World Civilization
to 1550 C.E.

World Civilization
1550 to the present

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Georgia College &
State University

Giovanni Boccaccio
1313-1375

OBJECTIVES:

  1. Be able to discuss examples of the classical influences on Boccaccio.
  2. Be able to explain the numerology in various passages of The Decameron.
  3. Be able to compare/contrast Dante's use of numerology with that of Boccaccio.
  4. Be able to explain what the frame story is of the Decameron, the many different layers of the frame, and the relationship of Boccaccio's use of the frame as a storytelling device to the use of frames by Renaissance artists.
  5. Be able to discuss and analyze the portrait of morality found in The Decameron and compare/contrast it to other common models of his age.
  6. Be able to discuss the role of storytelling in The Decameron, and how this supports or fails to support various interpretations of the role and power of words in the Renaissance.
  7. Be able to discuss and to compare/contrast the role of the plague and of the garden in The Decameron.
  8. Be able to discuss the critique of the Church and its moral code found in The Decameron, and compare/contrast this to Dante's portrait of the Church in The Inferno.
  9. Be able to explain the role of Santa Maria Novella in The Decameron.

FAMOUS QUOTATIONS FROM THE DECAMERON:

"Heaven would indeed be heaven if lovers were there permitted as much enjoyment as they had experienced on earth."

"Let us amuse ourselves, for that was the reason why we fled from our sorrows."

After the knight's tale:
"Sir, you have taken me riding on a horse that trots very jerkily. Pray be good enough to set me down."

On Masetto:
"She believed he was without a tail just as he was without a tongue."

"No story is so unseemly as to prevent anyone from telling it, provided it is told in seemly language."

OUTLINE

    I. Biography
      A. Birth in Paris
      B. Apprenticeships
      C. The Court of Robert of Anjou in Naples
        i. Courtly love
        ii. Maria d'Aquino (Fiametta: little flame)
        iii. Grave of Virgil
      D. Return to Florence
        i. Friendship with Petrarch and search for manuscripts
        ii. Lectures on Dante
        iii. First Greek Professorship and the University of Florence
        iv. Publication of The Decameron
      E. To Certaldo
        i. Visit from a Carthusian monk
        ii. His conversion
        iii. Petrarch's advice
        iv. Entry to Church
        v. Last thoughts on The Decameron
      F. Death
    II. Influence of the Classics on Boccaccio
      A. Greek titles
      B. Classic stories and themes
        i. Il Teseida and Virgil
        ii. Eclogues
        iii. Latin works on the ancients
          a) Genealogy of the Gods
          b) Of Illustrious Women
          c) The Downfalls of the Great
      C. Influence on Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Byron
    III. The Decameron
      A. Contrasting models of love: Beatrice vs. Fiametta
        i. Dante's abstract, mystical view of Beatrice
        ii. Boccaccio's earthly, raucous view of Fiamatta and love
          a) free reign to emotions and desires
          b) union of abstract courtly love with physical sensuality
          c) amusement governed by rules
      B. The Proem
        i) the motive for The Decameron
        ii) solace for the past and advice for the future
        iii) influence of Ovid's Ars Amatoria
        iv) subtitle of work: Prencipe Galetto
          a) and Dante's Francesca da Rimini
          b) Pandering and a new morality?
          c) or a warning against such behavior?
      C. The Frame Story
        i) plot
        ii) description of plague and Lucretius's De rerum natura
        iii) freedom from theological interpretations
        iv) emphasis on dehumanizing aspects of plague
        v) emphasis on breakdown of social order
        vi) connection of medieval theories about the plague to storytelling
          a) medicinal and therapeutic properties of humor
      D. Layers of the Narrative
        i) external narrator vs. storytellers vs. their characters who tell stories
        ii) author's voice
        iii) layers of interpretations
        iv) layers of audience
        v) none privileged
        vi) unification of diversity
        vi) framing and artistic techniques of the Renaissance
        vii) compared/contrasted to The Comedia
      E. Function of Storytelling
        i) from chaos to order: plague vs. church vs. villa vs. garden
        ii) history/fiction
        iii) discussed world/narrated world
        iv) storytelling as a moral force
          a) sexuality of stories vs. frame story
          b) storytelling as a performance: The Knight's Tale
            *Words more important than swordplay
          c) location of storytelling: the garden Silence
          d) Silence
          e) words/language as a controlling force
          f) storytelling has rules: and laws of nature
          g) Roman oration and Renaissance eloquentia
          h) Ernesto Grassi: Words as reflectors and channels of reality
          i) new vision of morality as foil to the hypocrisy of the Church
      F. Numerology in The Decameron
        i) 1348
        ii) 7 ladies
          a) 4 Cardinal Virtues
          b) 3 Theological Virtues iii) 3 men
          iv) 10 travelers
          v) Pampinea is 27
          vi) youngest is 18
          vii) age difference is 9
          viii) Boccaccio's numerology compared to and contrast with Dante
      IV. Summary