Boccaccio’s Decameron: Sex, Lies and Storytelling (45 h, 3 credits)

This course studies the great “human comedy” known as The Decameron. We will read a representative selection of the work’s 100 novellas (tales or short stories) and approach The Decameron’s structure and content from a variety of perspectives: the art of storytelling, the rise of realism and the beginning of the short story tradition in Italian, the prominent role played by women in the work, comparative references to Dante, the questioning of cultural stereotypes, humor, sex, the themes of love, fortune, and intelligence, the traits of a new type of every(wo)man and, perhaps, the suggestion of a formula for living well in troubled times.

Discussion topics:

• The World of the Decameron
• Anticlericalism
• Character Traits of a Boccaccian Hero/ine
• Youth, Nature, and Vigor
• Appearance vs. Reality: Honor and the Reconstructed Hym
• Boccaccio’s Address to the Reader in the Introduction to Day IV
• The Next Episode of “Sexcapades” in the Convent and the Castl
• Poison, Decapitation and Ingested Hearts: Blood and Guts in The Decameron
• The Order of Nature vs. The Hierarchy of Class in The Decameron
• Screening of Pasolini’s Decameron
• Reactions to Pasolini’s film
• Women in The Decameron
• Self-effacement and Feminine Virtue
• Boccaccio’s Decameron and Dante’s Comedy: Two Great Epics in Italian Literary Tradition