La «fabula» dell’utopia (e l’utopia della «fabula»): Alcina e la sua isola, dall’Ariosto al Brusantino

This work is part of a wider study dedicated to the myth of Alcina and its permanence up to XVIII century melodrama. The first section provides a literary chronology of the myth as it recurs in Boiardo’s «Inamoramento de Orlando», who first referred to Alcina, and Ariosto, who praised Alcina’s “inventiveness”. My reading follows Foucault’s models of utopia and heterotopy in an attempt to define Alcina’s island as the «fabula» of a hero’s pilgrimage (Ruggiero) with the non-utopian purpose of marrying Bradamante, who nevertheless visits utopian territories and encounters utopian characters. He falls a victim, however temporarily, to such fascinating places and people, yet he does so within an episode which ends up with the confirmation of a genealogic and celebratory «tópos», whose confines help bring down all fantasies and illusions – that is the very utopia of the reign and its queen, along with the «fabula» which they have inspired, and by which they have been inspired.
The utopian «fabula», however, gains its “revenge”; in heterotopic terms, it affirms its existence through its own displacement: as the reader reads on, s/he is fascinated by it, so the charm of the «fabula» is actualized in the book form. Ludovico Ariosto’s «Orlando Furioso» and «Cinque Canti», and Vincenzo Brusantino’s “commercial” sequel «Angelica Inamorata» are some among the books and literary works mentioned in this study.