The Impacts of Boccaccio's Writing Style on the Tone of Decameron

The Great Mortality of 1348-1350 and the world’s responses by using primary sources is where he spends time discussing the Renaissance. However, when reading his book, there is no Renaissance. The cover of The Black Death looks more medieval than Renaissance in comparison to Brotton’s book, The Renaissance, where it begins with that begins with an iconic Renaissance piece, The Ambassadors. After passing the cover, the reader goes onto the introduction, which starts with a gloomy, morbid quotation – not what one would expect a Renaissance book to start with. This books starts and ends like a book about the

Laura J. McGough’s Gender, Sexuality, and Syphilis in Early Modern Venice opens immediately in the dawn of the 16th century, when France invaded Italy. This invasion brought diseases previously foreign to the area that immediately became linked to the French and the destruction of Italian institutions. McGough quickly defines the illness she will examine, which is not necessarily Syphilis as indicated in title. The disease is a more broadly encompassing ‘French disease’ and while frequently considered to be, it is too broad to claim that all cases were syphilis. This book endeavours to describe the social and cultural history of the French disease, and its’ endemic history. Inability to look at the entire situation means the French disease

The Black Death was one of the largest epidemics the world had ever seen, having wiped out mass amounts of people the plague came to completely shift European medieval society into the modern era. The black death showed no regard as to who it affected, it affected rich and poor, man, women and children all the same. The plague was so widespread among Europe that death was increasingly frequent. Such an epidemic caused people to have a completely new idea of life and death. In this essay I intend to argue that the key components of medieval society’s outlook on life and death are how death affected the living, through the ways people coped the mass amounts of loss. The various interpretations of the cause were a way for society to

The Europeans’ response to the Black Death were extremely varied in many aspects: social, economic, religious, artistic and medical. Two moments need to be analyzed when talking about the people’s response to something, the during and the after. At the very beginning of this chaos, when the plague was just starting to hit Europe, the response was very “medieval”. However, after some time suffering from this horrendous disease, and after it slowed down, Europeans started to view things differently, responding with characteristics of a “Renaissance” outlook. This episode in history served as a rebirth of culture and society.

Giovanni Boccaccio's the Decameron, written in the Early Renaissance, is a sharp social commentary that reflected the ideas and themes of the Renaissance and of Renaissance Humanism. His tales of nuns and priests caught in compromising situations, corrupt clergy selling chances to see religious artifacts, and of wives cheating on their husbands show the changing ideals of the time and the corruption that was running rampant within the church and in the lives of the general populace. The Decameron speaks against this corruption and reflects the secular attitude of living as happily as possible, demoting the principals of Christian morality that had ruled daily life in the time before the Renaissance. Another concept that sprung from the

This paper aims to make an analysis of the short story entitled, “The Vendetta”, written by Guy de Maupassant. “Vendetta”, which means “revenge” in the English language, is the core of this short story, and the concept from which the main character depends upon in order to survive. The story revolved around the revenge of the Widow Saverini because of the death of her son Antoine Saverini. Antoine was killed by a man named, Nicolas Ravolati, who was the object of revenge of Antoine’s mother. The death of her son, and her plot for revenge made her restless and sleepless at nights, thus, motivating her to avenge the death of Antoine.

Giovanni Boccaccio is one of the leading Italian writers in the 1300s and has been considered as the father of Italian writing style through his composition of one hundred novelle. The Decameron continuously pictures women not as the objects of discussion but as the active producers and interpreters of their actions. Women are portrayed as they are or as they should be; they are shown to be as aggressive as men are while at the same time they can be submissive whenever they need to be. In many instances, Boccaccio depicts women as protagonists who do not readily accept the traditional role – being subservient to men and having no voice in the male-dominated society–, make their own decisions,

Perhaps the most foolish characters readers could come across in The Decameron were Friar Alberto and Monna Lisetta. Boccaccio masterfully parodied the Church by introducing Friar Alberto as a former con man who moved to Venice and became a priest: already, Boccaccio has criticized the vetting process for potential religious officials. Monna Lisetta, the next character introduced, is a vain, airheaded devotee of the angel Gabriel. By having these silly characters meet in a religious setting, Boccaccio mocked the Catholics of his day, especially once Friar Alberto used his credibility as a “man of God” to trick the gullible Monna Lisetta into having sex with “Gabriel,” who would be possessing the friar’s own body. Boccaccio could hardly be more derisive toward the Church than with this “tragic” story.

The Decameron, by Boccaccio, is a frame story written in the mid fourteenth century. There are a hundred stories told over a span of ten days. On the second day, a man tells a story about a princess, Alatiel, who was sent away to marry a king. Before Alatiel reaches her destination, she has sexual experiences with a lot of different men. Alatiel is treated like an object and allows this objectification to happen because she is so fickle and does nothing to stop the men. The fickleness of Alatiel and the treatment of her as an object is evident throughout the story.

This book my Millard Meiss is addressing an area of study that is lacking. This text while informative is difficult to follow and the puts a lot of pressure on the reader to connect the dots. The content of the early renaissance can often be a difficult time in art history to nail down and discuss just because it is on the cusp of the late medieval and the renaissance itself. As any time of transition it can be difficult to understand what is happening in the world of art but may have been more convincing if he had placed this Tuscan period within the context of Europe as a whole at the time .This text by Millard Meiss helps the audience contextualize what was was happening in Italy after the black death and in doing so we understand the art world that much better. That being said the way in which Miess goes about making the argument that the art of this time is regressive, is problematic. In response to the question posed by this assignment how effective in my view is Millard Meiss’s argumentation? I am coming from the stand point that his argument is not effective. His argument is problematic because it is unclear, difficult to follow, lacks cohesion, and puts too much work on the reader. These elemental issues with his writing and argumentation are what in my view render the argument Millard Meiss is trying to make ineffective throughout his text “Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death”.

Albert Gerard proclaims that Othello’s “fundamental barbarousnous” is made clear by his “superficial acceptance of Christianity” which hides his “fundamental paganism”. He accuses Othello of his lack of intellectual power blaming him for his own “eternal damnation”, and undermines the decisions which he makes. In doing this, Gerard studies Othello as a character whose “innate savagery” is disguised by

In his novel The Plague Camus creates characters who are forced to think, reflect, and assume responsibility for living as they battle an epidemic of bubonic plague that is ravaging the Algerian port of Oran. For ten months as the outbreak isolates the city from the rest of the world, each of the citizens reacts in a unique way. Camus’ main characters undergo both individual and social transformations.

Dante had his fair share of the real human experience, whilst traveling through hell in Dante Alighieri’s “The Divine Comedy”. Characters in literature have been popularized since this masterpiece to favor sins as a type of personality trope. The lazy bum, the angry husband, or the prideful peacocks; the list goes on and on. The cause and effect of these traits have served well to teach generations of readers, the ideas and meanings of our actions as humans. Although it is rare, some works leave open ended plots for us to contemplate the meaning of said sin. In conjunction to some of the deadly sins, the main characters from “The Cask of Amontillado”, “The Veldt”, and “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister”, all display a truth about human nature.

The Divine Comedy is much more than an epic poem depicting a man’s interpretation of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. Written by Italian poet, Dante Alighieri, the Divine Comedy frequently alludes to the political turmoil that was prevalent throughout 14th century Italy, specifically, the city of Florence. During this period of Italian history, there was a lack of a stable government and a power struggle between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Emperor. This paper will analyze the political aspects within the Divine Comedy and its connection to religion, focusing specifically on the Inferno.

The Divine Comedy is an epic that has been studied and analyzed by numerous literary experts from around the world for centuries. It’s impacts on the start of the literary revival that comes with the Renaissance; Dante Alighieri’s epic poem conveys complex themes and symbols. By studying accomplished literary specialists that have analyzed Dante Alighieri’s intricate motifs, The Divine Comedy can be unraveled to uncover an epic that reveals an allegory through the journey of a human life. Alighieri uses contradicting ideas which reference to history, politics, and ethics combined with mixed styles of language that represent a universal theme of good and evil.