LIT 231
Prof. G. Steinberg

Response Paper:  Decameron, Day One and other selections

Boccaccio was a great admirer of both Petrarch and Dante.  When he wrote the Decameron, he was perhaps still more under the influence of Dante than of Petrarch, but the Decameron was the last of his major Italian works.  After the Decameron, Boccaccio turned more and more to Petrarch and to Latin.  For this reason, the Decameron is often perceived as being on the border between medieval and Renaissance thinking.  In any case, Boccaccio was brave to write the Decameron in Italian (since Petrarch and his followers had belittled Dante and every other writer who used the vernacular rather than Latin).

Choose one of the following areas as the focus of your response paper:

1. What do you make of Boccaccio's opening to the Decameron?  Why does Boccaccio call his work "The Decameron, also known as Prince Galeotto"?  How could Boccaccio's book be conceived of as a Prince Galeotto?  Look back at Francesca in Canto V of the Inferno for some clues.  In his preface, Boccaccio gives his ostensible reason for writing the Decameron.  Does the reason seem valid?  What supposedly is Boccaccio's primary purpose in writing?  In the introduction that follows the preface, why does Boccaccio set his collection of stories in the context of the Black Death?  What purpose does it serve to start with a reminder of the most horrible natural disaster of his day (the Bubonic Plague, which killed as many as 25 million people in just 5 years)?  How does this sobering beginning relate to Boccaccio's alleged purpose in writing the Decameron?
2. How do the stories of the First Day and the other selections in today's reading assignment relate to Dante?  A lot of Boccaccio's stories talk about the afterlife, salvation, sainthood, hell, and purgatory, as well as about actual characters that appeared in Dante's Inferno (e.g., Guido Cavalcanti from Canto X).  Choose one story and explore its relationship to Dante.  How might Boccaccio be reacting or responding to Dante in the story?  Could he be praising, criticizing, and/or poking fun at Dante?

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