This volume, part of the Lectura Boccaccii series organized by the American Boccaccio Association, offers close readings by top scholars of Day Four of the Decameron. As fans of the Decameron know, the Fourth Day opens with an important intervention in which the author defends his project against his critics, which coincides with a significant change in tone as the subject matter turns to stories with unhappy endings. The contributors approach the stories from a variety of perspectives, including the linguistic, philosophical, anthropological, and literary historical. These fresh readings of stories that are nearly seven hundred years old testify to the enduring power of Boccaccio’s masterpiece to speak to new audiences and to find compelling relevance even at a great distance from its immediate medieval context.
Table of Contents:
Preface
Note on Decameron Citations
Introduction
Michael Sherberg
Love, Latinity, and Aging in the Introduction to Day Four
Timothy Kircher
"A questa tanto picciola vigilia de’ vostri sensi": Senile Recidivism, Incest, and Egotism in Decameron IV.1
Tobias Foster Gittes
Incarnation in Venice (IV.2)
Alison Cornish
The Tale of the Three Ill-Starred Sisters (IV.3)
Michael Papio
Love, Heroism, and Masculinity in the Tale of Gerbino (IV.4)
Gur Zak
The Tale of Lisabetta da Messina (IV.5)
Kristina M. Olson
The Dream of the Shadow (IV.6)
F. Regina Psaki
Spinning Yarns in Decameron IV.7
Suzanne Magnanini
Girolamo's Wicked Mother and the Setback of Reason in Taming Lovesickness (IV.8)
Annelise Brody
How the vida of Guilhem de Cabestanh "quasi tutta si disfece" (IV.9)
Julie Singer
Happy Endings (IV.10)
Fabian Alfie
Bibliography
Contributors
Index
About the Author :
Michael Sherberg is a former president of the American Boccaccio Association, and erstwhile chair of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Washington University.
Review :
"In each of these eleven essays, the contributors offer significant innovations and are mindful to integrate the latest scholarly perspectives in their analysis. Traditional readings have […] been enriched and modernized, with special attention paid to questions of gender and the relation between spaces and plots, making this volume an innovative and essential tool for the study of the fourth day of the Decameron."
- Nicola Esposito, PhD Candidate, University of Notre Dame (Annali d’italianistica) "Reading the book is absolutely recommended for scholars, college students, and all avid readers of the Decameron." - Teresa Nocita, Università degli Studi dell’Aquila (Speculum)
