RC practice- 13th May 2020
Boccaccioâs donnĂŠe is of an upper-class milieu where girls and young men can meet socially at ease and moveâthanks to wealthâout of plague-stricken Florence. In fact, it daringly reverses the standard form of morality, well summed up nearly contemporaneously by Trainiâs famous Triumph of Death fresco in the Campo Santo at Pisa. There, an upperclass, amorous, hedonistic group of young people is depicted as doomed to die. Boccaccioâs group consists very much of stylish survivors.
The code of behaviour they assume and also promulgate is impressively liberal, civilized and un-prudish. Seven girls who have met by chance at Mass at Santa Maria Novella plan their adventure and then co-opt three young men who happen to enter the church. The three are already known to them, but it is the girls who take the initiative, in a tactful, well-bred way, making it clear from the start that this is no invitation to rape. One has only to try to imagine Victorian girlsâin fiction or in factâbehaving with such a degree of sophistication to see that society by no means advances century by century. Boccaccio is a highly complex personality who, like many another writer, may have felt that his most famous work was not his best. But the Decameron became famous early on, and was avidly read and frequently translated throughout Europe.
The Decameron is a thoroughly Florentine book and a thoroughly social one, down to its structure. After the poetry of the Divine Comedy, it is very much prose, in every way. It glories in being undidactic, entertaining and openlyâthough by no means totallyâscabrous. Eventually it shocked and frightened its creator, who thus unwittingly or not recognized the force of its literary power. He repented and turned moralist and academic, leaving Florence for the small Tuscan town of Certaldo where he had probably been born and where in 1375 he died.Â
Part of his religious repentance was perhaps expressed by commissioning two altarpieces (sadly, not extant) for a local church. Whatever the medievalism enshrined in the Divine Comedy, the Decameron speaks for a robustly changed, relaxed vision, one set firmly upon earth. It is the opposite of lonely and ecstatic. It is a vision closer to that of Canterbury Tales than to the spiritual one of Piers Plowman.Â
It has female protagonists who seem mundane if not precisely modern compared with the real women mystics and saints of central Italy of a few generations before, women whose fierce, intense, sometimes horrifyingly palpable and semi-erotic visions read like real-life cantos from Danteâs poem. No doubt Boccaccio has idealized a little, but he puts forward a calm, sane case for freedom and humour and good manners between the sexes which, however palely, foreshadows the Shakespearean world of Beatrice and Benedick.Â
The theme of the stories his group exchange is human behaviourâoften as it is manifested under the pressure of lust or love. But the group is also shown indulging in chess and music and dancing (even bathing though separated by sex). The ladies frequently laugh and occasionally blush, while never losing their self-possession and their implicit command of the situation.
That the diversions of the Decameron are set brightly against the gruesome darkness of the Black Death is effective and also realistic. The plague is seen working psychologically as well as physically, horribly corrupting manners and morals, in addition to destroying life. Diversion and escape seem not frivolous but prudent, especially when provided by a pleasantly sited, well-stocked villa outside Florence, with amenities that extend to agreeable pictures in its rooms.
1. All of the following can be inferred about the narrative of Boccacioâs Decameron, EXCEPT:
A. The womenâs conduct in the work is in stark contrast with the depiction of same in Victorian novels.
B. It is set in the realistic backdrop of a great affliction, which works the charactersâ body and mind to the extent of moral liberation.
C. The indulgent and venturesome young women belong to an elite class and their adventurous journey takes them to their inevitable death.
D. The women characters are empowered and unrestrained by mores of their age.
2. Which of the following statements best summarizes the authorâs opinion in regarding Boccaccioâs view of his own work?
A. Boccaccio held more regard for the Decameron than for his later works.
B. Boccaccio was later dismayed but nonetheless convinced by the literary power of the Decameron.
C. Boccaccio was heartened that the Decameron was avidly read and translated.
D. Boccaccio was overly critical of his own work
3. According to the author, the Decameron differs markedly from its Italian predecessor The Divine Comedy in all BUT that
A. It is set in Florence.
B. It is written in a didactic style.
C. It has a tendency to be tedious.
D. It was actually not humorous in content
4. Which of the following statements is true about Decameron in relation to works by other writers?
A. The semi-erotic visions in this work resemble those in Danteâs poem Divine Comedy.Â
B. It was an unprecedented portrayal of spiritual freedom far away from the dogmatic Piers of Plowman
C. It anticipated the easy chemistry between two sexes of Shakespearean works.
D. It was not unlike the Triumph of Death in depicting the moral code of behavior considered appropriate for youth or women.