The Decameron First Day in Perspective

by Weaver, Elissa B.

• ISBN13: 9780802044549
• ISBN10: 0802044549
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-03-01
• Publisher: Univ of Toronto Pr

Summary

Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameronis 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 DecameronProem, 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 Decameronand with sources and analogues. This inaugural book in a new series of critical essays on the Decameronwill provide an important guide to reading the complex series of narratives that constitute the opening of the Decameronand will serve as a guide to reading the entire work.

Author Biography

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	(9)
Elissa B. Weaver
The Decameron Proem	12	(17)
Robert Hollander
The Place of the Title (Decameron, Day One, Introduction)	29	(30)
Thomas C. Stillinger
The Stories
The Tale of Ser Ciappelletto (I.1)	59	(18)
Franco Fido
The Tale of Abraham the Jew (I.2)	77	(12)
Marga Cottino-Jones
The Tale of the Three Rings (I.3)	89	(24)
Pamela D. Stewart
The Tale of the Monk and His Abbot (I.4)	113	(22)
Ronald Martinez
The Tale of the Marchioness of Monferrato (I.5)	135	(13)
Dante Della Terza
The Tale of the Inquisitor (I.6)	148	(12)
Janet Levarie Smarr
The Tale of Bergamino (I.7)	160	(19)
Michelangelo Picone
The Tale of Guiglielmo Borsiere (I.8)	179	(28)
Victoria Kirkham
The Tale of the King of Cyprus and the Lady of Gascony (I.9)	207	(15)
Pier Massimo Forni
The Tale of Maestro Alberto (I.10)	222	(19)
Millicent Marcus
Bibliography	241	(16)
Contributors	257	(4)
Index	261