Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

A close reading of the Decameron along with illuminating secondary literature. The class will be conducted in English and will include a showing of Pasolini's film adaptation of Boccaccio's text.

COURSE DETAILS:

Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) was the first to call the collection of 100 canti that make up Dante’s Comedy “Divine.” In turn, his own collection of 100 novelle published some half century later (1349-1353) as the Decameron was hailed as a “Human Comedy.”

The stories, told by a “brigade” of ten young Florentine aristocrats over ten days during the plague outbreak of 1348 deal with love, sexuality and gender, religion and spirituality, wealth, power and class. Through them we get access to the vibrant world of the central Mediterranean on the eve of the Renaissance: From the travels and tales of long-distance merchants, to the Southern courts of Naples and Palermo, and above all to Florence’s own thriving urban civilization, Boccaccio’s text continues to inform, dazzle, and delight. 

NOTE: The course is taught in ENGLISH (no Italian knowledge required) and will include an in-class showing of Pasolini’s film adaptation of some of the most enduringly famous among the Decameron’s hundred tales.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: