The Decameron First Day in Perspective

by Elissa B. Weaver (Editor), Marga Cottino-Jones (Contribution by)

Overview

Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron is the best known and most read work in Italian literature next to Dante's Divine Comedy. In the tradition of Lectura Dantis, the practice of story-by-story critical readings of Dante's work, Elissa Weaver has collected essays from some of the most prominent American Boccaccio scholars to provide critical readings of the Decameron Proem, Introduction, and the ten stories that constitute the first of the ten 'days' of storytelling.

The first of the twelve essays opens the volume with a consideration of the Proem, demonstrating the importance of Boccaccio's literary subtexts (Ovidian and Dantean) for understanding his poetics. The second essay, on the Introduction, discusses the title of the work and the framing tale. The remaining ten contributions treat in detail each story, examining the literary, ethical, and social concerns embodied in the short narratives and in the context provided by the comments and discussions of the story-tellers, and exploring the intertextual relations within the Decameron and with sources and analogues. This inaugural book in a new series of critical essays on the Decameron will provide an important guide to reading the complex series of narratives that constitute the opening of the Decameron and will serve as a guide to reading the entire work.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802085894
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
Publication date:	03/28/2004
Series:	Toronto Italian Studies Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.03(w) x 9.01(h) x 0.76(d)

About the Author

Elissa B. Weaver is a professor of Italian in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago.

Table of Contents

	Preface	vii
	Introduction	3
	The Decameron Proem	12
	The Place of the Title (Decameron, Day One, Introduction)	29
	The Stories
I.1	The Tale of Ser Ciappelletto	59
I.2	The Tale of Abraham the Jew	77
I.3	The Tale of the Three Rings	89
I.4	The Tale of the Monk and His Abbot	113
I.5	The Tale of the Marchioness of Monferrato	135
I.6	The Tale of the Inquisitor	148
I.7	The Tale of Bergamino	160
I.8	The Tale of Guiglielmo Borsiere	179
I.9	The Tale of the King of Cyprus and the Lady of Gascony	207
I.10	The Tale of Maestro Alberto	222
	Bibliography	241
	Contributors	257
	Index	261