The Decameron Eighth Day in Perspective / / ed. by William Robins.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2020 English
• MitwirkendeR: Barolini, Teodolinda,; Brilli, Elisa,; Brown, Katherine A.,; Clarke, K.P.,; Daniels, Rhiannon,; Faibisoff, Leah,; Fritz-Morkin, Maggie,; Holmes, Olivia,; Morosini, Roberta,; Robins, William,; Steinberg, Justin,
• HerausgeberIn: Robins, William ,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2020]; ©2020
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Language: English
• Series: Toronto Italian Studies
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (296 p.) :; 1 b&w map, 1 b&w table

Divided into ten days of ten novellas each, Boccaccio’s Decameron is one of the literary gems of the fourteenth century. The Decameron Eighth Day in Perspective is an interpretive guide to the stories of the text’s Day Eight – a day dedicated to tales of tricks and practical jokes. By drawing on literary precursors such as fabliaux, epic, philosophy, exempla, Dante’s Commedia, and scripture, and by meditating on the dynamics of civic engagement in fourteenth-century Florence, Boccaccio develops in these stories of jests a self-consciously literary representation of the Florentine social imaginary. The essays in this volume, all written by prominent scholars, survey previous scholarship and open up new cultural and historical perspectives on Boccaccio’s sophisticated art of storytelling. They analyze both the literary sources that Boccaccio’s comic narratives transform, as well as the political, legal, and ethical contexts with which they engage. Each contributor tackles a single tale, yet their essays also register major themes and concerns that recur throughout Day Eight, allowing for close connections among the essays.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- The Tale of Gulfardo and Ambruogia (VIII.1) -- Obscene Exchanges (VIII.2) -- The Artist and the Police (VIII.3) -- Monna Piccarda, Ciutazza, and the Provost of Fiesole: An Absence of Beauty (VIII.4) -- The Jokesters and the Judge (VIII.5) -- The Tale of Calandrino and the Stolen Pig (VIII.6) -- The Scholar and the Widow: Corrupt Appetite and Moral Failure in Society’s Intellectual Elite (VIII.7) -- Doing unto Others, or Sienese Polyamory (VIII.8) -- The Three Faults of Master Simone (VIII.9) -- The Tale of Salabaetto and Iancofiore (VIII.10) -- Bibliography -- Contributors -- Index