Boccaccio Test #3 Part 3

Question 1

6th DAY: a witty retort gets you out of trouble.

TENTH STORY: Brother Cipolla hoodwinks his congregation while outsmarting two pranksters.

Answer 1

• Themes: Language used for manipulation and for getting out of trouble.
• Gullibility of the faithful.
• Superstition and idolatry encouraged by the church.

Question 2

7th DAY: Women play tricks on their husbands.

FIRST STORY: Monna Tessa and the ghost. (Donkey skull. Alternate ending.)

Answer 2

• Theme: Instability of language, openness to misinterpretation.
• This instability is also reflected by Emilia’s insistence that her tale is really a piece of gossip.

Question 3

TENTH STORY: Two men in love with the same woman.

Answer 3

• Themes: The two friends want solid proof that church teachings are true. (Proof is what the scientific revolution will be based upon. We are no longer in the Middle Ages.)
• Opportunism: another “revelation” from the afterlife used as a means to an end (see Nastagio’s story).
• We are in no position to make assumptions about the afterlife
• Tingoccio’s ghost says Sins of the flesh don’t seem to mean much in the afterlife
• Recurring theme: divine things are beyond our reach, and we can’t presume to know about them

Question 4

10th DAY: Deeds of generosity.

TENTH STORY: Patient Griselda (Narrator: Dioneo, who tells a story of misogynistic cruelty.)

Answer 4

• Theme: Storytellers (women especially) must now prepare to get back to reality.
• They will be returning to patriarchal oppression, to social and gender conflict.
• Allegorical reading: God is (gratuitously) testing humans (with the plague).

Question 5

Dante’s Notion of Language

Answer 5

• For Dante (and the Medieval person) language is a gift God bestowed
  upon humans so that they could spread His truth.
• When humans misuse this gift (by lying, deceiving, etc.), they are
  perverting language’s primary function, which is to convey God’s truth.
• Conveying God’s truth is precisely what Dante is attempting to do in
  the Divine Comedy.
• If Dante did not believe that language was created
  to convey God’s truth, his great poem would have no meaning.

Question 6

Boccaccio’s Reassessment of Language

Answer 6

• In Boccaccio, language is a man-made tool that can be used for good
  or ill depending on the speaker’s intentions.
• Its primary function is not to convey God’s truth, but rather to negotiate human desire.
• Whenever we use language, we are either making our desire known to others, or reacting to their own desire. In either case, we use language to persuade others.
• For Boccaccio, language is a human institution, and as such it can only
  convey human (not divine) truths.

Question 7

3 overarching themes that Boccaccio will explore
throughout the 100 stories of his Decameron

Answer 7

• The function and power of LANGUAGE
• The extent of WOMEN’S AGENCY in Medieval society.
• The nature of HUMAN DESIRE (Deconstruction of Courtly Love)

Question 8

Comparing Dante and Boccaccio

Answer 8

• In Dante’s Inferno, every episode is conceived as a morality tale
  designed to teach us right from wrong.
• In Nastagio’s story, Boccaccio creates his own infernal scene to make a social commentary: too often morality tales are tools that men use to reinforce their power over women.
• Boccaccio borrows elements from Dante’s Inferno not to reflect on
  right and wrong, but rather to explore gender relations in his
  society.
• Boccaccio’s constant preoccupation with gender dynamics is part
  of what makes the Decameron an astonishingly modern work.