Boccaccio's Decameron. A Guide to Living Well: course description
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Laurie Shepard, Boston College
In this class we will explore Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron, a work written at the time of the plague, in the middle of the fourteenth century. Despite this grim backdrop, the Decameron is one of the most entertaining and profound masterpieces of world literature. Often read as a collection of bawdy tales, this complex work may also be examined as a guide to living a virtuous life, particularly in times of social turmoil and decadence. Motivated by concerns about the emerging merchant class and its ability to govern wisely, the author offers its readers lessons on the human capacity to use wit and words, art, and where all else fails, a well-plotted practical joke, to transform situations from dangerous and menacing to constructive and conciliatory. In the one hundred tales, recounted by a group of young noblemen and women who have left plague-ridden Florence to seek a brief respite in the countryside, virtue is examined in relation to love, discernment, pride, humility, action, fortune, ingenuity, anger, impetuousness and greed. Readers soon discover that in the Decameron, there are no easy answers. Each tale is framed by an introduction and conclusion, as is the entire work. Reading the tales with a special attention to the framing, we encounter a book that offers unconventional ideas of virtue when conventional lessons seem inappropriate, and an author who advocates active intellectual engagement in all human activities. While most of the class period will be dedicated to discussions of the Decameron, there will also be very brief lectures and guided exercises in close readings of the text.
