Giovanni Boccaccio And William Shakespeare's Effect On Literature

The Black Plague was a dreadful event that caused suffering in Europe, however it was also a wake up call for humanity. Many people believed that the pandemic was because the gods were angry at humanity for… some reason? After the bodies piled up on the street and pits were made to put them in instead of graves people wondered if the gods really cared about them. Another thing the black plague caused is a new class which was the middle class. Serfs and peasants were dying and the demand for them increased to a colossal extent. There was literally a law that had to be made saying basically you had to be part of a landlord's

By the time the plague began to decline in the 1400s, half of Europe’s population had perished from the effects of the plague (document 9). The following essay will explain why the Bubonic Plague was so devastating to European society because of how quickly the disease would spread, the passing of millions of people, and the lack of treatment and physicians. To begin with, not only had the Plague kill millions of people, but it affected families as well. The death of many loved ones caused family relationships to go downhill.

During the Plague, having death as a constant part of life led to serious social changes in art, religion and relationships. During the time of the plague, art began to incorporate death in almost every form: paintings, music, and literature. Whole communities of scholars were hit by the plague and schools were shut down.

The word “plague” is defined as a contagious bacterial disease characterized by fever and delirium, typically with the formation of buboes, and sometimes infection of the lungs. The article entitled, “On the Progress of the Black Death”, written by Jean de Venette, a French Carmelite friar who was a leading clergyman around Paris at the time of the Black Death, is a well-known account of the spread of the plague in Northern Europe. In this account, Jean de Venette explained the history of the plague, its causes and its consequences.

The book When Plague Strikes, is about 3 deadly diseases. It 's about the Black Death, Smallpox, and AIDS. Each of these diseases can cause a serious outrage of death. The book also tells about how doctors try to come up with treatments, medicines, and antibiotics to try and cure these diseases. All these diseases got the best out of everyone. Some people reacted differently than others with these diseases. All the diseases came in play in A. D. 1347, when the Black Death broke out for the first time in what’s today is know. As southern Ukraine.

Plagues are basically diseases that meant to kill all humans that came in contact with. Talking about famous plagues, it reminds me of the black plague also called the bubonic plague in the 1300s that took the lives of millions in Europe, the great plague of London that was caused by some kind of rat infestation infecting the food and the plague in China's Yunnan province that also spread to India also killing millions of people. I am not sure what other plagues I have missed as I may not have heard about them. Several research questions that capture the most interests in my topic are as follows (according to table 1.1):

The plague was a catastrophic time in history, and happened more than once. It took millions and millions of people’s lives. It destroyed cities and countries, and many people suffered from it.

Norman F. Cantor, In the Wake of the Plague (New York: Harper Collins First Perennial edition, 2001) examines how the bubonic plague, or Black Death, affected Europe in the fourteenth century. Cantor recounts specific events in the time leading up to the plague, during the plague, and in the aftermath of the plague. He wrote the book to relate the experiences of victims and survivors and to illustrate the impact that the plague had on the government, families, religion, the social structure, and art.

The Bubonic Plague was a spreading disease. It infected and killed most of the population of Europe within a few years. The plague began spreading in 1348 when fleas caused this infection when they bit animals such as rats. The bacteria entered the skin through the flea bite which soon infected the lymph nodes. These rats stowed away on trade ships which quickly passed this deadly disease to humans. The Bubonic plague was very disastrous to the European society until it finally began to slow down in 1351. It killed so many people due to its rapid spreading. It lowered the religious belief and trust in God by many people in the community. Also, the local physicians lacked the knowledge of the plagues symptoms and its cure.

The people weren’t sure how they were catching the quickly spreading disease, and the doctors of this age couldn’t find a cure. This disease is estimated to have killed thirty to sixty percent of Europe’s population. The total world population is believed to have dropped from four-hundred and fifty million down to three-hundred and fifty million, which is a hundred million people or possibly more. The plague resulted in a series of religious, social, and economic outburst, which had great effects on European history.

The Bubonic Plague was an epidemic which tore through a developing and growing Europe. The lasting impact included the onset of the Dark Ages. The reasons why the Bubonic Plague was so devastating to European society include low sanitation quality, the continuing decline of public morale and the overall large number of lives lost. Each individual factor continued to depress the city allowing the plague to take complete advantage.

The effects of the plague on an individual included, paranoia, insomnia, and extreme fever. Another consequence of the plague was Emperor Justinian being infected which caused the poverty, and famine in Europe. The plague also killed over ⅓ of the population.

The 14th Century was characterized by death and destruction in Europe. The Bubonic Plague had a devastating impact on European society because of its unprecedented nature, the immediate effect the disease had on the people of Europe, and the long-term effects on the continent. When the Bubonic Plague erupted, most Europeans had no idea what to think. Nothing like this disease had ever happened to them before, and there was very little knowledge about how to handle the ever-worsening situation. In his book The Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio explained that “No human wisdom or foresight had any value” when it came to the quickly-spreading disease (Doc 2.)

The Plague (French, La Peste) is a novel written by Albert Camus that is about an epidemic of bubonic plague. The Plague is set in a small Mediterranean town in North Africa called Oran. Dr. Bernard Rieux, one of the main characters, describes it as an ugly town. Oran’s inhabitants are boring people who appear to live, for the most part, habitual lives. The main focus of the town is money. “…everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits. Our citizens work hard, but solely with the object of getting rich. Their chief interest is in commerce, and their chief aim in life is, as they call it, 'doing business’” (Camus 4). The citizens’ unawareness of life’s riches and pleasures show their susceptibility to the oncoming plague.

Throughout the 19th century the Black Death affected literature greatly, literature in Europe around the 19th century included some small or big detail about the Black Death. One famous work made to represent the Black Death is the nursery rhyme Ring Around The Rosie. In an article by David Mikkelson, he states, “Children were apparently reciting this plague-inspired nursery rhyme for over six hundred years before someone finally figured what they were talking about.” This big finding changed the way people looked at the nursery rhyme. For example, David evaluated part of the main words “Ring around