The Cambridge Companion to Boccaccio

A major re-evaluation of Boccaccio's status as literary innovator and cultural mediator equal to that of Petrarch and Dante.

Guyda Armstrong (Edited by), Rhiannon Daniels (Edited by), Stephen J. Milner (Edited by)

9781107609631, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 30 June 2015

294 pages, 6 b/w illus.
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.44 kg

'These essays, all well and clearly written, knowledgeable and thoroughly grounded in up-to-date scholarship, combine a quick review of previous work on their topics with an offering of valuable new insights and suggestions for diverse approaches to Boccaccio's texts. Both readable by students and useful to scholars, this will long remain a necessary and worthwhile volume for anyone venturing into Boccaccio studies.' Janet Levarie Smarr, Speculum

Incorporating the most recent research by scholars in Italy, the UK, Ireland and North America, this collection of essays foregrounds Boccaccio's significance as a pre-eminent scholar and mediator of the classical and vernacular traditions, whose innovative textual practices confirm him as a figure of equal standing to Petrarch and Dante. Situating Boccaccio and his works in their cultural contexts, the Companion introduces a wide range of his texts, paying close attention to his formal innovations, elaborate voicing strategies, and the tensions deriving from his position as a medieval author who places women at the centre of his work. Four chapters are dedicated to different aspects of his masterpiece, the Decameron, while particular attention is paid to the material forms of his works: from his own textual strategies as the shaper of his own and others' literary legacies, to his subsequent editorial history, and translation into other languages and media.

Part I. Locating Boccaccio: 1. Boccaccio as cultural mediator Guyda Armstrong, Rhiannon Daniels and Stephen J. Milner
2. Boccaccio and his desk Beatrice Arduini
3. Boccaccio's narrators and audiences Rhiannon Daniels
Part II. Literary Forms and Narrative Voices: 4. The Decameron and narrative form Pier Massimo Forni
5. The Decameron and Boccaccio's poetics David Lummus
6. Boccaccio's Decameron and the semiotics of the everyday Stephen J. Milner
7. Voicing gender in the Decameron F. Regina Psaki
Part III. Boccaccio's Literary Contexts: 8. Boccaccio and Dante Guyda Armstrong
9. Boccaccio and Petrarch Gur Zak
10. Boccaccio and humanism Tobias Gittes
11. Boccaccio and women Marilyn Migiel
Part IV. Transmission and Adaptation: 12. Editing Boccaccio Brian Richardson
13. Translating Boccaccio Cormac Ó Cuilleanáin
14. Boccaccio beyond the text Massimo Riva
Guide to further reading.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC], Literary studies: general [DSB], Literary theory [DSA], Literature: history & criticism [DS]