Italian novelist, poet, playwright, historian, and intellectual.

Characters in William Shakespeare's drama Hamlet.

Roman comic actor; the most famous of his time.

Rosalind is the protagonist and heroine of Shakespeare's As You Like It. Daughter of the exiled Duke Senior and niece of his usurper, Duke Frederick, Rosalind disguises herself as a shepherd named Ganymede.

Especially known for his wild, dramatic landscapes and battle scenes, Italian painter Salvator Rosa influenced many Romantic writers’ literary evocations of the sublime.

Originally a historical character who served under Charlemagne, Roland is the legendary hero of the French chanson de geste La Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland) and, as Orlando, in the L'Orlando Innamorato of Boiardo and Ariosto's Orlando Furioso.

Rogers, later Royal Governor of The Bahamas, led the Dampier expedition against the Spanish which rescued Alexander Selkirk on February 1, 1709. His book, A Cruising Voyage Round the World (1712), sold well due largely to public fascination with Selkirk's rescue.

Rodríguez de Montalvo's Amadis de Gaula (1508) is a romance narrative reworked from a previously existing story dating from at least the late thirteenth century. Robert Southey's translation into English appeared in 1803.

Regarded by many of his time as one of the day's best poets, Rochester was known for his ribald wit, elegance, cynicism, and incisive satire, which he exhibited in works that circulated in a coterie associated with the court of Charles II. His work presents a particularly impressive example of the collaborative composition and resulting complexities of attribution associated with coterie poetry.

French aristocrat known for his sometimes acerbic Maximes, which he revised and added to until the end of his life.