What is the meaning of The Decameron?
ten days
Decameron in American English (dɪˈkæmərən ) noun. a collection of a hundred tales by Boccaccio (published 1353), presented as stories told by a group of Florentines to while away ten days during a plague. Word origin. It Decamerone < Gr deka, ten + hēmera, day.
What is the summary of The Decameron?
Giovanni Boccaccio The Decameron is structured with a frame story containing a hundred tales told by a group of ten young men and women sheltering in a villa just outside Florence to escape the Black Death, which had struck the city.
What was the main point of Boccaccio’s Decameron?
Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron, for example, presents a frame story centred on 10 people fleeing the Black Death who gather in the countryside and as an amusement relate 10 stories each; the stories are woven together by a common theme, the way of life of the refined bourgeoisie, who combined respect for conventions …
What is Boccaccio’s purpose in writing these stories?
Boccaccio’s own purpose in writing is to “offer some solace…to those who stand in need of it”, both to those women whom he specifically identifies and, more implicitly, to Italians suffering in the face of epidemic.
Why is The Decameron important?
While primarily a work of fiction, the Introduction to The Decameron has emerged as an important historical record of the physical, psychological, and social effects of the aggressive spread of the previously unknown Yersina pestis bacteria.
What does Decameron mean in Greek?
Meaning “ten days”, coined from Ancient Greek δέκα (deka, “ten”) and ἡμέρα (hēmerā, “day”).
What type of story classification is The Decameron?
Comedy; Pastoral. In the most basic of terms, The Decameron is an early prose novel, probably the first written in the Italian vernacular. We can call the work as a whole a comedy, even though disease and death are hovering in the background and in plenty of the stories.
What was the plague in the opening of the story of Decameron?
In the tales of The Decameron, based on events occurring during the plague at Florence of 1348, Boccaccio provides a detailed outline of how medical events were viewed at a time of transition from the Middle Ages to the new age of change. The Decameron opens with a description of the Bubonic Plague (Black Death).
How does The Decameron reflect humanism?
The Decameron reflects Humanistic thinking about the elevation of man, which had an influence upon morality in the Renaissance. The Renaissance was a period when society, attitudes and ideas were changing. Capitalism allowed for social mobility, yet it also served to change peoples opinions on morality.
What is the historical context of The Decameron?
In the Decameron, Boccaccio’s young story tellers escape death literally and literarily by fleeing to the countryside. Boccaccio lived in a period of transition, when a new and powerful mercantile class had emerged as economic prosperity took cities like Florence by storm.
Why do you think is the purpose of the author in writing The Decameron?
In the prologue of the Decameron, Boccaccio explains that his purpose of writing is to comfort and entertain his readers, specifically his friends and… See full answer below.
Why is it called a Decameron?
Derived from Greek, the word decameron means ten days and is an allusion to Saint Ambrose’s Hexameron, a poetic account of the creation story, Genesis, told over six days. The Decameron is a tale of renewal and recreation in defiance of a decimating pandemic.