ENGL 217
Prof. G. Steinberg

Response Paper:  Decameron, First to Fourth Days

The Decameron is unique and important primarily for what it tells us about the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance.  Boccaccio lives right on the borderline between the two periods.  He is both the final, culminating representative of medieval literature and the first, preliminary representative of Renaissance literature.  In some ways, he is very medieval, and in some ways, he is very Renaissance.

So, let's read Boccaccio with an eye to what he can teach us about European culture at the end of the Middle Ages and at the beginning of the Renaissance. 

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

1. Boccaccio says in his Preface that his purpose is to help those who suffer because of love, particularly women.  He hopes that women will "derive from the delightful things that happen in these tales both pleasure and useful counsel, inasmuch as they will recognize what should be avoided and what should be sought after."  How do the stories you've read give "both pleasure and useful counsel"?  What "pleasure and useful counsel" do they give?  Do you think Boccaccio is serious about giving "pleasure and useful counsel"?
2. I always have the impression that the story of Ser Ciappelletto is in some way a response to Dante.  In what way is Boccaccio's tale of Ser Ciappelletto showing us a world that contrasts with Dante's?  How does Boccaccio think about the afterlife, for example?  How does Boccaccio's thinking about the afterlife differ from Dante's?  Do any other stories in the Decameron seem to respond to Dante too?  Does the entire enterprise of the Decameron in some way respond to Dante?
3. What does Boccaccio seem to value?  How do his values compare to the values of the Song of Roland, Marie de France, and Dante?  What in Boccaccio is similar to the medieval works we've read?  What in Boccaccio is different from the medieval works we've read?  Look, for example, at the treatment of religion in the story of Melchisedech (as opposed to the treatment of religion in the Song of Roland or Dante).
4. Some of the stories Boccaccio tells are quite dirty, practically pornographic.  Those kinds of stories, called fabliaux (a French word pronounced "fab-lee-oh"), were very popular in the Middle Ages.  I'm asking you to read the four medieval fabliaux in The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces for comparison.  Are Boccaccio's dirty stories exactly like these other stories?  Compare the story of Andreuccio in the Decameron with the story of the Butcher of Abbeville, for example.  How is it similar?  How is it different?  What do the similarities and differences tell us about the way Boccaccio perceives the world (especially as opposed to the way the author of the Butcher of Abbeville sees the world)?
5. What do you make of Boccaccio's justification of his stories in the Prologue to the Fourth Day?  Does Boccaccio's portrayal of women in his stories (such as the story of Alatiel, the story of Alibech and putting the Devil back in hell, or any of the stories from the Fourth Day) match his praise of women in his prefaces and prologues?  Is his praise of women really genuine and flattering?