The Decameron Was A Collection Of Bawdy And Serious Tales...

Professor Mark Bocija, History 1111 Rezvan Ngalla November 16, 2015 The Decameron- Black Death. The Decameron was a collection of bawdy and serious tales written by Boccaccio. Boccaccio was most likely born in Florence or Certaldo and was the illegitimate son of a wealthy Florentine merchant, Bocacino di Chellino. As a youth he was trained to follow in his father s business but he eventually chose instead to study canon law and subsequently pursued the arts. It is a combination of Greek words for ten and day. According to Frankforter, the Decameron is a fictive record of a hundred stories that ten Florentine men and women told to entertain themselves while they hid from the plague in the comfort of a luxurious house (Frankforter, pg. 348). The one hundred allegorical stories are shared through the narrative voices of these young people as they spend their nights regaling the company with tales from the erotic, sensual, and bawdy to the intellectual, philosophical or tragic. The narrative s fundamental theme is of struggle between life and death in the face of the Black Plague and the various ways life continues in spite of traditional moral attitudes and beliefs. While primarily a work of fiction, the Introduction to The Decameron has emerged as an important historical record of the physical, psychological, and social effects of the aggressive spread of the previously unknown Yersina pestis bacteria. It provides a significant philosophical insight into the medieval psycheShow MoreRelatedThe Decameron Was A Collection Of Bawdy And Serious Tales Written By Boccaccio1006 Words   |  5 Pages2015 The Decameron- Black Death. The Decameron was a collection of bawdy and serious tales written by Boccaccio. Boccaccio was most likely born in Florence or Certaldo and was the illegitimate son of a wealthy Florentine merchant, Bocacino di Chellino. As a youth he was trained to follow in his father s business but he eventually chose instead to study canon law and subsequently pursued the arts. It is a combination of Greek words for ten and day. According to Frankforter, the Decameron is a fictive