The Decameron
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Witty, earthy, and filled with bawdy irreverence, the one hundred stories of The Decameron offer more than simple escapism; they are also a life-affirming balm for trying times. The Decameron is a joyously comic book that has earned its place in world literature not just because it makes us laugh, but more importantly because it shows us how essential laughter is to the human condition.
Published on the 700th anniversary of Boccaccio's birth, Wayne A. Rebhorn's new translation of The Decameron introduces a generation of readers to this "rich late-medieval feast" in a "lively, contemporary, American-inflected English" (Stephen Greenblatt, Harvard University) even as it retains the distinctly medieval flavor of Boccaccio's rhetorically expressive prose.
An extensive introduction provides useful details about Boccaccio's historical and cultural milieu, the themes and particularities of the text, and the lines of influence flowing into and out of this towering monument of world literature.
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Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo in 1313, he was the son of Florentine merchant Boccaccino di Chellino and an unknown woman; he was likely born out of wedlock. His father introduced him to the Neapolitan nobility and the French-influenced court of Robert the Wise (the king of Naples) in the 1330s. At this time, Boccaccio fell in love with a married daughter of the king, who is portrayed as "Fiammetta" in many of his prose romances. From 1350, Boccaccio became closely involved with Italian humanism (although less of a scholar) and also with the Florentine government. His final years were troubled by illnesses, some relating to obesity and what would be described today as congestive heart failure. He died in 1375 in Certaldo, where he is buried. Upon his death, his entire collection was given to the monastery of Santo Spirito, in Florence, where it still resides.
