus the King and Antigone, covered
in "Ancient Greece and the Formation of the Western Mind" (see pages
612–693 in volume A).
- The chief source of John Milton's Paradise Lost
are the biblical accounts of Creation, the Fall, and the
expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise, from Chapters 1–3
of Genesis, covered in "The Invention of Writing and
the Earliest Literatures" (see
pages 56–59 in volume A).
-
Paradise Lost simultaneously models itself on, and disrupts,
Western European epic works such as the Odyssey and the
Aeneid, covered in "Ancient Greece and the Formation of the
Western Mind" and "The Roman Empire," respectively (see pages 225–530
and pages 1052–1134 in volume A).
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