a scholar-writer who used the classics of Greek and Roman literature to create a rich and vibrant, vernacular Italian language, in place of what he and his allies dismissed as the stilted, officious Latin tongue, the language of both Church and State. That is, Boccaccio wanted to become a “humanist,” i.e. The illegitimate son of a prominent and prosperous citizen of the city of Florence, Boccaccio aspired to follow in the footsteps of his older and more famous contemporary, the great Italian poet Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca, 1304-1374), and their even greater role model, Dante Aligheri (d.
Green’s 2020 bibliography on the state of Black Death research in the era of COVID-19 called The Mother of All Pandemics-arrived in the port of Messina, Sicily, and quickly began to spread across the Italian peninsula, Boccaccio was a 34-year-old struggling writer living at home with his parents. In 1347, when the bubonic plague-or what Joris Roosen and Monica H. Boccaccio (third from left) peeks out over the shoulders of Petrarch and Danteįirst, let’s begin with some historical and biographical context. In this blog post, I will try to provide some context for understanding this seemingly irresistible attraction to what more radical literary critics would dismiss as a canonic work of yet another dead, white, Western male. But no matter where you find them or who writes them, most online reading lists created during the COVID-19 pandemic-such as this piece in Vogue magazine, significantly entitled “Six Centuries later, The Decameron is Suddenly the Book of the Moment”-reach back to the Italian Renaissance and, more specifically, to Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375) and his Decameron (multiple copies of which are available in English translation, in both print and electronicformat at Duke University Libraries). Still others recommend plague novels that let us walk with our fears in virtual communities and to experience our common humanity through empathy. Others focus on escapist fantasies that keep you sitting on the edge of your seat ( Literary Hub Round). Some booklist-makers promise to provide prospective readers with cathartic relief from coronavirus fears through curative stories.
(If not, check out the “Meta-List of the Books You Should Read in Coronavirus Quarantine,” created by the writers at Open Culture). You have all probably seen them: online reading lists created expressly for the bored souls forced to stay indoors because of the restrictions on movement imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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