|
|
|
|
|
Literature: The Decameron
aka: Decameron
|
The Decameron is a classic work of Italian literature, written c.1350-53 by Giovanni Boccaccio. In the midst of The Black Death, ten wealthy young Florentines decamp to the countryside with their retinue, and pass their days in storytelling, an attempt to reclaim a world that everywhere is dying. Over the course of ten days, the three men and seven women tell a hundred stories, full of generous aristocrats, clever tricks, toilet humor, lustful women, wicked churchmen and lots of illicit sex. Boccaccio himself steps out of the shadows twice (once in the introduction to the fourth day, once in the epilogue) to deliver impassioned, hilarious, self-deprecating, and (in the case of the epilogue) incredibly obscene defenses of his work. Famous stories include: - Day 1, story 1: Ciapelletto, a notoriously wicked Amoral Attorney and scoundrel (he's a murderer, forger, perjurer and Depraved Homosexual among many other things) on business to a region he is unknown in and falls terminally ill. His slightly less evil companions bring a monk from a nearby convent to confess him and give him last rites. Ciappelletto proceeds to tell him the most ridiculous lies about his life and how holy he's been the whole time, while pretending to cringe over venial sins. He is completely believed by the friar, who preaches a sermon on his life and ends with everyone there believing him a genuine saint and attributing miracles to him.
- Day 1, story 2: A Jew converts to Catholicism after seeing the corruption of Rome, reasoning that if Christianity can still spread even when its hierarchy is so sinful, it has to have something else going for it
- Day 3, story 1: Masetto da Lamporecchio feigns to be dumb to win a seat as gardener in a convent. He ends up having sex with all of the nuns.
- Day 3, story 10: Long considered the most obscene and was censored or removed in translations for a significant period. Might be a codifier of Is That What They Are Calling It Now.*
If you must insist: Tunisian girl goes to a nearby Christian monastery because she's heard that the best way of life is to serve God, particularly by sending the Devil back to Hell. Long story short, the monk calls his cock "the Devil" and her pussy "Hell", and he teaches her how to put the Devil back into Hell. She enjoys it so much, she tires the monk out and marries someone who doesn't subsist on limited food.
Tropes in The Decameron include:- An Aesop: All the stories end with some kind of lesson. However, some of them fall into other categories:
- Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: Girolamo after two years comes back to find his lover married to another man and she complitely forgot about him. He dies after failing to win her back and she dies from remorse.
- Accidental Pornomancer: Alatiel (Day 2, story 7)
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Ciapelletto's List of Transgressions includes blasphemy, sacrilege, inciting violence, and many felonies such as assault, robbery, and murder, but concludes by noting that he's known to use loaded dice.
- Bed Trick: More than once, used in various ways.
- Black Comedy Rape: (Day 3, story 10).
- Blasphemous Boast: (Day 1, story 6).
- Brainless Beauty: Cesca (Day 6, story 8).
- Lisetta da Quirino (Day 4, story 2).
- Cimone before falling in love (Day 5, story 1).
- Buried Alive: (Day 3, story 8), (Day 10, story 4).
- Butt Monkey: Calandrino.
- Corrupt Church: Very frequently referenced.
- Dead Person Conversation: (Day 7, story 10)
- Depraved Homosexual: Ciapelletto (Day 1, story 1); Pietro (Day 5, story 10).
- Dirty Old Monk: At least half of all male clergymen in the stories are also shameless leches.
- Domestic Abuse: It will lead to your wife stop being so stubborn (Day 9, story 9). You were warned about the Family Unfriendly Aesop.
- Downer Ending: Day 4, although the second tale has a comedic tone and the person who suffers is an Asshole Victim.
- Distinguishing Mark: Teodoro is recognized by a strawberry shaped birth mark (Day 5, story 7).
- Dreaming of Things to Come: (Day 4, story 6), (Day 9, story 7).
- Flat Character: The ten storytellers. Or so many readers think; some scholars think there's actually a lot more to them than meets the eye.
- Far East/Imperial China: The story of Mithridanes and Nathan (Day 10, story 3) takes place in "Cathay", a little bit outside the capital (probably Khanbaliq, i.e. Beijing).
- Fate Worse Than Death: A lady rejected her knight suitor and rejoiced when he killed himself. She's sentenced to be hunted and killed by him, eaten by his dogs and brought back to life every friday for the same amount of years than the months she was cruel to him. This frightens Nastagio's love so much she finnally agree to marry him. (Day 5, story 8)
- Happily Ever After: Day 5.
- Historical Domain Character: A lot of the people in the stories are historical figures- most of the time, they are merchants/aristocrats who were contemporaries of Boccaccio, but there's also some figures who are well-known today, such as the painter Giotto.
- Hormone-Addled Teenager: Surprised? The storytellers are all in their late teens or early-to-mid twenties. They are essentially unsupervised. An inordinate proportion of the stories either have to do with sex or hint strongly at sex. And there is much subtext indicating that each of the three guys is trying to get into at least one of the girls' pants (or in Dioneo's case, it would appear that he's trying to get into all of their pants). So no wonder there's so much fucking fucking in the stories.
- I Call Him "Mister Happy": "The Devil".
- Incompatible Orientation: Pietro and his wife. (Day 5, story 10). The latter ends sharing her lover with him.
- Insane Troll Logic: Abraham's reasoning for becoming a Christian in Day 1, Story 2.
- In Which a Trope Is Described
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: (Day 10, Story 4); (Day 10, story 6); (Day 10, story 8)
- Karma Houdini: In some stories
- King Incognito: The princess in (Day 2, story 3), Saladin in (Day 10, story 9)
- Literary Agent Hypothesis
- Lust
- Moral Dissonance / Protagonist-Centered Morality: A lot. One example: two stories involved ladies who dangerously prank their unwanted suitors to get rid off them. For some reasons the storytellers think the first one is a bitch but praise the second's ingeniosity.
- Mummies at the Dinner Table: Messer Gentile even has a child with her lover. She has been reanimated by then, of course (Day 10, story 4).
- National Stereotypes: Several stories note stereotypes associated with various Italian regions. For instance, people from Sienna were supposedly stupid and all Venetians are greedy and corrupt (because Venice was a rival of Boccaccio's city state, Florence).
- Naughty Nuns: In a couple of the stories; also frequent is the Sexy Priest and Dirty Old Monk.
- Out-Gambitted: It happens to some of the characters (e.g., Day 7, story 4).
- Please Kill Me If It Satisfies You: Nathan is willingly to be killed by his rival. (Day 10, story 3)
- Rape Is Love: The sixth tale of the third day.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Ciuriaci, after killing his master the prince of Morea on the Duke of Athens' orders. (Day 2, story 7)
- Samus Is a Girl: The abbot is the princess of England (Day 2, story 3), Sicurano the sailor (Day 2, story 9).
- Stockholm Syndrome: (Day 2, story 7), (Day 2, story 10).
- So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Alatiel (Day 2, story 7)
- Suicide by Cop: Attempted by Gisippe accusing himself of a murder he did not commit (Day 10, story 8).
- Sympathetic Adulterer: Lots of them, generally involving a woman cheating on a much older husband and it often the case that the woman is an Impoverished Patrician and the husband a Nouveau Riche.
- Take That: Boccaccio really hated corrupt clergymen and Venetians.
- Toilet Humour
- Unusual Euphemism: "Putting the Devil back into Hell".
- Villain with Good Publicity: Ciapelletto
- Villain Protagonist: (Day 1, story 1), (Day 4, story 2), (Day 5, story 1).
- Violence Really Is the Answer: (Day 9, story 9) ouch!
- Virginity Makes You Stupid: Alibech (Day 3, story 10).
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Folco and Ninetta (Day 4, story 3).
- You Have Waited Long Enough: Torello arrives just in time when his wife is about to remarried after he had been declared dead (Day 10, story 9).
- Your Cheating Heart: too many examples.
|
|
0 reviews