SCHOLARS HAVE LONG ACKNOWLEDGED the great influence that Ariosto's Orlando Furioso had on Cervantes' Don Quixote. (1) Despite this awareness of the Furioso's importance for Cervantes, however, remarkably few studies have explored in any systematic way the relationship between the two texts. That is, while critics have long recognized the importance of the Furioso for Cervantes's novel in general terms, the truly methodical nature of Cervantes's references to the Orlando Furioso throughout the 1605 Quixote has remained largely unnoticed. Indeed, an analysis of the ways in which Cervantes rewrites certain key episodes of the Furioso is in fact vital to our understanding of his perception of perhaps the greatest literary quarrel of his time: the dispute over the Furioso's status as epic. THE POLEMIC IN ITALY AND ITS RESONANCE IN SPAIN
