In November of last year, I had the pleasure of attending a seminar on campus which dealt with texts from the period on which my course is focused. UCC’s Department of Italian hosted Ita MacCarthy to present on Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, a 46-chapter epic romance which was first published in 1516. Although it is primarily works the English language that I am concentrated on for my course, I felt that upon learning of the seminar that it would be worth going along to, as the lecture was set to engage critically with works such as Shakespeare’s Othello which would be directly relevant to my own studies. As well as this, I felt the chance to see another academic engage with texts of a similar nature and era to the one’s I myself encounter regularly would not only be an excellent learning opportunity, but a chance to broaden the scope of my understanding of early modern literature. Upon reflection, I feel as though I gained new insights into academia which I shall share on this blog.

Attending this seminar first of all made me realize the nature of academic presentations. When the floor was opened up for questions the presenter, Ita MacCarthy, was tasked with answering and engaging with their fellow academics. Throughout my time as a university student I have made several presentations after which I too was expected to invite and answer questions. Although I was therefore aware that this was the standard format, I was perhaps blissfully unaware of the level of scrutiny fellow academics are willing to place ones work under. It was certainly eye opening to see the various questions that were asked of the presenter, none of which were by any means easy, and even to see certain aspects debated respectfully. I will note that the speaker dealt with the engagement in a very professional manner, and their work stood up very well to the questions that followed their presentation, which was remarked upon several times. I therefore have found it very valuable to have been a witness to this seminar.

The other aspect of the seminar which I enjoyed was that of the content itself. Ita MacCarthy gave a presentation which compared the delusion of Ariosto and Shakespeare’s protagonists Orlando and Othello. Orlando, deluded into believing his love for Angelica is returned despite evidence to the contrary, whilst in contrast Othello is deluded into believing his wife to be unfaithfully. The term “reverse Othello syndrome” was discussed at length. Reverse Othello syndrome is a term describing the phenomenon in which a person comes to believe that another person is in love with them despite no evidence in support of that belief. It is of great interest, perhaps problematic (associating an affliction with a character may bring about unnecessary stigmas), that a Shakespearean character should be used to describe such a circumstance. Yet it is only labeled in this way as it is seen to be the opposite of Othello syndrome, defined as a psychotic disorder characterized by delusion of infidelity or jealousy. Yet reverse Othello syndrome is anything but the opposite of another delusion, but a delusion in and of itself experienced by Ariosto’s Orlando. It was therefore argued, that it might be more appropriate to label such a malady “Orlando syndrome.” This is, of course under the assumption that such things ought to be labeled with the names of characters from older works of literature apt to unfairly represent mental illnesses, which is an entirely different discussion in and of itself. This being said, I was intrigued to see how older works of literature can be relevantly applied to modern studies. In an earlier post I argued that the study of the medieval ought not be dismissed so readily and this, I believe, is one of the many reasons why.

As mentioned, the presenter of this seminar was Ita MacCarthy. If anyone reading this is interested in the topics discussed in this blog post, you may find her work of interest: https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/ita-k-mac-carthy/