In this creative and engaging reading, Richard Kuhns explores
the ways in which "Decameron's"sexual themes lead into
philosophical inquiry, moral argument, and aesthetic and literary
criticism. As he reveals the stories' many philosophical insights
and literary pleasures, Kuhns also examines "Decameron"in the
context of the nature of storytelling, its relationship to other
classic works of literature, and the culture of trecento Italy.
Stories and storytelling are to be interpreted in terms of a
wider cultural context that includes masks, metamorphosis, mythic
themes, and character analysis, all of which Boccaccio explores
with wit and subtlety. As a storyteller, Boccaccio represents
himself as literary pimp, conceiving the relationship between
storyteller and audience in sexual terms within a tradition that
goes back as far as Socrates' conversations with the young
Athenians.
As a whole, Boccaccio's great collection of stories creates a
trenchant criticism of the ideas that dominated his social and
cultural world. Addressed as it is to women who were denied
opportunities for education, the author's stories create a
university of wise and culturally observant texts. He teaches that
comic, religious, sexual, and artistic themes can be seen to
function as metaphors for hidden and often dangerous unorthodox
thoughts.
Kuhns suggests that "Decameron"is one of the first
self-conscious creations of what we today call "a total work of
art." Throughout the stories, Boccaccio creates a detailed picture
of the Florentine trecento cultural world. Giotto, Buffalmacco, and
other great painters of Boccaccio's time appear in the stories.
Their works and the paintings that surround the characters as they
prepare to leave the plague-ridden city, with their representations
of Dante, Aquinas, and other thinkers, are essential to
understanding the ways the stories work with other works of art and
illuminate and enlarge interpretations of Boccaccio's book.
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