The Decameron
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- $1.99
Publisher Description
“The 14th-century Italian book that shows us how to survive coronavirus.” —New Statesman
“The Decameron reads in some ways as a guide to social distancing and self-isolation.” —The New York Times
A masterpiece of classical early Italian prose, The Decameron is a collection of novellas by 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio. It is comprised of 100 entertaining tales, told over ten days by a group of seven young women and three young men who are sheltering in a secluded villa just outside Florence in order to avoid the Black Death plague that was afflicting the city in the summer of 1348.
Later regarded as a “Human Comedy” and wildly influential on Renaissance literature, The Decameron is broad in range, alternately tragic and comic, and was a necessary prophylaxis of the time, demonstrating a way to survive the worst days of a pandemic: storytelling while in isolation. Though Boaccaccio’s collection is over 500 years old, the lessons it holds in regards to humanity and survival still ring true today.
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PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In time for Giovanni Boccaccio's 700th birthday, Wayne A. Rebhorn, professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin and translator of The Prince and Other Writings by Machiavelli, has provided a strikingly modern translation of Boccaccio's medieval Italian classic. Fleeing Florence and the plague of 1348, 10 young men and women retreat to a country estate, "surrounded by meadows and marvelous gardens," where they spend their days in leisure while the Black Death ravages the city. To fill their time, and affirm life in the face of death, they tell stories: on each of 10 days, every character spins a tale on a theme. Thus, there are 100 stories in total, which range in tone from tragic to triumphant and from pious to bawdy, and which serve as monuments to the rich medieval life and society that the plague was to fundamentally alter. Rebhorn's translation is eminently readable and devoid of the stilted, antiquated speech associated with the classics. Indeed, at times the translator's rendering of Boccaccio's Italian into contemporary idiomatic American English feels jarring: "my cheesy-weesy, sweet honeybun of a wife." But on the whole, his translation's accessibility allows for the timeless humanity of the work to shine through. The Decameron affords a fascinating view into the lost world of late-medieval Italy, and the variety and volume of tales offers us a refuge and relief from the tragedies that haunt our own world.
