The Decameron Third Day in Perspective

by Francesco Ciabattoni, Pier Massimo Forni (Editor)

Overview

Divided into ten days of ten novellas each, Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron is one of the literary gems of the fourteenth century. The ‘Decameron’ Third Day in Perspective is an interpretive guide to the stories of the text’s Third Day. For each novella, a distinguished Boccaccio scholar offers an essay that both reviews the current scholarly literature and advances new and intriguing interpretations of the work. The whole collection reflects the series’s guiding principle of examining the text “in perspective,” revealing the connections among the novellas, the Days, and the framing narrative that holds the whole Decameron together.

The second of the University of Toronto Press’s interpretive guides to Boccaccio’s Decameron, this collection forms part of an ambitious project to examine the entire Decameron, Day by Day.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442648241
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	04/16/2014
Series:	Toronto Italian Studies
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.38(w) x 9.34(h) x 0.92(d)

About the Author

Francesco Ciabattoni is an associate professor of Italian at Georgetown University.
Pier Massimo Forni is a professor of Italian literature at Johns Hopkins University.

Table of Contents

Introduction – Pier Massimo Forni and Francesco Ciabattoni

The Tale of  Masetto da Lamporecchio (III.1) – Massimo Ciavolella

The Tale of the King and the Groom (III.2) – Elsa Filosa

The Tale of the Gentlewoman, the Gallant Man and the Friar (III.3) – Stefano Gulizia

The Tale of Fra Puccio (III.4) – Jelena Todorović

The Tale of Zima (III.5) – Alessandro Vettori

The Tale of Ricciardo and Catella (III.6) – Myriam Swennen Ruthenberg

The Tale of  Tedaldo degli Elisei (III.7) – Susanna Barsella

The Tale of Ferondo’s Purgatory (III. 8) – Martin Eisner

The Tale of Giletta di Narbona (III.9) – Anthony Cassell

The Tale of Alibech (III.10) – Steven Grossvogel

What People are Saying About This

Michael Sherberg

“The contributors to The ‘Decameron’ Third Day in Perspective have delivered a set of essays whose sum is often greater than their individual parts. Many of the chapters highlight themes that turn out to course through the day – speech vs. silence, games of deception, appearance vs. reality – and in this way they offer readers not just a sense of Boccaccio’s compositional practice but also a clear notion of the narrative and thematic threads that unify the third day.”

Janet Smarr

“This volume is a useful contribution to Boccaccio studies, with essays that not only review and comment on previous scholarship but trace connections between that tale and others in the Decameron, often looking as well to outside intertextual references.”

Editorial Reviews

‘The volume offers a rich array of methodological approaches, including those based on allegory, historicist perception, and economic history. Ultimately these approaches are successful and offer unique vantage points on the tales of Day Three.’

—Brandon K. Essary, Annali d'Italianistica Vol 33:2015

“This volume is a useful contribution to Boccaccio studies, with essays that not only review and comment on previous scholarship but trace connections between that tale and others in the Decameron, often looking as well to outside intertextual references.”

—Janet Smarr, Department of Theatre and Dance, University of California, San Diego

“The contributors to The ‘Decameron’ Third Day in Perspective have delivered a set of essays whose sum is often greater than their individual parts. Many of the chapters highlight themes that turn out to course through the day – speech vs. silence, games of deception, appearance vs. reality – and in this way they offer readers not just a sense of Boccaccio’s compositional practice but also a clear notion of the narrative and thematic threads that unify the third day.”

—Michael Sherberg, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, Washington University in St Louis

From the Publisher

‘The volume offers a rich array of methodological approaches, including those based on allegory, historicist perception, and economic history. Ultimately these approaches are successful and offer unique vantage points on the tales of Day Three.’

Annali d'Italianistica Vol 33:2015 - Brandon K. Essary