The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio - Hardcover

Boccaccio, Giovanni

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1117819639 ISBN 13: 9781117819631

Publisher: Garden City Pub. Co, 1949

Synopsis

The Decameron, is a collection of novellas by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375). The book is structured as a frame story containing 100 tales told by a group of seven young women and three young men sheltering in a secluded villa just outside Florence to escape the Black Death, which was afflicting the city. Boccaccio probably conceived the Decameron after the epidemic of 1348, and completed it by 1353. Tales from romance to the tragic, wit, practical jokes, and life lessons contribute to the mosaic. In addition to its literary value and widespread influence, it provides a document of life at the time. Written in the vernacular of the Florentine language, it is considered a masterpiece of classical early Italian prose. Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375) was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Boccaccio wrote a number of notable works, including The Decameron and On Famous Women. He wrote his imaginative literature mostly in the Italian vernacular, as well as other works in Latin, and is particularly noted for his realistic dialogue which differed from that of his contemporaries, medieval writers who usually followed formulaic models for character and plot.

About this title

About the Author:

Guido Waldman, Senior Editor, Collins Harvill. Jonathan Usher, Lecturer in the Department of Italian, University of Edinburgh.

Review:

'This new translation of The Decameron is especially valuable for the manner in which it accurately imitates the divergent tones and structures of Boccaccio's prose. Boccaccio's art is an exercise in brinkmanship which leads characters and readers alike into a turmoil of moral and social disorder only to retrieve them within his formal literary structure at the end. In common with the main text, this introduction will prove very useful both to the general reader and to the student unable to read in the Italian.' Christopher C. Stevens. Italian Studies, XLIX, 1994

About this edition

• Publisher: Garden City Pub. Co
• Publication date: 1949
• ISBN 10: 1117819639
• ISBN 13: 9781117819631
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 576