giovanni boccaccio tales from the decameron

Dioneo, who always speaks last, doesn’t have to conform to the day’s theme the girls like his tales, which are full of jest, but they find that his sense of humor is sometimes immodest. Each day has a new theme assigned to it except for days 1 and 9: misfortunes that bring a person to a state of unexpected happiness people who have achieved an object they greatly desired, or recovered a thing previously lost love stories that ended unhappily love that survived disaster those who have avoided danger tricks women have played on their husbands tricks both men and women play on each other those who have given very generously whether for love or another endeavor. Each day the company’s previous king/queen elects who shall succeed them and nominates the theme for the current day’s storytelling. One of the women, Pampinea, is elected Queen for the first day. The Decameron is a distinctive work, in that it describes in detail the physical, psychological and social effects that the Bubonic Plague had on that part of Europe. To pass the time, each member of the party tells one story for every one of the ten nights spent at the villa. It opens with a description of the Bubonic Plague (Black Death) and leads into an introduction of a group of seven young women and three young men who fled from plague-ridden Florence for a villa outside of the city walls. The Decameron played a part in the history of the novel and was finished by Giovanni Boccaccio in 1353. The Decameron is structured in a frame narrative, or frame tale. Many notable writers, such as Geoffrey Chaucer, are said to have drawn inspiration from The Decameron. Some believe many parts of the tales are indebted to the influence of The Book of Good Love. It is a medieval allegorical work best known for its bawdy tales of love, appearing in all its possibilities from the erotic to the tragic. The Decameron is a collection of 100 novellas by Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio, probably begun in 1350 and finished in 1353.

Nineteen gorgeous illustrations by Teyssonnieres after original paintings of Jacques Wagrez. An exact reproduction without abridgment of the edition which was issued by the Villon Society of London in 1886.

The Certaldo edition, limited to 1550 sets.Ĭondition: Hardcover, with cloth boards.

Title: The Decameron (2 volumes, complete)Īuthor: Giovanni Boccaccio, John Payne (trans)

Giovanni boccaccio tales from the decameron